Tag: John Scalzi

Starter Villain – John Scalzi – Another Winner for Scalzi

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Starter Villain - John Scalzi

 

So on Friday January 12 I finished reading my second book for 2024, John Scalzi’s Starter Villain. It is the ninth book by Scalzi on my Goodreads shelves. I began reading Scalzi’s books in 2008. The first book I read was Old Man’s War.  that book among the others in the Old Man’s War series may still be my favorites written by Scalzi.

The hero of the book, well maybe not a hero, let’s just say main character of the book is Charlie Fister. Charlie is  a divorced ex-newspaper  journalist. Who is now a substitute teacher living with his cat. A house his siblings want to sell.  All Charlie wants is to buy and run  a pub downtown. But the cost is astronomical  and his only collateral for a bank loan is the house he lives in, which his estranged siblings want to sell!

Then his estranged Uncle Jake dies and leaves Charlie his business. Charlie realizes he may be in trouble, when he’s asked to represent the family at his uncle’s memorial service. At the service, first it was the message sent on a vase of flowers. The message See You in Hell” During the visitation, one guest checks Jake’s pulse another tries to stab him! It seems his uncle was not too popular. “

When Charlie is whisked away to his uncle’s island (I won’t  tell you why) he learns Uncle is a “villain”. Additionally, the people who were out to get Jake are out to get his heir, i.e. Charlie. Can Charlie survive??

Thoughts on Starter Villain

Starter Villain is the ninth book written by John Scalzi I have read. While I enjoy his hard science a little more I also enjoy his other books.I thought The Kaiju Preservation Society was a great read.  The book was nominated for a Goodreads Award as Best Science Fiction book of the year so others liked it, too. It finished as the 8th most popular book.

Starter Villain reminds me a lot of The Kaiju Preservation, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps until she becomes involved with the Society.  Cuarlie on the other hand is an ex-journalist stuck working as a substitute teacher. Both are characters that you can root for as they both face formidable opponents.

John Scalzi’s sense of humor always comes out in his characters and it certainly does in Charlie Fister. It certainly is one of the aspects of Scalzi’s books I love.

Even though I keep waiting for something big to happen in Starter Villain, overall i was satisfied with the surprising final twist at the end. Actually, the more I think about the book the more I realize that I really liked the book.

In 2023 Starter Villain was also nominated for the best science fiction book at Goodreads. This time Scalzi’s book finished fourth in the voting. So check it out.

Links for the Further Exploration of the Books of John Scalzi

Author’s Website:
Whatever::John Sclazi’s Blog
Goodreads
Amazon
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Facebook

Reading Challenges – Late September Update

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 Reading Challenges Three Books Finished in September – Thirty-Eight for 2015!

This afternoon I finished John Scalzi’s The Last Colony It is the third book that I have read in September and the 38th book finished in 2015. The other two books finished this month are Better Than Before from Gretchen Rubin and Robert Ludlum‘s The Matarese Circle.

I had planned to read both The Last Colony and Better Than Before. The two other books that I had planned to read for my reading challenges were Mayhem a historical fiction read and The Lost Triumph a nonfiction read about the Battle of Gettysburg.  While I started both books, neither caught my attention strongly enough to keep reading either of the books. I have been reading two other books though. The Shining Girls from Lauren Beukes and Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol.  Both of these books have been really good and I hope that I can finish either one or both of them before the end of the month!

Tonight I checked on the two books I have requested from the library,  Alex Kava‘s Silent Creed and Broken Promise from Linwood Barclay, Silent Creed is ready for pickup and I am now third in the que for Broken Promise! So I will go and pick up the Kava book tomorrow and who knows how quickly I can read that one!!

Here is an update on my various reading challenges….

Reading Challenge From TBR Pile Buy/Library Total Goal %complete
2015 Nonfiction Reading Challenge 0 5 5 11 45%
2015 Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge 7 15 22 23 96%
2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 1 2 3 5 60%
2015 Science Fiction/Fantasy Challenge 3 4 7 12 58%
No Reading Challenge 0 1 1 0 100%
Totals 11 38 51 75%

While I have read 38 books in 2015 only 37 of them count toward my reading challenges. As a result I need to read 14 more books to reach my goal of 51 books read. Six of those final books need to be nonfiction. one a cloak and dagger book, two historical fictions and five science fiction books. All of the books need to be from my TBR shelves to meet the TBR challenge total of 25 books!!

So for the remainder of the month I will continue to read The Shining Girls and Amazing Grace and start Silent Creed  In the meantime I will look over my TBR shelves for some nonfiction, historical fiction and sci-fi! Hum, The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War looks interesting!!!

Wish Me Luck!!

Fuzzy Nation – John Scalzi’s Reimagining of H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy done well!

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Little did I know when I sat down to read Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi, that the story of Fuzzy’s story had been told before by H Fuzzy NationBeam Piper,in a very success trilogy starting with Little Fuzzy, and continuing in Fuzzy Sapiens and Fuzzies And Other People. (You can read more about H Beam Piper and his books at the H Beam Piper Memorial Website.). Even if I knew that the story was an update of these books, I don’t think that it would have hurt Scalzi’s marvelous re-imagining of their tale!

Fuzzy Nation is the tale of Jack Holloway and the Fuzzies. Jack is a contract surveyor for the ZaraCorp prospecting and surveying on Zara XIII and a general pain in the ass to most folks, including his employers, his ex-girlfriend and a former client he punched in the nose. The last action caused his disbarment and is the reason that he is a surveyor rather than a lawyer!  The story opens when Jack hits the virtual mother-load, a seam of rare sunstones, that will, when excavated make him rich beyond compare! On returning to his home, he finds it in disarray and that he has a fuzzy little visitor. A small cat-like creature that appears to be smarter and more human than your average cat or dog! Enter Isabel Wangai, ZaraCorp’s terrestrial biologist and Holloway’s ex-girlfriend, after naming a mountain on Zara XIII after Isabel, she had to sit by a watch ZaraCorp strip mine Mount Isabel in search of sunstones. The is only half of the reason that they broke up the other half is that Jack lied at a hearing, concerning Jack’s teaching his dog Carl to detonate explosives, , making Isabel look foolish! When Jack offers Isabel a sunstone she is not amused, Jack then intrigues her by telling her and asking her if see would like to study the fuzzies, to which she says certainly.

After studying the Fuzzies, Isabel concludes that they a people. Now the problems begin for Jack if  the Fuzzies are sentient beings then all work on the planet would stop and the resources of the planet would belong to the Fuzzies. That means that Jack would lose all his millions and ZaraCorp would lose billions. The remainder of the book deals with determining if the fuzzies are sentient and the ramifications thereof.  Soon the question becomes are the fuzzies people? What will Jack do will he try to stop the fuzzies from being declared people, what about Zara Corp???

This is a quick engaging,  enjoyable and very funny read. The characters including the fuzzies are well-drawn. Though he is a pain I liked Jack,and in turn Isabel and especially the fuzzies!! And like Scalzi’s other great books I have read Old Man’s War and Ghost Brigade Scalzi touches on themes concerning what it is to be human as well as corporate greed and responsibility without being overbearing!! All in all a great four star read!! Check it Out!!

P.S As I was preparing this post I went back and read the Author’s note at the beginning of the book which I just skipped over. I read the book on my iPhone, which is why I skipped the note. Anyway the note explains that the book is a reimagining of  Little Fuzzy rather than a sequel and that it is his hope that readers who have not read Little Fuzzy will be inspired to do so, since it is a wonderful book!  Since I have already scoured Amazon for Little Fuzzy I think he succeeded at least with this reader!!!

P.S.S. I would be interested to know the opinion of anyone who has read both books! Also this is book 21 of 2014! Now at three books per month!!!

Book 32 of 2012 – John Scalzi – Redshirts

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Book 32 of 2012 is a bit of a departure from my normal reading, kind of a throwback to an earlier era when I read a lot of science fiction. The book Redshirts by John Scalzi is actually a semi-mystery. Not a murder mystery, more of a why are all the little people getting killed mystery!

The Story

When Ensign Andrew Dahl is assigned to Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, he is thrilled! He was assigned to the xenobiology lab, and would have a chance to serve on “Away Missions”, along with the ship’s senior officers. He soon discovers that on every “Away Mission” the ships officers face some kind of deadly confrontation, while some members of the senior crew , particularly Lieutenant Kerensky get badly wounded. They always seem to survive, while one low-ranking member of the crew is killed!

Dahl soon learns, that one of the crew members actually monitors the movement of the senior crew, so that other members can hide to avoid being selected for the missions. In an attempt to discover what’s happening, Dahl makes contact with the elusive Jenkins, whose theory is the that ship is actually…….That sets Dahl and his friends on a mission to save his ship mates!!

Final Thoughts

But back to Redshirts, which is a funny and cleverly written book, that keeps your interest up to the touching ending! Here’s what some others have said about the book:

“I can honestly say I can’t think of another book that ever made me laugh this much. Ever” Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind”

“Scalzi takes apart the whole Star Trek universe and puts it back together for more plausibly – and a lot funnier , too”  – Levi Grossman, author of The Magician

About John Scalzi

John Scalzi is a terrific writer and blogger. His blog Whatever is great (Note to self read blog more often) The first Scalzi book I read was Old Man’s War, which I loved. I followed that quickly with The Ghost Brigades also great, then I got sidetracked and  The Last Colony is still on my to be read pile!

So check out Redshirts or for that matter any John Scalzi book and enjoy!!

 

Links

Author’s Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
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