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crispycritter 's review for:
Starter Villain
by John Scalzi
I've been thinking a lot about craft lately, and Starter Villain has a super interesting "flaw" from a craft perspective - an almost complete lack of interiority. The book is written in Charlie's first person POV, so you might assume we'd get some reflection on all the crazy shit that happens to him. Instead, we witness things happening to Charlie and are left to speculate what, if any, emotional impact these events are making on Charlie.
Why is inferiority important? There are a ton of different entertainment mediums. The main thing that separates the written word from TV/film is interiority.
Why is inferiority important? There are a ton of different entertainment mediums. The main thing that separates the written word from TV/film is interiority.
- From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler and Janet Burroway: “in the most exciting literary works, an internal conflict runs parallel to, or resonates through, some larger conflict in the external world. That interaction between the inner and the outer is a unique provenance of narrative. No other art form can really grasp the interaction between the external world and the internal world as fiction can.”
- David Foster Wallace, when asked why we read: “I don’t know what it’s like inside you and you don’t know what it’s like inside me. A great book allows me to leap over that wall.”
Is Starter Villain still entertaining as heck? Yes. I was fully engrossed in this book. There were some reveals that were surprising! It was genuinely hilarious. It gave me major Kingsman vibes. Super campy, over-the-top action and silly villains. But Charlie didn't have much of a distinct personality. He just seemed like a normal dude with a reasonable amount of empathy who, like most people, didn't particularly enjoy getting blown up or shot at. So my only critique is that this book might as well have been a screenplay for a summer blockbuster action-comedy.