Starter Villain

I quite enjoyed this on first reading, it's entertaining and somewhat amusing, and it has pace. It's the story of a former journalist down on his luck, whose dead uncle propels him into bizarre adventures and into confrontation with a bunch of rich and unscrupulous people.

Unfortunately, it seems that Scalzi doesn't really do characterization; or, at least, he didn't reckon to for this book. Most of the characters are either just names, or they could be described in a few words. They don't have any depth, they don't engage the reader.

We spend the whole book in the company of the first-person protagonist, Charlie Fitzer. But I don't come away feeling that I know him well, or with an active desire to read more books about him. He seems a decent enough guy, fairly intelligent, likes cats; but that's about it.

I suppose the story counts as science fiction mainly because of the intelligent computer-using cats, but apart from that it's not very science-fictional.