(bell dinging) (typewriter thuds) (gentle music) - [John] I am John Scalzi, and this is "Starter Villain."

It's an average Joe inherits his mysterious uncle's James Bond super villainy business.

Things go from there.

(waves crashing) - Can we start the discussion with a conversation about what may be the best book cover of all time?

(John laughing) - Yes, absolutely, let's have that conversation.

- Is this what you always imagined you wanted the cover of this book to be?

- I honestly didn't know what the cover was going to be while I was writing it.

A lot of things lent itself to that.

I mean, it is very much of a book that is taking a sort of unswerving sarcastic hit to the James Bond villains and stuff like that, so I figured there might be something along that line.

But when they showed me the current cover, the first time I saw it, I just laughed, right?

And like a good laugh, not like a, "Oh my God, I can't believe they're gonna saddle me with this cover."

And so I loved it.

We showed it to our marketing people, the marketing people loved it.

We showed it to the publisher of Tor books and she loved it.

And here's a fun fact.

When the publisher really likes the cover of your book, guess what?

That's the cover of your book.

(slow tempo music) (car engine running) One of the things that I like doing in my books, kind of examine a lot of cultural tropes that we have, and go, "Why, why is this?"

So for example, with "Starter Villain," if you think about the James Bond villain, like if their plans were like actually successful, and they were not thwarted by Jimmy Bond throwing them into a volcano or whatever, you're like, "Okay, what then?"

It's like, you now rule the world, congratulations.

Now you have to worry about crop outputs in Uganda, right?

- That's right.

- Because if you don't, then people are gonna starve.

There's just like, no one ever talks about all of the work.

- It was a real gift to have you on the show today.

- Oh, thank you.

- [Jeremy] I appreciate you doing this, John.

- All right.

- And thank you for watching "A Word on Words."

I'm Jeremy Finley.

Remember, keep reading.

(bell dinging) Thank you for making Charlie a struggling journalist.

- Sure.

- What is it about the profession, do you think, makes such good characters?

Is it because we're all essentially train wrecks?

(John laughing) - [John] It's because we're all handsome and smart.

- That's it, that's it.

- I don't even know what you're talking about about this train wreck thing.

- Of course, right.

♪ You had it comin' ♪