#starter villain

[torpublishinggroup]

GET BOOKT

A guide of books to gift the people in your life and yourself!

For the people looking to put a different kind of magic into their holidays…

The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab

For the genre connoisseur with a love for high concepts in short form… 

Africa Risen edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, & Zelda Knight (now in paperback!)

For the treasured party member who’s saved your character’s life many times on TTRPG night…

Bookshops & Bonedust by @travisbaldree

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For those who love (or possibly are 👀) gay werewolves

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

For the mutual who devoured the epic highs and lows of Riverdale and craves more…

The Luminaries by Susan Dennard, now in paperback!)

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆�� ˖°˖ ━

For your brave and luckless friend, constantly trapped in transit purgatory and upset about it…

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey

For the true buckaroos trotting beside you…

Camp Damascus by @drchucktingle

For the friend who says “but have we considered burning it all down?” on an alarming and refreshingly regular basis…

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

For the friend who has a hot date on Friday night (with their book)...

Fall of Ruin and Wrath by Jennifer L. Armentrout

For the avid doodler who sketches plans for their future volcanic villain lair equipped with a space laser…

Starter Villain by @jscalzi

━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━

Not enough books? We agree. Check out our other GET BOOKT guide.

[dduane]

...I just preordered this book on sight even though I had no damn idea what it was about. (And now that I do know, I'm glad I did.) :)

"Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. "Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. "But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a standup, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital. "It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good. "In a dog-eat-dog world... be a cat."

(via @scalzi's cover reveal at Twitter)

[wilwheaton]

Yesterday, John Scalzi's latest book, Starter Villain, dropped.

I got to narrate the audiobook! I'm so proud of the work we did together, I made a video to announce it.

[lifblogs]

“My breakfast partner was Hera, an orange-and-white cat who, after I had retreated to my childhood home after the divorce and layoff, had emerged from the backyard bushes and informed me through meowing that she lived with me now.”

Yeah, that’s definitely how cats work!

[jamiesauruss]

Me when somebody barely mentions my interests

[abybweisse]

HPB haul from 9/22/23

Back on the 22nd last month, I made another run to Half Price Books.

I've never read or watched The Handmaid's Tale, so here's a chance to read it, at least. I've watched The Princess Bride many times, but I've never read it, so when I saw this I had to get a copy. And I'm hoping the cult, serial killer, and Tesla books come in handy for Black Butler analysis. I recently teased about Scalzi's latest book here, but it honestly sounds like a fun read, so I picked up a copy of that, too.

Flame Tree publishing puts out some effing beautiful book editions and journals. The copy of Moby Dick at the top, the two small myth books to the lower right, and the two journals (one is open) are all by Flame Tree. They publish all those lovely Epic Tales, Gothic Fantasy, and Classic Stories books I have a large collection of, too. The smaller copy of Moby Dick is from that other large collection I've been buying up, published by Chiltern. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is part of the Chartwell editions I've started collecting. The Homer box set is quite nice, and I also broke down and bought these Jane Austen and Shakespeare paper dolls with sticker sets.

I'm just not sure what to do with the dolls. I might place them on sturdy backing, cut them out, and give them supports to stand on the shelves.

Also hoping the Arthurian myth and Egyptian myth books might prove useful in Black Butler analysis, though I do have other books about those topics.

[scify65]

Starter Villain is off to a bang.

Also, is it too much to ask to have the ability to attract small, intelligent kittens who want nothing more than to climb onto your shoulder and purr?

[wingsaloft]

Is john scalzi ok? This is the second book in a row about a 30-something who lost their job to covid, getting a fantastical break into a fantasy industry (kaiju studies, villainy), and then saving the day by being a halfway decent person.

Like. Theyre both good, but two in a row is a little concerning.

[knifefightingbears]

Starter Villain is a good book

[spellscribe]

I'm up to chapter 4 of the Starter Villain audiobook and at this point, I'm pretty sure it's a book about two cats and happens to have a human side character.

[torpublishinggroup]

This advertisement is for Starter Villain, a new science fiction adventure from Hugo Award–winning author John Scalzi.

Meet the new boss.

JK this cat doesn’t work for Tor. At least, we’re pretty sure, with remote work it’s hard to tell who is and isn’t a cat. The person posting this could be a cat. You’d literally never know.

But we do know you should check out Starter Villain by John Scalzi, because it does have hyper intelligent cats working for a villainous organization.

WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT

When divorced substitute teacher Charlie’s long-lost uncle Jake dies, he’s not expecting much. Certainly not to inherit a supervillain business, complete with an island volcano lair, giant laser death rays, lava pits, and hyper-intelligent talking spy cats.

But it gets worse.

Because his uncle wasn’t just a supervillain. He was a supervillain who was in the middle of trying to take down the other supervillains. Somewhere along the way he decided that the rich, soulless predators back by multinational corporations and venture capital were a bad idea. And they needed to be stopped.

And now they’re after Charlie.

[featsofdaringdo]

im literally in hysterics walking around the house this ffucking BOOK

[fish-harlan]

good week in terms of autographs for me I guess. first the Night Vale cast, then I open up my copy of the new John Scalzi book, Starter Villain and see this:

[kaysbookpassport]

"Your uncle appears to have provoked passionate responses in his acquaintances," Chester said. "I appreciate how you chose the nicest possible way to say that they hated his guts." I said.

~Starter Villain - John Scalzi~

[living400lbs]

Discussing the prior business owner's decisions:

“He was worth three trillion dollars,” I said. “He could have splashed out.”

Williams shook his head. “That wasn’t his style. He always kept costs down. I had to fight him to get upgrades sometimes. We were using computers that had Windows 7 on them until just last year.”

“He wasn’t worried about computer security?”

“That’s what I asked him,” Williams said. “He grudgingly upgraded.”

- from Starter Villain by John Scalzi