While Washington DC is not officially on my book tour, nevertheless I will be there between the 19th and 22nd for the Nebula Awards Weekend, at which SFWA, the writers’ organization of which I am president, will hand out — logically enough — the Nebula Awards for excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing. As part of the weekend’s festivities there will be a mass signing event, at which you can meet and have books signed by, some of the planet’s most excellent science fiction and fantasy writers, including but not limited to Connie Willis, Joe Haldeman, Paolo Bacigalupi, Allen Steele, Mary Robinette Kowal and yours truly. Here’s the complete list of scheduled participants. Yes, this is a whole lot of science fiction and fantasy awesomeness, all in one place. That’s what the Nebula Awards Weekend is all about.

When will this take place? On Friday, May 20, 2011 from 5:30 p.m. until 7:00p.m., at the Washington Hilton, 1919 Connecticut NW.

Need books in order to be signed? We’ve got you covered: There’ll be a “book depot” with books from the participating authors (including me) at the Hilton. Here are details on that (scroll down just a bit).

While the mass signing is part of the Nebula Awards Weekend, it’s open to anyone and everyone — and you are anyone, so that means you! So swing on by, meet some of your favorite authors and get their autographs for yourself or someone you love/like/are in some way obligated to. And of course, feel free to share the news of the mass signing with friends/family/complete strangers.

See you there!

Last week I was the subject of an “Ask Me Anything” thread at Reddit, and folks there asked me a whole bunch of questions about science fiction, Stargate Universe, the Old Man’s War movie, my life and work, and about Fuzzy Nation, the new book. I answered them in varying levels of detail, and the whole, fairly comprehensive, set of questions is now up for your perusal. I tried to answer as many questions as possible, so the whole list is pretty long. But then again, I don’t suppose anyone who reads this site would be entirely turned off by me blathering on extensively. Go check it out.

As you all know by now, Paul & Storm have written and performed the most awesome power ballad EVAR to celebrate the release of Fuzzy Nation. But if you’re only listening to “Fuzzy Man (Fuzzy Nation)” you’re not getting the whole story. To get the whole story — the story of how all that awesomeness came into being — you need to tune into Paul & Storm’s podcast, in which I sit in as a special guest and talk with them about the book and the song as well as, in their words, “the rigors of touring; boiled leather; riding coattails; grafting songs onto movies; questions that suck; counterintuitive publishing practices; and Master Blaster and hastily-made headshots.”

The name of the podcast is “Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (On Average),” but this time we talk, uh, more than five or ten minutes. I think it’s, like, an hour or so. But we’re fascinating. I swear.

(By the way: That awesome art above? Len Peralta. Now you know.)

In addition to it being the release date of Fuzzy Nation and the start of my book tour, today also happens to be my birthday. I am now forty-two years old, which if you’re a science fiction geek is a fortuitous year, inasmuch as it’s the year of the number of the answer to life, the universe and everything. I regret to say that simply turning forty-two does not in fact give one particular insight into life, the universe and everything, or even (to the point here) give one particularly good questions with which to match with the answer. Maybe it takes a couple more hours to sink in. I will let you know.

I can say that forty-two finds me both happy and increasingly aware that time is passing. Happy because, well, life is good: I am married to a spectacular person. We have a child who continues to grow into a remarkable person. Our pets are fuzzy and amusing. We are financially comfortable and do not suffer want on any level. My career is going well. I am being of service to others. I get to do interesting things and know interesting people. I am healthy, as is my family.

Aware that time is passing, because, well, it is, mostly congenially, but with the occasional reminder that with time comes age. When I get back from my tour probably the first thing I’m going to have to do is make an eye appointment, because I’m doing that old person thing where you have to hold something out at a distance to read it; yes, presbyopia has come to the door and is asking is I want to read its literature (not too close). Bifocals, here I come. And have I told you about my arthritic hip? Come here, you whippersnapper, there’s no point shaking my cane at you if I can’t see you.

On the other hand, if the worst that the deprecations of age have thrown at me at 42 are slightly wonky eyeballs and a hip that I have to tweak impressively in order to get a twinge out of it, I’m doing fine. And in some ways I’m better off physically than I was at this same time last year: I’m about 25 pounds lighter, for one thing. So, eh. I have no reason to complain. So I’ll stop doing so right now.

The passage of time I notice in other ways. We have a new dog, to replace the old one who passed away. My daughter continues apace in her mission to be taller than me; at 12 she’s less than five inches away from her goal. I figure I have a couple of years left. The books — mine and the ones of my friends — continue to pile up agreeably. New and really impressive people keep showing up and being younger than me. This doesn’t make me feel old, exactly. It does remind me I’m not one of the new guys anymore. I’m all right with that.

And that’s pretty much my response to all of it: I’m all right with it. I’m enjoying seeing where I’m going in the world, and with my work, and with the people I get to share my life with. Birthdays remind me to make note of all of it.

So: It’s my birthday. I’m forty-two, and I’m happy. I hope you are too, on my birthday.

Hey! My newest novel Fuzzy Nation is out today!

Read the fabulous excerpts! Chapters one and two. Chapters three and four.

Hear the spectacular audiobook excerpt! Read by Wil Wheaton, no less.

Gaze upon the blush-inducing reviews! Publishers Weekly (starred). Kirkus (starred). SFReviews.net. Library Journal. Wired. Romantic Times.

Experience my spittle-flinging blather in interviews! Library Journal. Wired. Clarkesworld.

See me dance like a performing monkey! Here’s my book tour itinerary. Please come!

Rock out to “Fuzzy Man (Fuzzy Nation),” the official Fuzzy Nation power ballad, written and performed by Paul and Storm!

Yes, that’s right, the official power ballad. What? Doesn’t every science fiction novel have its own official power ballad?

No? Huh. Well, this one does. So there.

WARNING: YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR THE AWESOME THAT IS ABOUT TO ENSUE.

CONCLUSION: YOU HAVE BEEN VASTLY ENTERTAINED.

What? You want the song for your very own? Well, of course you do. Who wouldn’t want it with them always? Get it from Paul and Storm direct-like.

Buy Fuzzy Nation right this very second! Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound (featuring local independent bookstores) and Powell’s. Or just go to your local bookstore. There is also an audiobook version, read by Wil Wheaton, available on Audible.com.

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.

Because I know you were asking yourself what the sunset looked like from where I was. Now you know. Go on about your lives, thus satisfied.

The answer to yesterday’s contest was: Uluru, also known as Ayer’s Rock. Greg Briggs was the first to answer correctly, so he wins the signed, personalized hardcover of Fuzzy Nation. However, his comment was also the fourth comment in the thread, so I felt like I made the contest too easy. So I also asked my daughter to pick a number between 1 and 403, which was the number of entries by noon today. She picked 287, so Kristin M, whose comment was at that position, wins a signed, personalized ARC of Fuzzy Nation. So we have two winners! Please congratulate them.

To those of you who are moms, and to those of you who ever had a mom. I think that covers most of us (at least biologically speaking).

Just a couple of days before the release of Fuzzy Nation, and what better time to give away a signed, personalized copy of the hardcover first edition? No better time, I say! None!

Here’s how to win it:

I am thinking of a place on the planet. What place am I thinking of?

Hints:

* It is not within 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of my home in Bradford, Ohio.

* No one lives in it or on it.

* It’s on a continental land mass, but not a water feature (i.e., not a river, lake, etc).

* It is something most people could visit, if they made the effort.

There you go. Have fun guessing.

And now, the rules!

1. Contest runs between when I post the entry and noon eastern time on Sunday, May 8, 2011.

2. One entry per person, one guess per entry. Multiple entries/guesses will disqualify you.

3. The first person to guess the place wins. It has to be the specific place, not (for example) the country or state/province/city/other governmental division it is in/near. Just saying “India!” won’t help you, even if the place I’m thinking of is in India.

4. In the event no one guesses the place to my satisfaction, I will take the total number of entries by noon eastern time on May 8 and ask my daughter to pick a number between one and that number. The comment that has the same number as the number she picks will win.

Good luck!

Zeus and Daisy pose for your delight and wish you a happy weekend.

I made a couple of substantial purchases last week and people have been asking me what I think of the purchases so far. So in the interest of consumer information, your in-progress product reviews:

1. The Mini Cooper S Countryman All4: I may have got the sequence of that title mixed up, it’s a lot to get one’s brain around. We’ve been very pleased with it so far. It took both Krissy and I a day to get used to the new gear shift in it (it’s a six speed and has the reverse to the left of the other gears on the shift column rather than to the right) but once we did that it was smooth sailing from there. My understanding from reviewers is that MCSCA4 has a little less pep than other Mini models, due to its relatively larger size and weight (the latter largely thanks to the all-wheel drive), but since we’re coming to it from a base-level 1997 Suzuki Sidekick, we notice this not at all. We do notice that it’s pretty fast, pretty quick, and a lot of fun to drive.

The thing is also a bit like a TARDIS, in that it’s small on the outside but seems rather a bit larger on the inside (I understand other Mini models pull this one off, too). From the inside it feels like I’m driving a small SUV, and then I get out and look at the thing and go, oh, right. That’s a little weird. But it’s neither here nor there in terms of the driving.

There are some things to quibble about it. The “center rail” thing it does, in which things like cup holders and cell phone holders are clipped into a rail between the seats, is something I think works better on paper than it does in real life; I’m not especially impressed with its utility. Part of this may be due to the fact that the cell phone holder clip-in fell apart the first day we had the car, and anyway was too small for my Droid X, which now typically lives in one of the built-in cup holders near the dash. I’m also of the opinion that the plate-sized speedometer in the center of the dash is a bit of wasted real estate; the speed information is repeated in a small screen on the tachometer directly behind the steering wheel, and once I saw it was there, I never again looked at the analog one.

Finally, I’m not really in love with the fact that the car wants premium gas, which is a slightly larger gas price bite each time at the pump. Some other Mini owners online have told me that in their experience the premium gas thing is really more of a guideline than a rule, but you know, I think I kind of want to listen to the manufacturer on this one.

But these are relatively small quibbles, and in a larger sense the driving experience of the car is a very good one. And thanks to all the rain and mess that’s passed for weather this spring, we’ve already had reason to be happy we sprung for the all-wheel-drive version (note the mud at the wheel wells). Overall, we’re pleased with our purchase so far.

As an aside, I do have mild trepidation about sort of unwittingly wandering into the BMW food chain. Mini is currently owned by BMW, and so now we’ve been unintentionally punted into a higher and more seductive tranche of car care service. For example, when it’s time for the car’s routine maintenance (free for the first few years), some guy will come up from Cincinnati to take the car down to the dealership, leave a loaner, and then, when the car’s all tuned up, drive it back to us. We don’t have to do anything. That’s dangerous, man. This is how they eventually upsell you to a 7 series car. I plan to be strong and resist.

2. The Nikon D5100: I talked about the new camera a little when I posted the set of pictures I took with it at Penguicon, but to add to that I can say that in general I’ve been quite pleased with it. A lot of that is simply due to the fact that it’s just a better camera than my previous dSLR, the D70s, thanks to a better sensor (in terms of light sensitivity and detail) and better software inside the camera. This is not entirely unexpected since the D5100 is six years newer than the D70s, which is back a couple of generations at least in terms of digital photography technology.

To give you an example of what I’m talking about, see the two pictures above, of the same (mostly underlit) mess on my office table. The one on the left is taken with the D70s, the one on the right with the D5100, both without flash and set to “auto.” The pictures are cropped but otherwise untouched. You can see a substantially larger amount of noise in the D70s picture as well as far less photo definition. The color is also a bit off. Much of that can be addressed in Photoshop (or, honestly, by not taking underlit photos), but the nice thing about the new camera is that it means I have to do relatively less fiddling about to make pictures presentable, and that makes me happy.

That said, the D5100 comes with some consumer-oriented stuff I’m not likely to mess with all that much, like its “effects” menu, which allows one to specify certain effects in camera. That’s cute and all, but if I am going to fiddle with a photo, I’d prefer to do it in a full-featured photo suite and not in a relatively limited camera setting that just gives me what I get and I have to like it. There’s also the video setting which I haven’t really played with yet (no reason to so far), but which I am looking forward to trying. The idea of shooting 1080p video with a nice sensor and a decent piece of glass will make holiday video taking more inviting.

The only real complaint I have about the D5100 so far is that the battery life is a bit on the underwhelming side, but I have to see if that’s more to do with the way I’m using the camera than a native issue with the battery. We’ll find out.

So: Car and camera — so far so good. If that changes, I’ll be sure to let y’all know.

While you’re counting down the days waiting for Fuzzy Nation to come out, why not pick yourself up a copy of the book that inspired it, and whose story my novel reboots? It’ll be fun for you to compare and contrast the two novels — and best of all, because Little Fuzzy is in the public domain, you can check it out for free. Project Gutenberg has the novel in ePub, Kindle and other electronic formats, and you can also find a free version directly on Amazon (Barnes & Noble doesn’t have it for less than 99 cents).

If you find yourself enjoying Little Fuzzy (which I suspect you will), Project Gutenberg has other public domain Piper titles for your perusal. It’s a good way to get (re-)acquainted with one of science fiction’s past masters.

I hear that many of you like them there audiobook thingies, which you listen to while you travel in your cars or whatnot. I fully support this — listening to an audiobook is much safer for you and others than trying to read and drive at the same time. That’s bad. Don’t do that. Listening to an audiobook? Perfectly fine.

So I’m happy to say that there will be an audiobook version of Fuzzy Nation, available from Audible on the same day as the book release (which is May 10 — ZOMG NEXT TUESDAY). The audiobook is read by none other than Wil Wheaton, who fans of my previous audiobooks may remember did such a fantastic job with The Android’s Dream and Agent to the Stars. He continues his streak here, in my opinion. But you don’t have to take my word for it: Here’s the first chapter of the audiobook for your ears to delight in. Delight, I say!

The folks at Audible wish for me to inform you that as an extra added bonus, those of you who buy the audiobook of Fuzzy Nation will get a special added bonus: Audible’s version of Little Fuzzy, the H. Beam Piper novel mine is a reboot of, for no extra cost. That’s pretty sweet.

The Audible page for Fuzzy Nation will go live on Tuesday, so be looking for it then. Until Tuesday, enjoy the sample.

Which I kept meaning to post earlier in the day, but I kept being distracted by something awesome which I will share with you soon but not yet. Just rest assured that it will be awesome. But in the meantime:

1. You may remember that I finished a novel several weeks ago. Well, I got confirmation today that the novel in question has been accepted by Tor, so hurray, there will be a novel from me out in 2012.

What’s the title? We’re still deciding. What’s it about? Well, I don’t want to go into too much detail yet, but suffice to say that it’s got action, explosions, snappy dialogue and deep metaphysical and existential conundrums. You know, like you do. If you want to know more, you should probably come see me while I am on tour, because I am likely to read from that novel at my appearances. I’ve read from it a couple of times now (the people at the readings were sworn to secrecy about the content), and the excerpt has gone over well. You’ll want to be there.

2. The embargo on the information has been lifted, so I can tell you that in October 2012 I will be the one of the two Guests of Honor at the Capclave convention, in the Washington DC area; the other Guest of Honor will be Nick Mamatas. It should be a fun time. At the same time convention announced us it also announced its 2011 guests, which are Carrie Vaughn and Catherynne Valente, both of whom I expect will be excellent guests. I regret I will be in Germany when the convention happens this year otherwise I would totally be there. If you want to be there this year, here’s the convention Web site.

For those of you keeping count, this means I am committed to the following conventions as a Guest of Honor in 2012: Boskone, in February; Penguicon, in April; Capclave, in October. And of course Chicon 7, where I am Toastmaster, in August. There may be one additional G0H gig next year, but I haven’t gotten confirmation of that one yet; if it happens I will of course let you know. But all these appearances are another good reason for me to have a novel out next year.

Those are my two big announcements for the day.

On my doorstep today: finished copies of the Subterranean Press limited edition version of Zoe’s Tale, featuring this fantastic cover (and equally fantastic interior art) done by Vincent Chong. The folks at SubPress tell me that the book is now available and shipping, so if you pre-ordered it, it’s on its way to you even as we speak. Didn’t pre-order but still want it? There’s a small number still available, and you can get them through Subterranean’s site (ignore the “pre-order” bit on the order page). My SubPress stuff does tend to go quickly, however, so if you want it, get to it.

This really is a gorgeous edition of this story. I’m delighted to have it on my own shelf.