Starting the year off right by a) fudging the read date of my first few books and b) writing reviews soon after finishing them!!!
Let’s see how long this lasts this year.
Many recommendations for this book from the Cannonball community, and really this should have been an easy one to pick up given how enjoyable The Kaiju Preservation Society (just tried typing “Kaiju Appreciation” and didn’t find anything) was. I’d characterize Scalzi as a unique voice amongst those writing today–you can really tell the creative spark behind his works, each of which starts from a pretty unique place and then follows the conclusions through to obvious ends. I imagine many people might find similarities between this book and Hench, which I didn’t like nearly as much (probably because the main character here is an amateur thrust into a complicated work, while in Hench she’s jaded and therefore not discovering everything as our eyes).
Herein, as the blurb explains, our slightly aimless substitute teacher is surprised one day to be dropped into the third act of a full blown Hollywood spy thriller, as he inherits the giant villany enterprises of a distant uncle he barely knew. Also, there are cats. Plus, everything makes sense and is pretty funny–I was actually laughing to myself, softly, on my flight yesterday. It’s a quick read, and the takeaway messages are mainly those of the “oh yeah…” type. I can easily see myself trying to recommend this and having to physically restrain myself from giving away too much of the joy in doing so.