John Scalzi is one of the few modern sci-fi authors I still read. Actually that's harsh, I still read some of the others, but the recent years seem to have split into either very dark, or space opera, and I'm not particularly motivated by either. John Scalzi is neither. He has interesting ideas and builds a story around them, and Starter Villain is another one of these.
It combines a number of start up memes with the idea of a trainee villain. There's some near future technology which is used in interesting ways. And evil (not evil) cats, secret agents and angry rude dolphins add some enjoyable aspects to the story.
As with many of the books of his I've read, there isn't much more depth beyond the central ideas, and sometimes it can feel a little laboured. That being said, it's good fun and well worth reading. Though it doesn't come up to Old Man's War or Agent to the Stars, two of his earlier books, which I'd recommend ahead of this if you want to try him out. So, read those two first, and if you're still interested come back for this.