In the e-mail, a question about the book release tomorrow:

Are you nervous?

About the book release? No. The book is done, I wrote it as well as I could, reviews are in, we’ve done all the pre-publicity we could to let people know it’s out there. I’m pretty satisfied we did a good job launching the thing. Now it’s up to the folks who buy books to decide about it. I’ve been to this dance before; this is my seventh novel and (I think) my 14th full-length book. It’s never not exciting, but this part I’ve got down pretty well.

I am nervous about the book tour — I have the slightly paranoid fear that only three people are going to show up at each stop. I know this isn’t an entirely rational fear, all things considered, but it doesn’t stop me from having it. So, you know. If you happen to be in one of the towns I’m visiting this tour, and thinking to yourself, “should I go see Scalzi on his tour?” the answer I would give you is ZOMG please come please please please And bring friends. Lots of them. Like, everyone you know.

To sweeten the pot, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, the people who come to see me on tour will get a sneak preview of the novel that will be coming out in 2012, i.e., a super-exclusive peek that others will not have and which you can lord over them until that book comes out. And really, who doesn’t like that. Time permitting, I may also read from The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City, using my Shatneresque voice — which is, of course, the only sort of voice that particular piece of work should be read in. In short, tons of ridiculously silly fun would be had.

So, yeah. Help me laugh at my tour paranoia, would you? I thank you in advance for your co-operation.

One of my tasks for the day was to head down to Jay and Mary’s Book Center, my local indie bookstore, and sign their box of Fuzzy Nations, prior to their going on sale tomorrow. So if you wanted a signed copy of FN but aren’t at one of my tour stops, you can give Jay and Mary a call and they’ll get you situated. But hurry, since the copies you see above are all the ones I signed. But while I was there I also signed the rest of their Scalzi stock as well, so if you need a signed God Engines, Hate Mail or Old Man’s War (among the others), you’ll be set.

The SFReviews.net site is featuring a Fuzzy Week, in which reviewer Thomas M. Wagner is going through and reviewing H. Beam Piper’s three Fuzzy books as well as the two authorized sequels, by William Tuning and Ardath Mayhar — oh, and also Fuzzy Nation. Today the reviews on tap are for Little Fuzzy, and for Fuzzy Nation. The reviews of the other books will be posted on a daily basis through the rest of the week.

I am actually and genuinely delighted about the “Fuzzypalooza” week of reviews, since one of my hopes for Fuzzy Nation is that it would bring some additional attention to Piper, his work, and to the Fuzzyverse books. This is a good sign that more attention is being paid. So I encourage you to check out the reviews today and also the ones for the rest of the week as well, and get caught up on all the works in that universe.

I’m also happy to say Fuzzy Nation garnered a very nice review. You should go read the whole thing, but this is a good excerpt:

Fuzzy Nation seeks to bring a 21st century storytelling sensibility to a half-century-old genre classic, and it succeeds far more wildly than I imagine even John Scalzi himself hoped. What began as an unabashed exercise in labor-of-love fanfic became not only excellent SF in its own right, but, incidentally, Scalzi’s best novel to date in a career that was already impressive and well above the bell curve.

Well, you know. I had good material to work with.

Somewhat related, and for those of you who are in and near Dayton, the Dayton Daily News threw some love my way this weekend with this very nice overview and review of the book. I have a special place in my heart for the DDN, in part because I was a freelancer for them for a number of years, so I’m thrilled when I show up in its pages.

– But if you happen to be up at midnight Eastern time, you definitely want to come round here.

In fact, if you’re not up at midnight Eastern time, you might want to set your alarm clock so you can wake up and be here at that time.

I’m not saying that what will be here at that time will change your life forever. It might not. But then again, maybe it will. You never know.

All I’m saying is: Hey, round midnight, Eastern? You might want to swing by.

That’s all.