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  • Starter Villain

  • Written by: John Scalzi
  • Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
  • Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (202 ratings)

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Starter Villain cover art

Starter Villain

Written by: John Scalzi
Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
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Publisher's Summary

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

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 stand-up, 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, hyperintelligent 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.

©2023 John Scalzi (P)2023 Audible, Inc.
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What listeners say about Starter Villain

Average Customer Ratings
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  • eb
  • 2023-09-25

So much fun!

A wonderful story and fabulous narrating by Wil Wheaton. Just plain entertaining. Go for it.

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  • KP
  • 2023-10-24

Fun as always

Always enjoy the humour that Scalzi brings to his stories. Very entertaining. Wil’s narration is a perfect fit with the storie’s wit.

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Good fun

Thoroughly enjoyed this light and fun book, Will's reading made it a joy to listen to. Scalzi continues to delight with his diverse stories.

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Great Read

Another awesome book by John Scalzi. Totally loved the story. As usual Wil Wheaton brings it to life in such a great way. Could not imagine this story without him.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Fun Story Slightly Cringy Narration

Love the story and Scalzi’s style. Bravo!

Wheaton performs well 90% of the time, but the high pitched whiney rebuttals and cursing are ear piercing at times.

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So delightful!

I was half expecting something along the lines of the movie, Despicable Me, but I’m not sad that I was wrong. The book was light and fun, but well thought out. The narration added life to the already wonderful book. Two thumbs up!

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hill...arious

i found both the story and performance excellent. Funny, and great. CAA #1 all the way.

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Wheaton’s improvements bolster masterful comedy book

Scalzi is again terrific. His ability to write comedy is tremendous, while also being incredibly inventive. As for the narration, I want to note that I recently listened to Scalzi’s and was disappointed by Wil Wheaton’s decision to read the text without differentiating voices. As a listener, this made the experience more difficult and less enjoyable. This time, he made sure to create consistent, separate voices for key characters. This made for a much more enjoyable listening experience. I loved it. Plus, the periodic moments when a silly or adorable section of the book made Wheaton sound giddy just added to the wonderful narration.

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Truly a joy

I like Scalzi's style of first person storytelling, and this may be the best of it. This book was laugh out loud funny at times and simply fun to listen to at others. On top of the story itself was my glee on realizing it is read by Wil Wheaton a man I grew up watching on ST:TNG and have only grown more fond of and gained more respect for in the following years. Between the fun and occasionally silly story telling and Wheaton's performance this book is quickly going on my re-listen list!

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Great storey!

Truly enjoyed this book and hated to see it end!! Wil Wheaton was great too!

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