When people talk about the books and authors they love, they tend to mention the usual suspects—character, plot, language, world building, all-around storytelling skill—but there’s one thing they sometimes forget: FUN. John Scalzi is a master at all those other things. He’s a consummate storyteller who creates memorable characters and puts them through engaging plots, using equally engaging language. Anyone who’s read his Old Man’s War novels (and if you haven’t, why not?) knows Scalzi is an unparalleled world-builder. But on top of all that, Scalzi’s books are rip-roaring, rollicking, FUN AS FUCK!

Which brings me to Starter Villain, Scalzi’s newest, a novel that is so much fun it should be illegal.

Charlie, the hero of Starter Villain, is a down-on-his-luck schlub, a divorced substitute teacher with a cat, a house he owns with some siblings who want to sell it out from under him, and not much else. An then a long-lost uncle dies and leaves him his for-real supervillain business, with everything that entails, including a super-secret (well, it does show up on Google Maps) villain’s lair on an island with an active volcano.

What follows is an exciting, often laugh-out-loud, occasionally death-defying, cat and mouse game with the world’s most dangerous villains, where we find out that maybe Charlie isn’t such a schlub after all. Starter Villain has the intricate plot and body count you’d expect from a spy thriller, but then Scalzi sweetens the deal with intelligent, asshole dolphins, equally intelligent, talking spy cats (I did say it was a cat and mouse game), and a whole lot more. Let me say it loud enough that it reaches the cheap seats way in the back: This. Book. Is. So. Much. Fun!

I know I’m going to read lots of great books this year—in fact, I know my next four or five reads, and I’m beyond excited for them—but I don’t think I’ll read a novel more fun than Starter Villain.