I Was Gonna Post About Trump and His Mug Shot, But Then I Got Busy and Also OMD Came Out With a New Video, So Here Is That Instead
Posted on August 25, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 17 Comments
I mean, I will probably talk about Trump again soon! But today has turned out to be a day I need to do things in — I know, so unfair, right? — and also this new OMD single is very OMD, and as someone who grew up with the band, I think of this as a good thing, so, yeah, here, have this instead and I will get back to the rest later. Honestly, you’re getting the better end of the bargain here.
— JS
My SciFri Interview About The Kaiju Preservation Society
Posted on August 24, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
This summer the folks at Science Friday made The Kaiju Preservation Society their book club read, and in addition to talking about the book with each other, they had me come over for an hour-long chat about the book, writing, science and life in general. Here’s the whole interview for your delight. Note the live action part starts at about 3:43 in the run time, and I show up at about 6:50. Enjoy!
— JS
The Big Idea: A.J. Hartley
Posted on August 24, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 3 Comments
Shape-shifting creatures… in small-town North Carolina? There’s a reason they’re there, and as A.J. Hartley explains in this Big Idea for Hideki Smith, Demon Queller, there’s no better place for them to be.
A.J. HARTLEY:
Japanese folkore and mythology is packed with shape-shifting monsters. Seriously. Everywhere you look there’s something pretending to be something else. Some of them are funny (monsters disguised as umbrellas, anyone?). Some are terrifying. Some of them are just plain weird, acting according to a logic only they understand. But all of them reinforce a basic idea about the universe: that nothing is exactly as it appears.
It’s a familiar notion, of course, though it seems to have developed a deeper and more unsettling brand of truth as we wrestle with the implications of, on the one hand, quantum mechanics, and—on the other—a greater awareness of how race, gender and other matters create a disconnect between our we appear to others and how we see ourselves.
About those shape-shifters. My new novel, Hideki Smith, Demon Queller, is set in North Carolina but it’s informed by mystical beings from old Japan (generally called yōkai ) because the book’s protagonists are partly of Japanese heritage. I say partly because the title character (who goes by Caleb) has—like my own son—a Japanese-American mother and a Caucasian father. He and his sister have been raised to assimilate into a small town in which there are no other families like theirs, and they figure the best way to get through the pitfalls of high school is to fit in as best they can.
Except, of course, that they don’t look like they belong in their small mountain town, and changing that isn’t something they control. And their lives get more complicated when monsters start appearing in the woods, monsters whose origins are clearly—if mysteriously—connected to Caleb and Emily’s long-suppressed Japanese ancestry.
These aren’t just monsters of the scary teeth and claws variety, however. They are beings whose appearance can change, giving them a much wider selection of weapons. Many of the yōkai of Japanese legend are supernatural forms of common animals. There are racoon-dogs (tanuki) that can pretend to be teapots or sake barrels but can also appear as people. Sometimes they are tired, old folk who beg you to carry them or perform other tasks, for no reason other than their own amusement.
Tanuki are primarily tricksters, and not always competent ones at that, so they often give themselves away: hilarity, as the book jackets say, ensues. Mujina (a kind of badger) are more inclined to scare whoever they meet, appearing as ordinary people whose faces then vanish. In many versions of the story, the victim runs away, half mad with fear, and tells their tale of terror to the first cop, barman, or restauranteur they meet, only for their confidante to reply, “Was it like this?” Whereupon their face vanishes and the hapless victim blacks out in horror.
Once, when I lived in Japan, I saw a kabuki production in which a young family, lost in the mountains, came upon a tiny Buddhist temple where an elderly nun invited them to spend the night. In one of the most startling visuals I have ever seen on stage, the nun leaned behind the translucent paper screen to pick up a lantern, casting a shadow which revealed her true nature as a bakeneko: a massive and monstrous cat. She then performed a bloody attack on the family, and finally ascended into the heavens above the stage, fully transformed, not so much a cat as into a something somewhere between cat and human, covered in fur (and brandishing the afore mentioned teeth and claws), but clothed in a dazzling kimono.
It was breathtaking and unnerving, because the cat creature wasn’t just dangerous, it was uncanny, the kind of thing that makes your flesh creep because it contradicts what you think you know about the world and your place in it.
The supreme Japanese shape shifter is the fox or kitsune, a being so expert at human transformation that it can do what Caleb and Emily can’t; it can blend in. Kitsune can conceal their true nature so completely that they can marry humans, have kids, and live undetected among people for years at a time. These foxes might only be discovered if someone is particularly attentive to what he or she (often she) gets up to when the fox believes itself to be alone. Occasionally they give themselves away when angry, particularly if their spouse breaks an oath made years before. Sometimes they just get bored of human life and revert to their true form, vanishing into the forest and leaving their families baffled and grieving.
It’s a powerful idea, that sense that nothing and no one is what they appear to be, that even the things we think we know best might be something else entirely, something strange or lethal. After all, none of us is precisely what others take us to be. Inside our heads we are so much stranger and more complex, less easily knowable, than other people think, though somehow—preposterously—we still trust our superficial readings of others.
For my purposes, the sudden appearance of these shape-shifting beings in Portersville, North Carolina, provides more than (I hope) thrills and mystery; they embody a running metaphor for people wrestling with their sense of who they are, were, and might be, while surrounded by other people who assume they know exactly what their appearance means. Nothing is what it seems, least of all us.
Heideki Smith, Demon Queller: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Books-a-Million
Starter Villain in the House
Posted on August 23, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 20 Comments
Literally ten minutes ago the UPS truck rolled up with my author hardcover copies of Starter Villain. As is tradition, I gave the first copy to Krissy, and the second copy is mine (the third usually goes to my mother-in-law. The fourth usually goes to the Bradford library). I have to say it looks great and I’m delighted to have it here at home. You all will still have to wait another four weeks. Sorry.
This does, however, give me time to remind you that I will be on tour with the book, so go ahead and get that on your schedule, and otherwise, if print is your favorite reading medium, preorder the book from your favorite local bookseller so you know you’ll have your copy on September 19th. They will be happy to take your preorder, I assure you!
Also, in case you’re wondering, it never gets old to see your book in print. This is the thirty-something-odd time. It’s just as great as the first. Hey! I wrote a book!
— JS
The Big Idea: Caye Marsh
Posted on August 22, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 2 Comments
Author Caye Marsh was treading in unfamiliar territory when she became a mother, and the feelings that came with it ended up being the seed for her newest novel. Follow along in her Big Idea to see how being a mother assisted in forging the path for Peace In The Sky.
CAYE MARSH:
Sometime in the small hours of the morning I got up to nurse my first child. The house was dark and silent, the baby in my arms was mostly still a stranger to me. And the whole business of being a parent was entirely new territory.
I was sleep-deprived, sore, often weepy and sad. But I was quickly forming a profound and deep connection like I had never, ever known. It was more compelling than duty, more inseverable than any family ties, greater even than love itself.
And it made me wonder – would I know my child anywhere? What would it take to break this bond?
My muddled brain began spinning me a story in the those shifting, hazy hours of the night when I was stumbling around half-conscious, nursing or changing diapers. During those hours in which time had no meaning, it felt easy to inhabit a time far in the future. It felt easy to imagine the confusion and brain fog of a character who couldn’t quite remember herself or recall her former purpose, for whom the present was the only meaningful time. It was the only sort of character who made sense to me.
After I finally got some sleep, and started to find the rhythm of nursing and schedules and naps, I began to make a real story out of those distracted musings. I wrote about a woman in an addled state who meets a child she does not recognize. But when the child calls her Mama, she experiences all those feelings that I’d had while I nursed my newborn — that intense, imperative desire to protect, to provide, to nurture and cherish. It was my way of working through those feelings in the abstract while I lay under their spell in my reality.
I wrote about a character who has forgotten who she once was and has to remake herself in an altered and challenging world. Her only certainty is the urgent, all-consuming need to get her daughter to safety. Nothing else matters to her, and she actively resists claims anyone else makes on her time or energies. And that felt a lot like parenthood to me.
The book is about more than just that, of course. It’s about an Earth growing into a new equilibrium after being unbalanced for so long. It’s about different peoples struggling in the confines of their separate cultures and environments, and the ways in which they interact both for better and for worse. And it’s about a woman hiding from her own truth, and therefore so much more clear-eyed about the truths of others.
But at the heart of the story is a mother who is learning what it feels like to be a mother.
Peace In The Sky: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop
Various and Sundry, 8/21/23
Posted on August 21, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 21 Comments
I spent the weekend away with friends and then today I did two interviews, one for print and one for radio, and now I’m surfacing to see what’s going on in the world. Want to come along with me? Sure you do!
Trump Has to Shell Out $200,000 For Bail in Georgia: Actually, as I understand it, he really only has to put down 10% of that in cash, which is probably good for him, seeing that his lawyer bills are pushing him in the direction of “broke” these days, which delights me, he deserves every bit of that. Apparently among the terms of the bail is that he can’t make threats, “direct or indirect,” against anyone who is a co-defendant or witness for the trial, which means that soon the Fulton County Jail is going to come into some money, since Trump is (heh) constitutionally unable to not channel his existential panic through either his tongue or his thumbs. It may be the easiest bail money revocation ever, honestly.
Trump still has to surrender to authorities by this Friday, and it’ll be interesting to see if they’re going to make him do a mug shot. They said they would — he’s just like any other citizen! — but we’ll see.
Elon Musk Admits the Former Twitter May Fail: This is after a weekend where apparently someone poured Fresca into the one remaining operating server, severing connections to links and photos posted before 2014, and of course Musk announced the end of blocking on the service, which prompted enough of an exodus to other services that Bluesky found its own server overheating, as everyone who had been banking an invite there suddenly tried to port themselves over. Musk’s phrasing of the possible imminent failure of his $44 billion trash fire was unusually passive and fatalistic, suggesting that he doesn’t want to take responsibility for his part in it, and/or that he was stoned to the gills as wrote it.
Either way, it’s not exactly the most positive spin Musk could have put on the current situation, which is, remember, entirely of his own doing and every little bit of it is his fault.
Hurriquake! California doesn’t disappoint; not content merely to have its first hurricane/tropical storm in 84 years, the Golden State also unleashed a 5.3 earthquake during the downpour, with dozens of smaller aftershocks thereafter. The silver lining on this particular rain cloud is that so far there don’t appear to be any deaths, and while the storm that broke rainfall records across the state created floods and mudslides, which are not good and can be a danger, it could have been much worse, damage-wise. Take your breaks where you can.
Climate change being what it is, it’s a reasonably safe bet it won’t be another 84 years before another tropical storm hits the area.
Mortgage Rates, Oy: They’re up to 7.48%, which is the highest they’ve been since the turn of the century, and by the way, there’s a phrase that makes me feel old. It’s also by some measures the least affordable time to be buying a house in four decades, so if you were thinking of buying recently, maaaaaybe hold off a bit if you can. Apparently overall house prices are down a bit in the last couple of months, but any savings you get from that would be erased by the interest rates. So if you are in the market for a house right now, sympathies.
Let’s end on a cat: Which will also serve as a reminder that the Scamperbeasts are now on Instagram if you would like to follow them there:
— JS
A Weekend Jam
Posted on August 18, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 2 Comments
Hello, my lovely readers! It’s Friday, and I wish to bestow upon you a song that you can spend all weekend jamming out to. I know I certainly have it on repeat, at least.
Here’s Conan Gray’s new single, “Never Ending Song”:
Don’t worry, it’s not actually a never ending song, in fact it’s only about two and a half minutes.
Let me know what you think of the song, and have a great weekend!
-AMS
New Books and ARCs, 8/18/23
Posted on August 18, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
Just in time for the weekend, a whole stack of new books and ARCs, perfect for reading outside (if it’s nice), or inside (if air conditioning is desired). What here is calling to you? Share in the comments!
— JS
The Big Idea: Joe R. Lansdale
Posted on August 17, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 6 Comments
Today’s Big Idea is short… but is it sweet? Joe R. Lansdale’s collection title promises that Things Get Ugly, and maybe, sometimes, that’s the way it should be.
JOE LANSDALE:
Things Get Ugly has been years in the making, containing my best crime stories from the eighties on. Not every crime story I’ve written is included, and even some of my best ones were left out due to lack of room. Fifty years of writing leaves a lot of short stories out there.
I’m pretty proud of these stories, and that may sound somewhat prideful, but I like to think No Brag, Just Fact. The reader can decide.
These aren’t the sort of stories you want to read in one sitting. That might be too much. One a day isn’t a bad way to go, but if you’re a gulper, then have at it. They touch on, shall we say, sensitive subjects, and sometimes they cut deep into sensitive subjects, and those subjects bleed.
People die, both good and bad. People do terrible things. That’s just life. Things tend to get ugly.
Several of the stories are based on real events that I was a part of or witnessed. I’ve experienced many a weird thing. Reality can be a violet, ugly mess at times. “Mr. Bear” is not based on anything real. Bears cannot fly on planes nor talk.
I don’t offer trigger warnings, but I can say here is one sort of warning I will offer. I wrote the stories. And if you’re familiar with my work, that should be enough.
Things Get Ugly: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
In Which I Am Informed By the Boss It Is Time to Go Back to Work
Posted on August 17, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 6 Comments
“Yes, yes, you traveled to Washington and New York for the last week, and you got to see people and have adventures. That’s very nice. But now you’re back, and, what is that? A pile of work you’ve been ignoring while you’ve been on the road? Well, guess what you get to do now, pal?”
Spice. She is tough but fair. And not wrong. Lots of work to catch up on. I should get to it.
— JS
The Big Idea: M. A. Carrick
Posted on August 16, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 2 Comments
Collaboration is key. Whether it’s writing a book together, backing a Kickstarter together, or changing the world together, people need each other to make things the best version they can be. Follow along with authors Alyc and Marie, who joined together as M. A. Carrick to bring you the newest novel in their Rook and Rose Trilogy, Labyrinth’s Heart.
M. A. CARRICK
All our patterns are real.
The Rook and Rose trilogy features a deck of cards (live on Kickstarter as we speak!) that gets used for divination. We’ve mentioned the pattern deck in our previous Big Idea pieces for The Mask of Mirrors and The Liar’s Knot, because our book titles are drawn from card names . . . but that’s not just a tactic for settling on titles. It’s a nod toward the centrality of pattern in this series as a whole.
It wasn’t originally meant to be that central, though. We knew we wanted Ren, our con artist protagonist, to have a deck of cards she used for divination, and we settled on “pattern” as the name because it echoes the association of threads and weaving with fate. That choice had unforeseen consequences: not only did Vraszenian culture become Textile Motifs Ahoy about 0.18 seconds after we named the deck, but when we sat down to refine the differences between our three magical traditions (imbuing, numinatria, and pattern), our word choice shaped our thinking. Pattern gets used for divination, via the cards, but its core is something deeper.
Pattern is the connections between things.
Or, to borrow a line from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”
That’s the heart of our story. Not a lone heroine changing the world single-handed, but a tapestry of characters bound together by their relationships, both good and bad. Our books are 600-page bricks because we need the room to show those connections, how a tug on a thread here causes the fabric to wrinkle there. And how when change happens, it’s not because one person performed a singular act; it’s because enough threads wove into enough of a net to drag the world in a new direction.
Which sounds very distant and philosophical, but in practice it’s all about the character moments, because those are what we live for (as both writers and readers). There’s violence in our novels — in Labyrinth’s Heart, even war — but what ultimately defeats one of the villains is the severance of connections that have until that point been protecting them. Meanwhile, another person gets saved by the remaking of a connection that’s broken. That’s the damnation or salvation of a lot of our characters: they live or die, find a home or get exiled, achieve their goals or go up in a ball of metaphorical flame, as a consequence of their relationships with the people around them. Not by chance or their own choices alone, but by the bonds they’ve made, or renounced, or failed to form in the first place.
Kind of like our collaboration. We can point to some individual concepts and plot beats and lines where that was definitely Alyc’s doing, or Marie’s . . . but the series as a whole exists because of our friendship, because of the years in which our creative bond has grown and strengthened until it can bear this kind of fruit. Neither of us could have written this trilogy solo — not in the form it has, with all that depth and richness of detail.
When we say “all our patterns are real,” we’re usually talking about the divination that appears in the story. Marie has a deck of blank cards marked up with Sharpie; any time someone in the books lays a pattern, she shuffled and dealt those cards, and whatever we got, we wrote into the text. (Except when our con artist heroine is working with a stacked deck, of course.) But on that deeper level, where pattern isn’t just cards but the connections between things — between people — it’s still true. We came into this series with a set of characters and their relationships, and we built our world and our plot to make those relationships go. They’re the beating heart of the story; pattern is the reflection of that heart.
And did we mention it’s on Kickstarter? We’ve dreamt for years of replacing that Sharpie-marked deck with properly illustrated cards; now, to commemorate the release of Labyrinth’s Heart, we’re trying to make our dream a reality. But the success of a Kickstarter, like the success of a series, isn’t the work of a single person; it involves editors, artists, readers, backers, a whole mass of threads weaving together into a beautiful fabric.
That’s magic, right there.
Labyrinth’s Heart: Amazon US|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop.org|Powell’s|Indigo (Canada)|Amazon (UK)|Waterstones (UK)
Author socials: Website|Twitter|Marie on Mastodon|Alyc on Mastodon|Marie’s Patreon
Close To Home: Eight Green Lilies
Posted on August 15, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 10 Comments
Most of you probably know by now that I’m a bit of a boba tea fanatic. As such, I was excited to hear that a local Bradfordian with a passion for boba was setting up shop right in the middle of my little town. Now, I’m happy to report that Eight Green Lilies has finally opened to the public and is serving up refreshing lemonades and green teas with popping pearls!
Here’s how it works:
After you pick your size, you can choose between lemonade and green tea as the base of your drink (there’s also diet green tea as an option!). Then, you pick which kind of popping boba you want, and finally select the flavor you want your base to be. There’s so many great combinations to try, which is why I ended up ordering four different types.
First, I tried a strawberry lemonade with honey popping pearls:
Despite my obsession with boba, I had never tried popping pearls before, only tapioca pearls. I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t like them, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about! Popping boba is awesome, especially this delicious honey kind. Strawberry was the perfect pick to accompany these sweet bursts of honey.
After totaling demolishing that one, I got another flavor to go. This one was passionfruit green tea with blueberry boba:
Again, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the green tea, but this was super yummy. I’m so glad I took a chance on it because I absolutely loved this drink. Though both bases are light and refreshing, I think I might prefer the green tea.
The next two drinks I got were also green tea based. One was watermelon flavored with pomegranate pearls, and the other was kiwi flavored with dragon fruit pearls. The cool thing about the dragon fruit pearls is that you can see the dragon fruit seeds inside:
Every combination I tried was a hit, but I think next time I go in I’ll have to try the owner’s favorite drink: Half lemonade, half diet green tea with sugar free watermelon flavoring and blueberry popping pearls. Though she also says a first timer can never go wrong with a strawberry lemonade and kiwi boba.
If this kind of boba isn’t exactly your speed, they have plans to expand into milk teas in the future! Plus, they’re looking into serving iced coffee, as well.
Eight Green Lilies also has a unique rewards card system, where you actually keep your punch card in their Rolodex and pull it out when you come in.
This is so helpful to someone like me who has a million reward cards and always forgets to actually bring them with me! Plus, who has room in their wallet to carry around so many loyalty cards?
Not only do they have this brick and mortar location, but they also have a boba truck named Bee’s Boba and More that travels to different community events such as farmer’s markets and local festivals like our very own Bradford Pumpkin Show. Be sure to check out the truck’s Facebook page to see what scheduled events they’ve got coming up, as well as their Bradford location’s page to be up to date with when they are open to the public, as their hours aren’t set in stone yet.
In their Bradford location they also sell some crafty items like tumblers and t-shirts, and I even got some earrings.
The owners have told me a bit about their plans to make their boba shop a truly welcoming place for the community and about some of the events they hope to hold to encourage the community to get together. I for one am excited to see how this business will grow and positively impact the community in the next few months.
I’m also going to make it my mission to try every combination on the menu.
So, be sure to stop by Eight Green Lilies, lounge in some of their comfy seating, try a wild combination, and tip your bobaristas.
Which combo would you try first? Have you tried popping pearls before, and do you like them better than tapioca pearls? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
The Big Idea: Keith Rosson
Posted on August 15, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi
Enough is never enough. This statement rings true when it comes to the power hungry bad guys in Keith Rosson’s new novel, Fever House. But what about when that power they crave comes from a severed hand, and they’ll do anything to get it? Read on to see what all the hand, and novel, entails.
KEITH ROSSON:
My new horror/crime novel, Fever House, opens with a pair of legbreakers – Hutch Holtz and Tim Reed – doing what they do best: terrifying people that are in debt to their boss. Hutch in particular was a holdover from a number of unpublished earlier projects that I just couldn’t get off the ground.
He was, initially, a main character in a crime novel, and a number of short stories, and none of them quite worked. I then realized that I seem constitutionally incapable of writing something of length without putting a ghost or robot or reincarnated medieval executioner in it.) But as a character, Hutch just haunted me. This huge enforcer with a caved-in head, a gunman who once mouthed off to the wrong guys and got his head shut in the door of a Ford passenger van a few times for his trouble. Powerful, but far from impervious.
Most importantly, Hutch, doing what he does, is a character keenly aware of the dynamics of power. He keeps his head down; the thing with the Crooked Wheel Club, the gang that dented his forehead in for him, it’s made him more cautious. He understands that people – like his boss, Peach – ache for power, and will be forever convinced they need more and more of it. Powerful people rarely hit a plateau where it’s enough and all’s good. That’s not how it works.
There are a number of ambitious characters in the book – David Lundy, the head of a black ops agency that’s wheeling out of control, as well as one of his agents, Samantha Weils, who kills the people Lundy tells her to kill – but none of them understand so brazenly and clearly as Hutch that old adage: power corrupts.
If there’s a key tenet to the novel – or, hey, a big idea – it’s that.
Power corrupts.
Transversely, I’ve heard before that fear basically comes down to two pretty basic ideas. One, that I’m not going to get something I deserve, or two, I’m going to have something taken away from me that I already have. When it comes to Fever House, a novel centered around a severed hand that induces uncontrollable madness and violence in anyone in its proximity, well, that’s a lot of potential power and fear there.
There are government agents who steadfastly believe they deserve the hand, deserve access to this totemic, powerful object, and are willing to do whatever they need to do to acquire and utilize it. That, to me, is scarier than any monster, any horror novel. This idea that people with tremendous power and access feel like they have carte blanche to procure and hold onto power, regardless of the casualties and chaos. Regardless of the bodies that stack up.
Everyone’s convinced that they deserve shit, see, to the detriment of others, and a lot of them are willing to step on some shoulders or bust a few heads to get it and then hold onto it.
And then they need more, because that’s how power works. Once you got it, it’s never enough.
So you got people that believe ambition trumps all, regardless of the body count, that wanting something means you deserve it, and then you throw in a severed devil’s hand with supernatural powers? Things start to get interesting.
Fever House: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Books A Million
View From a Hotel Balcony, 8/14/23: Brooklyn
Posted on August 14, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
Fun fact: for all the times that I’ve been in New York City, my hotel room has always been in Manhattan, and I’ve strayed into the other boroughs rarely if at all. That changes tonight: For the first time I’m staying in Brooklyn, and I have to say it’s pretty nice so far. I’m here in town not for a public event but to do a promotional video, the details of which I can’t yet divulge, but will be pretty cool when I can show it to you all. In the meantime: Hello (from) Brooklyn! It’s good to be in you.
— JS
Announcing the Starter Villain Book Tour
Posted on August 14, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 37 Comments
We’re about a month out from the release of Starter Villain, what better time to announce the tour for the book! This year’s itinerary has me revisiting some familiar places as well as going to new cities for the first time. I’m really excited to see everyone out on the road this year.
Here are the dates and stops, and information on how you can get tickets, courtesy of the fine folks at Tor:
Monday, September 18, 2023: Phoenix/Scottsdale
Poisoned Pen
4014 N Goldwater Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ, 85251
7:00 PM
Book Now
Tuesday, September 19, 2023: San Diego
Mysterious Galaxy
3555 Rosecrans St Suite 107, San Diego, CA 92110
7:00 PM
Book Now
Wednesday, September 20, 2023: San Francisco
Bookshop West Portal w/SF&F – American Bookbinders Museum
355 Clementina St., San Francisco, CA 94103
7:00 PM
Book Now
Thursday, September 21, 2023: Wichita
Watermark Books
4701 E Douglas, Wichita, KS 67218
6:00 PM
Book Now
Friday, September 22, 2023: Dallas
Half Price Books
5803 E Northwest Hwy, Dallas, TX 75231
7 PM
Book Now
Saturday, September 23, 2023: Pittsburgh
JCC of greater Pittsburgh, Books sold by Riverstone Books
5738 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15217
4:00 PM
Book Now
Sunday, September 24, 2023: Chapel Hill
Flyleaf Books
752 M.L.K. Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
4:00 PM
Book Now
Monday, September 25, 2023: Cincinnati
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
2692 Madison Road, Cincinnati, OH 45208
7:00 PM
Book Now
Thursday – Saturday, September 28 – 30, 2023: Budapest
Budapest International Book Festival
Millenáris, Budapest, Hungary
More information
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Parnassus Books, part of Southern Festival of Books
3900 Hillsboro Pike #14, Nashville, TN 37215
6:30 PM
Book Now
Some notes:
1. For everyone asking “Why are you not coming to my town?” the short answer is there are only so many towns I can visit in one tour, and the slightly longer answer is that my schedule this time around had to take into account the Budapest International Book Festival, where I am the guest of honor this year, which is actually a pretty big deal for me – I am the first science fiction author to ever be their guest of honor.
That said, I know there are additional events we are looking toward scheduling before the end of 2023, but at this particular time they’re just not at a point where we can make an official confirmation of my presence. So don’t despair (yet), there are more appearance announcements coming for October and November, and possibly even later.
2. You’ll notice the “book now” links appended to each appearance. I would encourage you to click through and look at the details. Some events ask for an RSVP so they’ll know how many chairs to put out; others have ticketing that includes the purchase of the book. However it is done, if you are coming to an event, I very strongly encourage you to get your book from the bookseller who is hosting me; they’ve made the effort to bring me to their store and they are in important part of the local community and deserve your business. You can usually bring other books to have signed as well, and I’ll be happy to do that. But please buy a book at the bookseller while you are there!
3. If I am not coming to your town this time around but want a signed book from me, an easy way to do that is to contact one of the booksellers I am doing an event at, and ask them to sign a book for you and then have them ship it. They usually will be very happy to do so, and this way you won’t miss out on a signature. Everyone is happy!
Any other questions? Put them in the comments. Otherwise: See you on the road soon!
— JS
A Quick Weekend Report
Posted on August 13, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
First, look at the photo above: Would you believe that’s a library? Well, it is: The Library of Congress, where on Friday night, I and a bunch of authors and librarians and other had a nice little soiree prior to the National Book Festival on Saturday. It was a lovely time, and I got many decorating tips. Likewise, the book festival was a bunch of fun: I was in conversation with NPR’s Linda Holmes about The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain, and I did a signing under the clock because they started my signing at 7pm and everything had to wrap up at 8pm. We basically triple-timed everything and got the last book signed with about two minutes to spare.
I’m back home today and then out again Monday, to New York City, where I am doing something currently secret but promising to be lots of fun. Travel is a thing and often tiring, but the results will hopefully be pretty neat. If thing are slow here the next couple of days, now you know why.
How was your weekend?
— JS
View From a Hotel Window, 8/11/23: Washington DC
Posted on August 11, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
And, look, you fans of parking lots will not be disappointed this time!
I am in town for the National Book Festival, which is free and open to the public, and my event is tomorrow afternoon, followed by a signing, so feel free to get a book from the booksellers there or bring one of your own from home. If you’re in or around DC this weekend, hope to see you there!
— JS
IUDs: Anxieties and Realities
Posted on August 10, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 111 Comments
I had only been sixteen for two months when I got my first IUD. Partly because of my age, they recommended me the smallest one, the Skyla. It’s a hormonal IUD that lasts three years. It was the most pain I’d ever experienced. It hurt, and I was alone, and I was glad when it was over because that meant I didn’t have to think about it for three whole years. At the time, that seemed like a long while. But nineteen came soon enough, and I was due to have it removed. The question then became whether I’d get another one put in or not. And then how long should that one last for?
I ended up getting the Kyleena. Like the Skyla, it’s hormonal, but is bigger and lasts five years. I knew what it felt like to have an IUD put in, but I didn’t know what it felt like to get one removed, and I was scared of the unknown. Plus, they were putting the Kyleena in pretty much the second the Skyla came out, and thinking about it too much made me nervous.
For some reason, taking the Skyla out had hurt more than putting it in, and putting in the Kyleena hurt much more than either of the previous things. When I got the Skyla, I walked out ten minutes later and drove home. I had planned to do the same after getting the Kyleena in, but when I stood up after the procedure, nausea washed over me, and my vision went black.
I laid down and tried not to throw up as they started putting cool rags on me and handing me a glass of water. I was shaking, felt ill, and was as pale as a ghost. Once it passed, I drove home, eager to lay down and not move for a really long time.
Now, it’s time to have my Kyleena removed, and I am so terrified. A couple months ago, I scheduled an appointment to talk about options. After discussing everything, it really does just come down to me having to get another one. I don’t want to take a pill everyday, I don’t want a bar lodged in my arm, I need something that lasts a long time, and something I don’t have to think about.
So, the question becomes, do I go for another hormonal one, or a copper one? While Skyla and Kyleena last for three and five years, Mirena lasts for eight. This means it’s bigger than the other two. Paragard, the copper one, lasts for ten. This one is obviously the biggest. Copper also doesn’t come with some of the “perks” that the hormonal ones do.
Hormonal ones have a chance of stopping you from bleeding altogether. In both cases, I have been one of the people that this happens to. Between barely bleeding while fourteen and fifteen, to having my bleeding halted altogether from sixteen to now, I have felt very lucky. But, I also feel unnatural. I feel like not bleeding for almost a decade, especially in my teens and early adulthood, is somehow wrong or bad for me.
While before I felt happy that I didn’t have the same issues as my friends, now I feel disconnected and almost like an outsider to their feminine problems. I’m not saying I wish that I’d had to buy tampons repeatedly over the years, or wish I’d bled through my jeans in public, because obviously I don’t want that, but I do wish I could relate more when a group of friends shares their communal misery.
I feel like there’s something wrong with my body. It’s not doing what it’s “supposed” to be doing. It’s never “that time of the month” for me. What is seen as a universal problem for girls is of no concern to me, and that feels weird, and wrong.
Again, not that I want to bleed, because I really, really don’t. But shouldn’t I be?
So, if I get the copper, I probably will start bleeding. But at this point, I’ve gone most of my life without doing it, so starting seems almost scary? Like, I actively don’t want to start. That’s a big change for my body, and for my life, and I don’t want it.
So, another hormonal it is. But, I’m paranoid that these IUDs have caused problems in me. I had a lot of acne as a teen, and I thought when I was an adult that it would magically go away. It didn’t, and I still have acne. I have tried and tried to fix it, spent so much on skincare and products, and it won’t go away. So I started to wonder if it was hormonal acne. Sure enough, hormonal acne is a side effect of the hormonal IUDs.
So is weight gain, depression, mood swings, anxiety, all that good stuff. Am I saying that my problems are 100% because of my IUD? No, of course not. I eat like shit and everyone my age is depressed, IUD or not, so I’m not saying for sure that my acne and anxiety are caused by it, but I’m also afraid that the hormones aren’t necessarily doing me any favors (other than its intended favor of preventing pregnancy). Of course, I’m not a doctor or scientist, and this is all pretty much just my paranoia talking.
Then again, I only became depressed when I was sixteen and it hasn’t gone away since. Again, I think my depression is more about the state of our world on the brink of collapse than it is about the hormones in my body, but it’s easier to pinpoint blame sometimes.
Side effects aside, I’m so anxious to get this thing removed, and get another one in. I don’t want to go through it again. Twice was more than enough. I’m scared of the pain, I’m scared of something going wrong, I just really don’t want to have to go through any of this, but I do.
And that makes me angry. Why do I, and everyone else that gets an IUD, have to go through this pain? This fear? Why do they not put us out for this? Why is this a fifteen minute ordeal that you’re expected to walk away from with no problems? You want me to have something inserted into my organ and then get up and drive home afterwards? Go back to work afterwards?
They don’t knock you out because it’s considered a “non-invasive” procedure. I’ve had it done twice and let me tell you, it’s pretty damn invasive! They’ll put you out for a colonoscopy because something goes up your ass but not for something going INSIDE of your organ?
No numbing, no meds, just advice to take a Tylenol beforehand? What the fuck is up with that?
I’m also mad that this is a problem that only people with uteruses faces. I don’t see men getting an IUD shoved up their dick to kill their sperm, why is it my job to kill them? Get copper implanted in your nuts to fry those suckers, don’t make my uterus do it.
Case and point provided by this TikTok:
@sunshine.healing.studio
I am so sick of this unfairness that reproductive healthcare faces. I am sick of being told I’m “going to feel some pressure” but that pressure is actually pain, and there is no alleviation for the pain, and that I have to sit there and endure this physical and emotional trauma. I’m sick of being told “have you tried Tylenol?” I’m sick of people thinking that birth control isn’t a big deal. It is. Birth control is painful and complicated and expensive and most of all, one sided. And I hate that. I hate this.
-AMS
RIP, Robbie Robertson
Posted on August 9, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 15 Comments
He’s passed away at the age of 80.
Unlike I think most people who connected with his music, I was never into The Band, either as Bob Dylan’s backing musicians or on their own. I connected with Robertson with his 1987 solo album, and even then it was less about him than it was about Daniel Lanois, who produced the album, and whose music with Peter Gabriel and U2 had impressed me enough that I was willing to take a flyer on a (to me) previously unheard musician. I was not displeased by the choice; the album, Robbie Robertson, was pretty great, with two songs in particular, “Fallen Angel” and “Broken Arrow,” high on my rotation of personal favorites.
It’s interesting to sort of back into someone’s musical career like that; the idea that Robertson was already something of a legend in musical circles even before I came across him and then to simultaneously work backwards and forwards in his discography was an interesting experience. I’m glad I got the chance, and got to learn more about him and music.
— JS
Post-Mortem on Ohio Issue 1
Posted on August 9, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 56 Comments
Image/data from Wikipedia article on Ohio Issue One, map created by “02rufus02” and shared via Creative Commons 4.0 license. Click on image to go to original.
As the nation and possibly the whole world knows by now, Ohio Issue 1, aka the attempt by the Ohio GOP to amend the state constitution so that voter referendums would be come almost impossible to get on the ballot and even harder to pass, was resoundingly defeated, 57% to 43%. Good for Ohio! Nice to see that the individual voters are not that keen on throwing away their right to have their say in the laws and governance of the state, just because a gerrymandered supermajority Republican legislature really really wants to be able to ignore them forever.
I have a few thoughts on this whole exercise, which I will now detail in no particular order.
1. Most obviously (to the people of Ohio, anyway), Issue 1 was about abortion. Which is to say the gerrymandered supermajority Ohio Republican government passed some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country — currently on pause as the lawsuits about them wend their way through the courts — and then wanted to make sure that the actual citizens of Ohio, who the polls tell us are broadly for basic and sensible abortion access, didn’t overturn their poorly designed, overly-restrictive legislation with a voter initiative about abortion access that is, in fact, qualified for the November ballot. Their plan: a poorly-designed, overly-restrictive proposed constitutional amendment that is an effective ban on any voter initiative.
That Issue 1 is mostly about abortion rights isn’t just speculation; Frank LaRose, Ohio’s current Secretary of State, said the quiet part out loud, saying it’s “100%” about that, because the GOP these days can’t actually stop monologuing about their evil plans. That it would also toss out the possible marijuana legalization initiative for November, and possible future initiatives on things like raising the minimum wage or redoing the frankly ridiculous gerrymandering in the state, or anything else, was just the cherry on top. At the end of the day, the Ohio GOP wanted to make sure their broadly unpopular laws telling people with uteruses they had no control over their own bodies were never challenged.
2. And it might have worked, too, if the Ohio GOP hadn’t done what shitty people who want to take away rights always do, which was to almost comically overreach. It wasn’t enough to raise the percentage of votes needed to pass a voter initiative from 50%+1 vote to 60%; the polling in Ohio for abortion rights is about 58%-59% percent for, and that’s too close for comfort.
So in Issue 1 the legislature increased the number of counties that qualified signatures for initiatives had to come from: 88, i.e, all of them, up from the current 44. This means that a single county could effectively veto any voter initiative. They also tossed out the 10-day “curing” period, in which initiative backers who discovered some of their signatures were not qualifying could go back and try to correct that, as is currently happening with the pro-marijuana initiative for the November ballot.
The Ohio GOP might have gotten enough of their own to go for raising the bar from 50%+1 to 60% by itself; you can make a decent structural argument that state constitutions shouldn’t be changed willy-nilly, and that 60% bar would (probably) have served the purpose for the abortion issue, and indeed most other highly partisan issues, since gerrymandered legislature notwithstanding, Ohio is still fairly purplish. But the part about needing every single county to sign off, and tossing out the ability to cure signatures, signaled to even members of the Republican party that the plan here wasn’t to make voter initiatives more difficult to pass, it was to make them almost impossible to get on the ballot at all.
And that cuts both ways. Sure, a small rural county like Putnam (which went 81% “yes” on Issue 1) would reliably put the kibosh on any liberal-ish initiative. But then a large urban county like Cuyahoga (76% “no” on Issue 1) could do the same for conservative-ish initiatives. And the “no cure” bit means you could do nearly everything right in collection and still have it blow up in your face. That marijuana initiative noted above initially failed to qualify for the ballot by less than 700 signatures. I don’t care what side of the political fence you’re on, the idea of not being able to correct an error that small makes it clear this legislature is telling voters they don’t want to have to hear from them no matter what.
One last bit: If Issue 1 had passed, then the voter initiatives that had previously qualified for the November ballot but didn’t meet Issue 1 criteria would be tossed off the ballot. What’s the voter initiative that had previously qualified for the November ballot? Why, the one restoring abortion rights, of course! Just in case you were wondering.
3. The massive overreach of Issue 1 is why, outside of the current GOP office-holders, there was wide bipartisan support against Issue 1; Republican former governors and Secretaries of State joined their counterparts on the Democratic side and said it was a bad idea. That probably helped to get enough Republican voters to stop marching in step with the state leaders: a state that went 53% for Trump in 2020 went 57% against Issue 1, and even someplace like Darke County, where I live and which went 81% for Trump in 2020, only went for Issue 1 by 75%. Yes, that’s still an overwhelming majority of local voters, but that 6% swing on an issue every current GOP legislator wanted ain’t chicken feed.
These days I don’t credit most conservative voters with a whole lot of independence from their marching orders; their informational ecosystem is so rife with strident messaging and blatant disinformation (more on that in a bit) that the energy required to jump out of it is substantial. On Issue 1, most of them still didn’t — look at the results map, you will see the usual urban/rural voter divide — but enough did that the margin of Issue 1’s defeat was higher than it would have been with just Democrats and independents alone.
Basically, the Ohio GOP had to go out of their way to lose some traditionally GOP voters, and managed to do just that.
4. Another tactical error the Ohio GOP made for Issue 1 was the August special vote. For those who did not know, the Ohio GOP had recently legislated August special elections out of existence, because they were expensive to run and because they traditionally had such low voter turnout that they were questionable exercises from a small “d” democratic point of view. And you know what? I don’t necessarily disagree with them on this point! August votes are often a mess and they typically get dodgy results because mostly people don’t show up to vote!
So what message does it send when the same legislature that voted August elections out of existence takes a ballot issue they’ve designed to fundamentally break how voter initiatives have worked in Ohio for more than a century, and schedule the vote for it in August? The message, more or less: Suck it, Ohio voters, we’re slipping this one past you, ha ha hah ha ha.
But it didn’t work! One, the very act of scheduling an August vote when August voted had so recently been legislated out of existence was a huge damn red flag — it actually was taken to court, where the entirely ridiculous Ohio Supreme Court allowed it on the reasoning of, basically, “it’s different when legislatures do it.” Two, literally the only thing on most voter ballots in Ohio this August was Issue 1, which meant, to the extent there was any voter discussion going on this summer here in Ohio, it was about this singular issue. Three, when the GOP realized that they weren’t just going to be able to slip this one past the voters, they had to start doing messaging about it, which made it even more visible, and of course those opposing Issue 1 did a whole bunch of messaging of their own.
As a result, this August more than three million Ohio voters went to the polls or voted early, more than 38% of all registered voters. By contrast, in the August 2022 special primary, barely 8% of voters showed up to cast a ballot. Issue 1 didn’t slip past voters, it energized them instead, and the August election strategy blew up in the GOP’s face. Which, you know, good.
(Interesting note: While the “no” vote carried the early/mail-in ballots by a substantial margin, apparently it also carried the in-person voting too, albeit by a narrower margin. No matter how Ohio voters cast their ballots, “no” carried the day.)
5. The Ohio GOP is already blaming the Issue 1 loss on “dark money” flowing into the state to oppose it, which is some delightful bullshit when you know that largest single contributor to the Issue 1 fight on either side was Illinois resident and noted conservative Richard Uihlein, who contributed $4 million of his own money for the “Yes on 1” effort, and another $6 million came from “Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America,” a DC-based anti-abortion group. The New York Times reported that 80% of the money spent on fighting Issue 1 came from out of state, and that the amounts were roughly equal on both sides.
The GOP blaming of outside money for the defeat of Issue 1, while conveniently ignoring the outside money that flooded in to get it passed, is par for the course for the Ohio GOP, which used all sorts of deceptive messaging to plump for their hobby horse. Here in Darke county, the “Yes on 1” signs had taglines on them like “preserve our constitution” (when in fact Issue 1 was designed to radically change it) and “protect the 2nd Amendment” (which is not in the Ohio state constitution, and is in no danger in Ohio in any event, as we sure do love our guns). The radio ads were worse.
The blatant dishonesty of the GOP and conservative messaging on Issue 1 is par for the course with their political messaging elsewhere, and it reminds me of two things: The absolute contempt the GOP has for their voters, in that they don’t feel like their voters need or deserve anything close to the truth; and how extremely well-trained GOP voters have become to reject the truth when it is inconvenient for their personal political preferences. As noted before, this particular time, the GOP disinformation regime didn’t work as well as it usually does, and some portion of the usual GOP voters didn’t swallow the bullshit. This will not teach the GOP to back off on the bullshit. It will teach them to shove the bullshit even harder the next time.
In any event, if the GOP wants to whine about “outside dark money” coming into the state to defeat them, they can take it up with the conservative US Supreme Court who, per Citizens United, said all that money flooding the political zone was a-ok by them. Funny how conservative political decisions often come back to bite conservatives on the ass.
6. Most everyone agrees that Issue 1 was a proxy battle about abortion rights, and with Issue 1 defeated, an abortion voter initiative is on the ballot for November (that is, if the current incredibly cynical lawsuit attempting to have it thrown off the ballot is not successful). Polling shows most Ohioans want some sort of abortion access, so is this new voter initiative now a shoo-in to pass?
The short answer: No. The longer answer: Oh, hell, no. If you think the nonsense messaging and outside money around Issue 1 was ridiculous, wait until the noise machine around abortion access gets up and running. It’s gonna make Issue 1 look like a hugfest. The vote on abortion here in Ohio is likely to be close, and depending on how energized voters are (and which voters are not energized), it could go either way. What will matter is who shows up to vote, and a lot of that will depend on who shows up to message. I guarantee you, the GOP is gonna show up to message.
7. Which brings me to this point: My personal observation about Democrats and liberals is that many seem to vote to “solve” things, and once they think things are “solved” they let their attention wander off to whatever else it is they are doing. Many republicans and conservatives, on the other hand, seem to vote to “push” things in the direction they want them to go. They are in it for the long term. If as a voter you’re a “pusher” rather than a “solver,” you show up for every damn vote. And they do! Which is why the Ohio GOP scheduled Issue 1 for an August vote in the first place.
I would very much like these particular Democrats and liberals to stop voting to solve things. Nothing is solved if you go “well, my job here is done” and walk off while your political opponents are already planning to hamstring you as you step away. I would like them to start voting to push things, which means showing up to every single voting opportunity and casting their vote.
I mean, for starters; otherwise staying engaged in the political process outside the voting booth matters too. But also, yes, please, fucking vote every time. Don’t just vote in the presidential elections. Vote in the off years. Vote in the off-off years. Vote in the off-months in the off-off years, like in the August of 2023. It matters. Every single time, it matters.
And on that note: See you in November, Ohio.
— JS
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying