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Starter Villain
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
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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.
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What listeners say about Starter Villain
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JT Small
- 2023-10-22
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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1 person found this helpful
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- Lori
- 2023-09-29
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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- Cheryl
- 2023-10-20
Great storey!
Truly enjoyed this book and hated to see it end!! Wil Wheaton was great too!
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- marcus
- 2024-02-17
Actually a pretty good time
This was an unexpectedly great listen. I wasn't sure what to expect and got a sold story about death, quarter life crisis, billionaire villains, and cats with hidden depths. The narration is good and suits the material. The material is fast paced, humorous, compelling, easy to listen to and hard to put down. If you like and/or own cats you'll probably get extra appreciation out of some aspects of this. There is a lot to like.
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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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2 people found this helpful
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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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2 people found this helpful
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- BookMason
- 2023-11-19
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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- Leslie M.
- 2023-12-10
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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- Harvey
- 2024-01-10
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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- Aling Lala
- 2024-03-14
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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