Starter Villain - John Scalzi

    2023; 268 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Humorous Science Fiction; Genetic Engineering; Intrigue-Satire.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    Uncle Jake has died!

 

    That means little to his nephew, Charlie Fitzer.  Uncle Jake had had nothing to do with the rest of the Fitzer family for the last few years.

 

    But Uncle Jake was very rich—he owned the third largest corporation that managed parking structures throughout the world.  And the lower class Fitzers were not worthy of his presence.

 

    So it was a bit surprising when one of his employees, Mathilda Morrison, called Charlie and asked if he would oversee Uncle Jake’s funeral service.  Which he agreed to do, since Uncle Jake apparently had no family.  And initially, things went smoothly at the funeral service.

 

    Until one of the guests took out a knife and started stabbing Uncle Jake’s corpse.

 

What’s To Like...

    Starter Villain is a standalone novel that is equal parts science-fiction, intrigue, and satire.  It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Uncle Jake also was part of a “Supervillain Cartel”, into which Charlie might be invited as a replacement, provided he proves himself worthy and willing.

 

    This might sound like a bum deal, but Charlie is a divorced, part-time substitute teacher, and lives from paycheck to paycheck.  His roommate is a pet cat.  It might be a good career move for Charlie to become a "starter villain".  Besides, “Hero” and “Villain” are relative terms.  What one person might call a crime, another might call an opportunity!

 

    Only John Scalzi would take a standard thriller storyline like that and blend a genetic engineering plot thread into it.  Thus we encounter typewriting cats; unionizing, smart-alecky dolphins; and sentient whales of questionable loyalty.  That may sound wacky, but Scalzi makes it work hilariously well.

 

    The “villain” aspect of the tale is also masterfully done.  The classic “Honor among thieves” adage doesn’t apply if there’s money to be made by double-dealing.  And the higher up the crime corporation ladder you are, the greater the odds that other crime boxes will conspire to take you down by taking you out.

 

    The ending is suitably exciting, over-the-top, and comes with several plot twists that I didn’t foresee.  The last chapter is an epilogue that ties up several plot threads.  Things close with a bonus short story that reveals "what happens after" with one of the main characters.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 15,847 ratings and 999 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.11*/5, based on 105,255 ratings and 16,311 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Being a villain,” I said.

    “I told you, we don’t use that word in public.”

    “I don’t see why not.  It’s a perfectly good word.”

    “For public use it’s reductive,” Morrison said.  “Privately it offers some advantages.  Which you will be finding out soon.  But you won’t be doing much villainy anyway.  You’re needed for something else entirely.”

    I nodded.  “Useful idiot.”

    “I was going to say ‘administration.’”  (pg. 74)

 

    “Let’s start with what you call yourself,” I suggested.

    The dolphin chittered, and there was silence from the voice box.  “It doesn’t translate,” the dolphin said.  “It derives from hydrological states of water humans don’t experience directly and don’t have simple words for.  It would be something like ‘the one who can find a pure thread of water through the murk of an alluvial discharge into a bay.’”

    “You could go by ‘Ally’ for short,” I said.

    “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were asking me my name, not trying to figure out something short and infantilizing that you could call me.”  (pg. 112)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Kindle version of Starter Villain presently costs $11.99 at Amazon.  John Scalzi has several dozen other e-books for you, almost all of them in the Sci-Fi genre.  They generally are priced in the $4.99-to-$14.99 range.  He also offers several sci-fi short stories; those are mostly in the free-to-$2.99 range.

 

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”  (pg. 165)

    The cussing in Starter Villain is moderate.  I noted 48 instances in the first half of the book, with f-bombs being the favorite cussword.  Later on, the waving of male genitalia is mentioned.  Meanwhile, the dolphins have coined their own disparaging phrases, such as f*cknugget, scrotemonkey, and bourgeois fistula.  I am in awe of their epithet inventing.

 

    I can’t think of anything else to nitpick about.  The pacing was good, there were plenty of plot twists, the blend of humor and intrigue was spot-on, and the genetic engineering and situational business ethics aspects give you something to muse about.  Sadly, I don’t think John Scalzi has any plans to develop this into a series.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point Rutgers University is mockingly referred to as the “Big Ten Doormat”.  The designation is justified, but I used to have a workmate who was a Rutgers alumnus.  He preferred to view the school as having the proper perspective regarding Sports and Academics.  The latter takes priority over the former.  I happen to agree with him.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

   2004; 434 pages.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “MaddAddam” trilogy.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Post-Apocalyptic Fiction; Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Snowman, once known as Jimmy, ekes out a solitary existence.  As far as he knows, he’s the last living human being on Earth.  The only one with immunity to the Plague.

 

    I guess you could count the genetically modified “Children of Crake” as fellow human survivors.  Unfortunately, thanks to their designer, Crake, they have a built-in, self-destruct trait in them.  At age 30, they drop over dead.  Immediately.  Automatically.

 

    Ah yes, Crake.  Snowman’s best friend.  A genius at just about everything.  And Oryx.  Such a sweet young lass, although worldly-wise since childhood.  She loved both Snowman and Crake, and was loved by both of them in return.  Crake and Oryx are gone now, both of them.

 

    Snowman can’t go on living like this.  The pigoons and wolvogs are becoming intelligent predators, and sooner or later they’ll catch Snowman, rip him to shreds, and eat him for lunch.  It’s time for Snowman to start planning a trip.

 

What’s To Like...

    Oryx and Crake is the first book in Margaret Atwood’s “MaddAddam” post-apocalyptic trilogy.  The title could be expanded to “Oryx and Crake and Snowman”, since the latter is whom we primarily follow in the book.

 

    For the most part, the storyline jumps between the present-day “post-” and the past “pre-" apocalypse”.  You can tell which time period you’re in by whether our protagonist goes by “Snowman” or “Jimmy”.

    The disaster scenario reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  But here the steps leading up the civilization-ending plague are gradually revealed via Snowman’s flashbacks.

 

    The world-building is complex and thought-provoking.  Global warming has wreaked havoc on our planet.  God’s Gardeners remind everybody that the End is near for humanity.  BlyssPlus pills keep everyone happy, but at a deadly cost.  And the working class is forced to live in company compounds which means the corporations control every aspect of their lives.

 

    Genetic-tinkering has a major impact on the coming catastrophe.  It’s original aim is well-intended: grow your own replacement organs.  But it rapidly goes awry.  We’re now up to our ears in pigoons, wolvogs, snats, rakunks, bobkittens, spoats, giders, hemorrhagics, Crakers, and kanga-lambs; all carving out their niche in the creature pecking order. 

 

    There are some interesting characters to meet and greet, including Uncle En the child pimp, Jimmy’s wayward mom Sharon, and Jimmy’s crazier-than-a-loon dorm mate, Bernice.  The character development of both the primary and secondary persons is excellent.

 

    The ending is hopeful, terrifying, sad, and terrifying all at the same time.  Things stop at a logical place, as the present and past timelines of Jimmy/Snowman finally merge.  The how and why of the apocalyptic event are fully explained, and it is strongly hinted that the sequel holds a “first contact” scenario in store for Snowman.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.3*/5, based on 12,763 ratings and 1,568 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.01*/5, based on 269,400 ratings and 16,881 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Caecotrophs (n., pl.) : nutrient-rich fecal pellets.

Others: Gestalt (n.), Suttee (n.), Kakking (v.)

 

Excerpts...

    The rakunks had begun as an after-hours hobby on the part of one of the OrganInc biolab hotshots.  There’d been a lot of fooling around in those days: create-an-animal was so much fun, said the guys doing it; it made you feel like God.  A number of the experiments were destroyed because they were too dangerous to have around – who needed a cane toad with a prehensile tail like a chameleon’s that might climb in through the bathroom window and blind you while you were brushing your teeth?  Then there was the snat, an unfortunate blend of snake and rat: they’d had to get rid of those.  (pg. 57)

 

    “These are the floor models.  They represent the art of the possible.  We can list the individual features for prospective buyers, then we can customize.  Not everyone will want all the bells and whistles, we know that.  Though you’d be surprised how many people would like a very beautiful, smart baby that eats nothing but grass.  The vegans are highly interested in that little item.  We’ve done our market research.”

    Oh good, thought Jimmy.  Your baby can double as a lawn mower.  (pg. 359)

 

Kindle Details…

    Oryx and Crake sells for $12.99 right now at Amazon, as do the other two books in the series, The Year of The Flood and MaddAddam.  Margaret Atwood has more than a dozen other novels for you, ranging in price from $4.99 to $17.99, plus a couple of short stories for $0.99 apiece.

 

Is this purgatory, and if it is, why is it so much like the first grade?  (pg. 417)

    There’s a moderate amount of profanity in Oryx and Crake.  I noted 18 instances in the first 20% of the book, and later on, male genitalia are referenced.  There are various “sexual situations” presented, including ones involving minors.  None of them are lurid, but still, you probably don’t want little Timmy or Susie asking you what those passages are all about.

 

    I spotted two typos, both of which involved word splitting, which makes me think they occurred during the formatting stage in the e-book.  The funniest one of these was the phrase “antique roadshow” being split up into “anti queroadshow”.

 

    But I pick at nits.  Post-apocalyptic tales ought to have gritty and nasty parts, otherwise they wouldn’t be realistic.  Oryx and Crake fully met my high expectations for any novel penned by Margaret Atwood, and I have the other two books of the trilogy waiting for me on my Kindle.

 

    9 Stars.  One last teaser.  If you happen to be into role-playing games, Jimmy and Crake get hooked on a bunch of them here, including Blood & Roses, Barbarian Stomp, Three-Dimensional Waco, Kwiktime Osama, and my favorite (and theirs) Extinctathon.  Won’t somebody please develop and market real-world versions of these?

A Second Chance at Eden - Peter F. Hamilton

     1998; 420 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Science Fiction; Genetic Engineering; Space Opera; Anthology.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Here’s a bit of recommended reading for those who are into epic space-opera: Peter F. Hamilton’s The Night’s Dawn Trilogy.  I read it back in 2011, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

    There are some caveats.  My science fiction tastes may not be the same as yours, thus you might not be as enamored by Peter F. Hamilton’s writing as I was.  There’s also the small matter of that trilogy being 3,563 pages long (1094, 1137, 1332 pages per tome).  The books are not standalones; you’re committing to all three when you begin the series.

 

    Ah, if only there was some way to get a smaller taste of this trilogy and the author’s writing style.  Or, if you’ve already read this series, perhaps a brief aftertaste of the fascinating 27^th-century universe Hamilton creates in this series.

 

    Well, that’s where A Second Chance at Eden enters in.  Seven short stories set at various stages between now and the 27^th century, and a total of only 420 pages.  That's more than a big enough sample to see if Peter F. Hamilton’s novels are your kind of sci-fi before committing several months of reading time to it.

 

What’s To Like...

   The seven tales in A Second Chance at Eden are:

01) Sonnie’s Edge (Earth-2070, 24 pages, dueling bots)

02) A Second Chance at Eden (Jupiter-2090, 175 pages, whodunit)

03) New Days Old Times (Nyvan-2345, 25 pages, killing for God)

04) Candy Buds (Tropicana-2393, 42 pages, virtual reality in 400 years)

05) Deathday (Jubarra-2405, 20 pages, sauropod shapeshifters)

06) The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rosa (Tropicana-2447, 62 pages, fun with parthenogenesis)

07) Escape Route (Sonora Asteroid-2556, 69 pages, the worth of gold vs. salvage)

 

    A couple of the stories are written in the first-person POV, but most are in third-person.  Between each tale, Peter F. Hamilton lists a short timeline to let you know what technological and exploratory advancements have been made.  The book is written in “English”, not “American”, so distances are in kilometres, words like speciality and aluminium have an extra “i” in them, and I had to suss out what narked meant.

 

    My favorite tale was the eponymous A Second Chance at Eden, which had a clever murder-mystery plotline that kept me turning the pages and guessing (incorrectly) who the perp was.  It is also by far the longest tale, comprising more than 40% of the text.  It should be noted that in almost all cases when I’m reading an anthology, my favorite happens to be the longest entry.

 

    I enjoyed reading the backstory to the vital ability of “affinity” in The Night’s Dawn universe.  This is a psychic bond between people, or with animals (think: “spirit animal”), or even between a human and a spaceship or orbiting space colony, which is what the titular “Eden” is this book.  It’s a great way to carry on secret conversations, and here we learn about the person who first developed it.  I can’t wait for it to be invented in our present time.

 

    Interspersed among all the excitement are some keen insights into more serious topics.  Is there some way to still exist after we die?  Can different religions, particularly the three main Western ones, learn to coexist?  Can tarot cards give us insight into what lies ahead for us?  But rest assured, such musings never overshadow the main storylines in these stories.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Narked (v.) : annoyed, exasperated.  (Britishism).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 469 ratings and 78 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.04/5 based on 4,889 ratings and 107 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I think the personality memory of her death is perfectly accurate.  She walked out to the lake, and the chimp shot her.”

    “Thanks.  Now what can you tell me about Penny Maowkavitz herself?  So far all I’ve heard is that she could be a prickly character.”

    Corrine’s face puckered up.  “True enough; basically, Penny was a complete pain.  Back at the university hospital where I trained we always used to say doctors make the worst patients.  Wrong.  Geneticists make the worst patients.”

    “You didn’t like her?”

    “I didn’t say that.  And you should be nicer to someone who’s scheduled to cut your skull open in an hour.”  (pg. 53)

 

    Guy climbed up the low wall and sat on top, his skinny legs dangling over the other side.  “I didn’t like today,” he said solemnly.

    She leant forward against the wall, and put her arm round his shoulder.  “Me neither.”

    “Was the fat woman really a police officer?”

    “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

    “She didn’t like anybody.  Are all police officers like that?”

    “No.  You don’t have to be a police officer to hate other kinds of people.  Everybody on Nyvan does it.”  (pg. 220)

 

I tried to tell myself the day couldn’t get any worse.  But I lacked faith. (pg. 42)

    There are a couple of quibbles.  There’s a moderate amount of cussing: 16 instances in the first 10% (42 pages) of the book.  There are at least three rolls-in-the-hay and, more disturbing, one clear allusion to intimate relations with a minor.

 

   None of the characters carry over from one tale to the next, so you have a whole new slate of people to keep track of every time a new story begins.  This of course, is inherent with reading any anthology, and that's why I don’t read them very often.

 

    My least-favorite stories are #1 and #3, which are among the shorter entries, and which is also the norm for me.  They just didn’t fit well into the Night’s Dawn timeline.  But to be fair, Peter F. Hamilton addresses this in the Introduction section: “As to the stories themselves, some are new, some have appeared in magazines before, in which case I’ve altered them slightly so they fit into the Confederation timeline.”

 

    7 Stars.  I found the seven stories in A Second Chance at Eden to be a mixed-bag in quality.  The majority were good-to-fantastic, but a couple were so-so.  But that’s the usual spread for anthologies.  If you’re wavering as to whether to plunge into The Night’s Dawn trilogy, this book will be a great help in making your decision.  And personally, my recommendation is to dive into it.