The conceit of this book is that it's advice for supervillains, outlining good and bad plans for things like starting your own country (or stealing someone else's), breeding an army of dinosaurs, controlling the weather, and living forever (or, failing that, at least making sure people remember you for a very, very long time). Really, though, it feels mostly like a good excuse for Ryan North to talk about all kinds of big scientific ideas and bits of weird trivia that he finds interesting. And you know what? I am here for it. Because it really is all weird and interesting and fun, and even if I already knew a lot about some of the sciencey stuff, there were plenty of cool, mildly mind-blowing tidbits that were new to me, and even the stuff that wasn't was presented in such a funny, enthusiastic, entertaining way that I enjoyed it all anyway. And I wish Mr. North all success in his plan to build a self-sustaining supervillain base in a giant floating balloon over Antarctica, something that, it turns out, is at least theoretically scientifically possible. Who knew? ( )

Ryan North is a comic book writer. So he’s spent a lot of time figuring out how a supervillain’s mind works — what they want, how to get it. That’s gone through the food processor of his mind and come out in this book — how someone could really take over the world and do supervillain-ish things within the realm of reality. Want to take over a country like Dr. Doom? You can do that. Want to make a dinosaur? That’s possible with the proper science and enough patience. Need to drill to the center of the Earth? Here’s how.

Of all the books I’ve read where they put the science into science fiction, this is one of the better ones. Maybe because of the premise, maybe because of the style. But all the tips are fun and delivered with panache. Like I’ve said before, I love when comic book writers write prose. They’re always better at it than they think they’d be. And all of the research found within is sound and useful. I plan to use its material in my next book. Better than “Putting the Science in Science Fiction”. ( )

A non-fiction self-help book about how to become the ultimate supervillain. It was funny and also very informative; I found the chapter on how to take over a country by convincing them internet voting is a good idea especially valuable to my ultimate, inescapable aims. ( )