Whatever

On the Depressing Doings of Trillion Dollar Companies, January 2025 Edition

Posted on January 8, 2025    Posted by John Scalzi      27 Comments

There’s a lot of a to-do about Mark Zuckerberg announcing that moderation teams on Meta’s social media properties are being largely phased out and replaced by a system similar to X’s “community notes,” and that Meta will now basically allow people to be particularly awful to LGBTQ+ folks. As one result, lots of people I know are thinking about leaving Facebook/Threads/Instagram (many of them presumably for Bluesky); I saw several posts on the subject, one after the other, on my Facebook feed today.

So I wrote a post on Facebook about my current thoughts about remaining on that service, and I’m posting them here for archive purposes, and because I think the general discussion might be interesting for the folks here. After this bit, I’ll add an additional bit about companies lining up to kiss Trump’s tuchus.

No, I’m not leaving Facebook, but then I’m also not under the impression that Meta’s recent moderation choices represent a heel turn. I think people sometimes forget that until Elon Musk’s ketamine-fueled narcissism took up all the oxygen in the social media room, Zuckerberg was understood to be a bloodless sociopath who didn’t particularly care if (for example) Facebook was used as a tool to engender a genocide in southeast Asia, until or unless it messed with his business in general.

They made a whole movie about Zuck being a bloodless sociopath! It won awards and shit! The latest turn of events with Meta is more about a return to form for the organization than anything else, and the company’s shareholders are probably happy not to have the expense of moderators anymore.

It’s trite and simplistic to say that we’re all complicit under capitalism, but it is true enough to say that nearly every choice we make comes with shit attached, and sometimes what we get to decide is what flavor of shit we’re willing to swallow and how much of it we want to stuff down. We all make the decisions that make sense to us and that (generally) align with our sense of being, and use the tools we have in front of us in ways that we find acceptable.

In my case I use Facebook because there are lots of people here I don’t imagine will relocate elsewhere, because this is the tech they know and are comfortable with, and anything else has a learning curve don’t want (and in some cases, should not be expected) to engage with, and because I’ve actively designed the way I use Facebook so that many of its worst aspects – most notably shitty people/bots divebombing into one’s feed and/or comments – are things I can mostly avoid. Plus, it’s the one place online where I don’t actively talk politics, and especially these days I kind of really need that sort of oasis.

Does it make one a hypocrite to use Facebook, but not (as examples) X or Substack, inasmuch as all have substantial and substantially overlapping ethical issues? It’s possible! But then very few things are on a straight line. I find Elon Musk personally odious and most people I followed on X were other places I could find them, so leaving X was something I did. I don’t use Substack, and what it’s used for is already covered by my blog, so not using Substack is not exactly a trial for me where it might be for others. The multi-dimensional plot of “stay here but leave this other place” is, uhhhh, multidimensional. Facebook has shit attached to it. For now, what I get out of it is worth that shit.

Somewhat tangentially related to this, a bunch of folks in my circles are incensed that companies like Apple, Meta, Amazon and Open AI have donated seven figures to the Trump Inauguration committee, likening this — not unreasonably! — to the leaders of these companies puckering up to the once-and-future president. They are not wrong, and I am not here to try to excuse or mitigate just piling cash over to the Trumps. What I will say is that $1 million is extremely cheap for these trillion dollar companies (and Open AI, valued at a “mere” $150 billion) to stay on the good side of a vain, petty, criminal and vengeful rage monster in the early days of an administration that will be picking targets early and often.

It’s the opening set of bribes to a corrupt regime, in other words, and as such, they offer good value for money, if what happens is these companies are now at the front line for advantages in a newly-lax regulatory environment, or (in the worst case scenario), simply ignored to do their own thing. Welcome to the new economic and political realities of 2025. It’s not pretty, but it is realpolitik as fuck.

— JS

What I Have Eligible for Award Consideration This Year, 2025 Edition

Posted on January 7, 2025    Posted by John Scalzi      8 Comments

It’s Constituent Service, which is eligible in the Best Novella category, and, via Amber Benson’s terrific narration performance, in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category as well. Constituent Service is currently still an Audible exclusive, so you will need an Audible account to listen to it, but if you are indeed an Audible subscriber, it’s part of the Audible Plus service, which means it comes at no additional cost to you. So there you have it.

And that’s it for this year! This time next year I will have several things for you to consider, including two novels. But that’s then. For now, it’s Constituent Service. If you listened to it and liked it, give it some thought when you’re nominating.

(Also, in a general sense: Hey, did you know that Audible is one of the largest publishers of original novella-length fiction, including in science fiction and fantasy? If you did not, you should check it out, there’s some good stuff there, and stuff worth your consideration when it comes time to fill out your award ballots. If you’re wondering how to figure out what’s novella length by run times, from personal experience as a writer, if what you’re listening to comes in at four hours or less, it’s likely novella length.)

— JS

Today’s Expensive Cat

Posted on January 6, 2025    Posted by John Scalzi      57 Comments

On Saturday Smudge suddenly gave every indication of developing a urinary blockage, and several phone calls and one trip to an emergency vet clinic later, it was confirmed that, indeed, Smudge had gotten himself blocked (he does have a regular vet; they were booked up). Thus began, for him, a weekend of procedures and medication to clear him up and get him ready to come back home, and for me, a weekend of giving my credit card a workout paying for all of it. Turns out emergency treatment for male cat urinary blockage is not cheap! Avoid if you can!

Smudge is back home now, still doped up a bit and smelling a bit pee-y, although both will be fixed soon. He also now has prescription food which we are allowed to and thus will feed to the other cats as well, since while they are female cats and less prone to blockages, they are also older (and thus may be more susceptible for that reason), so it all evens out. We’ll see how they’ll take to it.

In any event, his prognosis is good — he’s otherwise an active and happy cat — and we were fortunate that we caught the problem early before other problems could crop up. But it was one reason why I got not a whole lot of writing done over the last couple of days. Time to play catch up now.

— JS

Some Announcements about Scalzi Enterprises and Whatever

Posted on January 5, 2025    Posted by John Scalzi      37 Comments

Tomorrow, January 6, 2025, marks the beginning of the first full business week of the year, and with it, Scalzi Enterprises also begins its public incarnation as a full-time family business. Krissy, as you probably know by now, is the CEO and will handle the financial and executive responsibilities of the company. I am the chairman and Chief Creative Officer, and I will be thinking of interesting projects and concepts that are outside of the scope of my existing contracts to create in-house or in conjunction with others. Athena is our Director of Development; she’ll be working with me on the above-mentioned projects to get them from idea to completion, developing her own projects, and looking at new ways to work with the intellectual properties we already have.

Most immediately, that means Whatever. Athena has been writing here for a number of years, first as an intern and then as staff, and she’s also been the one to handle most of the Big Idea features that have run here in the last couple of years. As she’s written here, she’s organically developed her own “beats,” as it were, with a particular emphasis on reviewing food and media. When we started talking about Scalzi Enterprises as a serious company, we also talked about how Whatever was going to fit in with it — what Whatever can do and be to support what we’re doing with our business without sacrificing the character of the site, i.e., the “Whatever-ness” of it all.

Having worked on Whatever for a few years now, Athena has some definite ideas for what we should do with Whatever, ideas that I liked and agreed with. The more we discussed it over the last couple of years, the more it became clear to me that Athena was the right Scalzi to take over most of the day-to-day administration and development of Whatever and to build it out into its next stage of, again, whatever it is. So, as of January 6, 2025, Athena is in charge of the operation of Whatever, and is officially its editor-in-chief. I remain as proprietor, publisher and contributor. This change is already reflected in the site’s masthead.

How will Whatever change? Gradually. I will be continuing to post here, roughly as much as I have before, and on the same subjects (i.e., whatever I’ve felt like). Athena, who has already been writing here, is likely to be writing more frequently. There is going to be some professionalization of our backend — which means that in the reasonably near future queries for Big Ideas and other stuff, will be directed to their own email address instead of mine, and that we might otherwise rejigger and streamline things to operate less haphazardly. We might actually, after about a decade with the same look, go for a visual and navigational refresh that suits our long-term goals. It won’t all happen tomorrow, because it doesn’t need to happen tomorrow. But when we want it to happen, it will.

(One thing that is not going to change: Whatever doesn’t run outside ads and as proprietor I don’t intend for it to do so moving forward. The site doesn’t need advertising revenue to exist, and also it justifies the expense of running it by being marketing and advertising for me, and now also for Scalzi Enterprises.)

I am happy that Athena is stepping up to officially run Whatever, and also relieved. For the length of my professional life, I’ve never not been busy, but the last few years have been exceptionally busy, and now with Scalzi Enterprises kicking into a higher gear, I’m about to be busier still. Having Athena running the shop, as it were, means it can continue to be a place people want to spend time at and be a part of. It’s the best case scenario for the site. I’m looking forward to where Whatever goes from here.

— JS

The Return of the Prodigal Phone

Posted on January 3, 2025    Posted by John Scalzi      25 Comments

Someone, and I am not saying who, may have dropped his phone in a manner that rather spectacularly shattered his screen into a jillion pieces (and also apparently jostled the camera module in a ruinous way), necessitating the need to send the phone off to be repaired. Those roughly two-and-half weeks without the phone were a trial, to be sure, ameliorated by the fact that this person didn’t go anywhere over the holidays, and also had a four-year-old backup phone he could shove the SIM card into to still receive texts and phone calls and take occasional pictures of cats.

But now our long national nightmare is over and the phone has returned, none the worse for wear, which suggests to this person that the repair place might have looked at the phone, said, “yeah, we’re not fixing that,” and just sent along a new phone with the same specs. Either way, this person promises to be more careful with the phone from now on, and has already put a case on it.

Please take care of your phones, people. You may not have a four-year-old backup phone on you to get through such awful travails.

— JS

Catch an Excerpt of “When the Moon Hits Your Eye” on Polygon

Posted on January 2, 2025    Posted by John Scalzi      28 Comments

You don’t have to, of course; I know some people prefer to go into books without any major hints or spoilers to the plot. But if that’s not you, here’s an excerpt from Chapter Two in the book (why Chapter Two? because it lends itself to excerpt-y-ness more than Chapter One).

In other news, 82 days until this book is released into the world! Prepare yourselves accordingly!

— JS

20 Years of Old Man’s War

Posted on January 1, 2025    Posted by John Scalzi      64 Comments

In retrospect, Tor Books officially releasing Old Man’s War on January 1, 2005, doesn’t seem like a huge vote of confidence in the novel. One, the holiday season is over and all the spending has been done save for a stray, occasional gift card. Two, even if one wanted to buy Old Man’s War on its official release date, most bookstores were closed for the national holiday, and this being 2005, there were no (legitimate) ebook versions to be had and even the non-legit versions (optically scanned in page by page) were not yet easy to find. Third, January 1, 2005 was a Saturday, and nearly all traditionally published books in the United States are published on Tuesdays. Getting published on a Saturday is basically being shoved into a locker. Really, if you wanted to bury a book, you’d release it like Old Man’s War got its release, 20 years ago today.

The thing is, there’s a difference between the official release date, and what actually happened. What actually happened was that in the real world no one worried about the official release date for a debut novel by a guy that no one had heard about, so Old Man’s War was shipped out and on bookshelves in December of 2004. The Whatever archives tell us the first bookstore sighting of it happened on December 13, 2004, and it was available for sale on numerous online sites around the same time. The first printing of Old Man’s War was 3,700 copies; it’s likely that all the copies from that printing were out in stores (or claimed by libraries) well before the “official” release date. I knew this at the time, and could see that it was selling, so I wasn’t worried about the book being shoved into a locker with its official release date. In terms of Old Man’s War finding its way out into the world, January 1, 2005 was more of a bookkeeping exercise than a practical release date.

But as it turned out, it was a pretty useful bookkeeping exercise. Having the official release date on January 1, 2005 means that the book had literally an entire year to exist for the purposes of awards consideration and “best of” lists, and to be a “new” book that people were talking about in the context of that publishing year. This fact came in handy when the first printing of 3,700 copies sold out so quickly and unexpectedly that less than three weeks after the official release date there there were no copies of the book to be found at all; Tor had to rush a second printing to cover the gap. I was unamused at the time — I wanted people to find my book! — but we had the calendar year on our side. The printing hiccup turned out to be just that, a hiccup.

(The velocity of the early sales leading to an availability drought also signaled to Tor higher-ups that there was something about OMW that they wanted to pay attention to. This is why OMW, unusually for the time, received a trade paperback release before a mass-market paperback release. It was in that trade paperback release where OMW sales really started taking off. I’m obviously delighted that Tor decided to give OMW that second launch. I think they’re pretty happy about it, too.)

I’ve said before that nobody knows if Old Man’s War would have been as successful as it has been if it had been officially published in 2004, or in 2006, because the context in which OMW was placed was just as important as what was in the book. Certainly in the case of the Hugo awards, it would not have made the splash it had were it published in 2004. The 2005 Worldcon was in Glasgow that year and all the Hugo Best Novel finalists were from the UK, and it’s unlikely my book would have changed that calculus. I also would have been unlikely to win the Campbell (now Astounding) Award that year; Elizabeth Bear had that one locked up (not for nothing, her Hammered series of books beat out Old Man’s War for Best First Novel). OMW being a finalist for Best Novel in 2006 absolutely helped to change the trajectory of my career in science fiction. That was made possible by the 1/1/2005 official release date.

Less about the official calendar year and more about the era, and from the perspective of two decades, I think I may have been one of the last science fiction writers, if not the last, to materially benefit from being directly compared to Robert Heinlein, which indeed I was, and which made absolute sense, since even I describe Old Man’s War as “Starship Troopers with old people.” Probably the most significant early review of OMW was the one in Publishers Weekly which made the lineage explicit in its review: “Though a lot of SF writers are more or less efficiently continuing the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein, Scalzi’s astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master,” was the opening line (the rest was also a rave, of the sort that caused Patrick Nielsen Hayden, my editor, to quip, “I need a cigarette”).

Being “the next Heinlein” was both a blessing and a curse to be laid upon any writer — it could help with sales, as it certainly did with me, but also corralled one into the legacy of someone who was not you, and who you might eventually decide you don’t want to be. It’s the science fiction writer equivalent of being called “Beatlesque.” But as it turned out, 2005 was the outer frontier of the era in which the “canon” of science fiction writers was generally agreed upon, both by fans and by writers — and in a larger sense, the frontier of SFF being the purview of a mostly white, mostly male, mostly straight (or at least, straight-advantaged) cohort. The last two decades have seen an upheaval of that worldview, and a vast overall change in who writes, edits and reads speculative fiction generally.

Nowadays, being the “Next Heinlein” is still like being “Beatlesque” — but what both mean in a larger commercial and cultural context has changed. Whether one likes that or not is, of course, up to one’s personal taste, and the good news is, you can still find people offering both. But in a larger sense, trying to demand that pop culture should keep only one’s idols at the top is like trying to hold back the tide. Times change, people change, influences change, and everyone moves down the cultural road whether they like it or not. Some slower than others, but, look: Nirvana is now classic rock, there are Emo-themed cruises, and Katy Perry is someone moms listen to, not the kids. As Abe Simpson once told us, it’ll happen to you too.

Which brings us back to Old Man’s War. Twenty years on, is there still a place for it in science fiction? Naturally I can’t be neutral about this — I wrote the thing, and I have a vested interest in it still being relevant — but it seems that there is. For one thing, it just keeps selling; year in and year out, it pretty much sells the same number of books over and over again. For another thing, it’s a book that publicity people now use as a “comp” for newer books — “A book in the tradition of Starship Troopers, The Forever War and Old Man’s War” is something I’ve seen on a publicity sheet more than once — which means that there is the expectation that booksellers and journalists and readers know of the book. For a third thing, people keep asking for more in the series, which, incidentally, they will be getting this year. It and its series continues to earn its keep in the field.

(Also, it is a book that was written nearly a quarter century ago by a second-time novelist in his early 30s, and it is not immune to the world shifting around it. There are parts of the book that have aged less well than others, and, well, that’s life. If you as a writer think what you’re writing is timeless, the world will hold many surprises for you. The good news is, I’m still alive and still writing, so the newer books — including hopefully the next book in the OMW series — will reflect the world in which they are released. And then they, too, will age! Accept it! It’s a thing!)

(There’s also a species of dude who will tell you that Old Man’s War is the only good novel I ever wrote (“and it’s just okay” ), but then I went all “woke,” and I am old enough to remember when that was called “political correctness” or “being a social justice warrior” or “virtue signaling.” To which, oh, honey. If you say so.)

Old Man’s War’s continued success has also helps me continue to have a place in science fiction. As the cover to the latest edition of the book rather grandly proclaims, it is indeed the book “that started it all” — the book that allowed me to write more books, to get to the point where I am a full-time novelist, to write the books that aren’t in the Old Man’s War series, as well as the ones that are, to make friends and to see the world and to arrive at a place where I know that I get to do this for the rest of my working life, however long that may be. Which is awesome, since in fact this is what I want to do. It’s nice when it works out this way.

It’s also allowed me the strange and delightful experience of having a successful career long enough now — 20 years! Exactly! — to see all the transitions one gets to have in the field, from debut author to established presence to influence on other writers, which, incidentally, is really fucking weird. I have writers in their 30s telling me they read Old Man’s War in high school and it made them want to be an author, which, cool, but also, do you want me to turn to dust right in front of you. And then there’s a recent write-up of When the Moon Hits Your Eye over at Goodreads, which declared Moon one of the most anticipated books of 2025, which is great, and also described me as an “elder statesman” of the genre, which, I mean, I’m 55, okay? I’m fine not being the hot young thing anymore, but let me enjoy middle age a bit before hustling me off to senior status. I have ten more years before that! Let me have them!

All of which is to say that I continue to be grateful for everything Old Man’s War has allowed me to have and to be. It fundamentally changed my life, twenty years ago today. I look forward to seeing what it affords me in the next twenty years, and, with all luck, beyond that.

— JS

2024, 2025

Posted on December 31, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      25 Comments

So what happened for and/or to me in 2024?

* Visited Iceland, Norway, Brazil, Scotland and France, the first three of which were first time experiences for me;

* Was nominated for the Hugo and Locus awards and was given the Dragon, Seiun and Skylark awards;

* Starter Villain went back into the bestseller lists for its paperback release and I had a book tour for it, which is the first time I’ve done a tour for a paperback;

* My audio novella Constituent Service was also a bestseller (and a lot of fun to write);

* I finished a novel (and have nearly finished a second, which I will get back to the second I’m done writing this), and that novel has gotten some very good reviews in the trades in advance of its release next March;

* From my very own yard I saw an eclipse, a comet and the northern lights (although, to be clear, not all at the same time);

* I released three EPs of original music and purchased a clearly inadvisable number of guitars;

* Made some new friends and renewed friendships with others, which is always a wonderful thing.

Plus Krissy officially retired from her old job to go full time as CEO of Scalzi Enterprises, and Athena also came on as a full-time employee with the company, so that was exciting and nervous-making in a good way. We have a real family business going now.

Oh, and I got a contract extension that means I will be paid (well) for writing novels until I’m 70 at least.

All of this was good-to-great news. I can’t say 2024 was a bad year for me personally.

Which is not to say that 2024 was all wonderfulness. The US really fucked up its last election and is letting a vengeful felon back into the White House, which will not be good in any way for anyone anywhere, Europe and the Middle East are (to put it extremely mildly) on fire, and billionaires, particularly the tech ones, have stopped pretending they’re anything but thin-skinned fascist weirdos. So that’s not great.

On a personal level, I had a couple friends become highly public cautionary tales, which made me both sad and angry. I also, bluntly, experienced more exhaustion and enervation in 2024 than in any year since 2020. Some of it I did to myself (I may have overdone it on the travel, especially in the last quarter of the year), and some of it is just the times; weird how I find these recent election years so stressful. I’ve felt more scattered than I have in a long time; focus has been a real issue for me this year. I know I’m not alone there, but being in good company doesn’t make things better, exactly.

I’ll be talking more about 2025 in the new year, but for now, I will say that my expectation is that it will be, in a word, chaotic. That expectation will be coloring my own plans and resolutions for the new year, although that doesn’t necessarily mean those plans or resolutions are in themselves pessimistic. Indeed, I think my resolutions will be beneficial. Some of them are:

1. Renew my commitment to my own personal health and fitness, because the next few years will not be ones in which to rely on the US heath care system;

2. Spend more time on friendships and community, and both be looking out for friends, and letting friends look out for me;

3. Cut back on new spending to focus on enjoying what I already have. So, as just one example, I’m not buying any additional guitars in 2025. I have enough, and 2025 will be a fine year to use the ones I have in recordings;

4. Somewhat related, prioritize enrichment over doomscrolling, because I think in the next few years I would rather read a book or write a song than “entertain” myself with social media’s outrage du jour;

5. Engage with the fights that need fighting in ways that work for me now. There are lots of topics I care about and ever more limited time and energy to engage with them, and in 2025, in addition to my own projects, we’re going to be working to get Scalzi Enterprises up to speed. How to engage in important things and still have time and energy for all the things I want and need to do? Turns out, in my particular case, there’s a solution: I have money! In 2024, I argued less and donated more, and it turns out that is a combination that’s working for me. I plan to do more of that in 2025, both personally and via the Scalzi Family Foundation.

There are more but that’s enough for now. Suffice to say 2025 is going to be a year of adjustments and changes, for good and ill, for all of us. Figuring out how to roll with them (or not!) will be the key.

And so here we go, into 2025. I will see you over there. Let’s see what we can do with it.

— JS

Acquiring My Work: A Primer

Posted on December 30, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      39 Comments

Several times a month I get an email or social media message from someone who wants to know what the “best” way to buy my work is so that I, the writer, get as much of their money as possible. I think this is lovely! Thank you for thinking about me, and also, in a larger sense, about writers in general. It does warm my heart to know you want authors to get the most from what you pay for their work.

Rather than answering this individually over and over again, I have decided to (finally) post a primer about it so I have something to point people to when they ask. This primer is for my work in particular; check with other authors for their opinions about this stuff.

Short version: As long as you’re buying the book new, it genuinely doesn’t matter to me where you get it or in what format. Buy it however you want to buy it, from whomever you wish to buy it from. I’m going to get paid enough. I also get paid a bit from library borrows, so that’s great too. Thank you!

Longer version: Here’s how it works. If you buy a print version of the book, I get paid a percentage based off the published list price of book. If you buy an ebook or audiobook version, I get paid a percentage of the publisher net for the book. In each case, the amount I get comes out to roughly the same money, regardless of where you get it. There are variations – hardcover price versus paperback prices, ebook sale prices, whether the book or audiobook is being offered as part of a subscription service, etc – but at the end of the day money is coming back to me and I am getting paid sufficiently.

I have an agent and a lawyer and a manager, all with years of experience in their specific fields, and every contract I sign for anything I do is looked over extensively. If we don’t think a deal is fair to me, or does not offer some substantive advantage for me, I don’t enter into the deal. If you’re buying my work new from a legitimate venue of business, it’s there because as a contractual matter I am getting value from it.

(NB: I do not individually approve every venue that sells my work – it’s possible a venue you disapprove of has my work for sale. Don’t buy from that venue. Buy it elsewhere.)

As I am generally published traditionally, when you pay for my book, the bookstore and the publisher usually get a larger share of the money you pay than I do. But! The publisher pays for every material aspect of the book production, plus the marketing, distribution and warehousing, and pays editors, artists, publicists and others who work on the book on my behalf. Bookstores stock the books, pay people to sell them and generally support authors and the local community.

In both cases, what they do for me is beneficial and I am happy to share what you pay for the books with them. I do not want to do the work they do for me. They are not taking advantage of me, nor are they mere “middle men.” They are doing me a service. They deserve to get paid for that service, and I am paid enough to be happy.

Libraries: If you borrow my book from a public/school library, I get paid for that, too. Libraries buy the books they shelve, and the more requests they get for the book, the more copies they buy, and as the copies wear out, they will often replace them. In some countries (not the US, alas), authors also get a small sum when their books are checked out from libraries. Moreover, libraries are a public good, and the more you use them, the better they can justify their existence.

Never feel bad about checking out a book of mine from a library, especially if, for whatever reason, you can’t afford a copy of your own. Borrowing from a library is my preferred way for you to get my books when you can’t or won’t pay for them.

Secondhand: If you buy a book of mine secondhand or from a collector’s market, I generally don’t get paid for those. If it’s important for you that I’m paid, buy new. I do generally have new signed copies of my work available through my local bookstore Jay and Mary’s Book Center in Troy, Ohio (call and ask), and when new books of mine come out I frequently offer signed editions for those, through Subterranean Press or individual retailers. I also sign books when I’m on tour or when I do appearances. There are lots of way to get new signed books from me.

That said, I don’t mind if you buy books of mine secondhand, as it generally still supports the bookstore owners and the communities they serve. It’s fine.

Pirating: If you otherwise have access to my work through a library or bookstore, I prefer you don’t pirate my work online. Go to those places first, please, and once again, let me emphasize that supporting libraries is beneficial to you and to them.

While I prefer you take advantage of the above options, here are examples of when pirating my work is reasonable to me:
a) if the books of mine are out of print and they may be difficult or impossible to find otherwise;
b) you live in a country or place where my books are not available and you have no reasonable way to legally acquire them;
c) your own personal circumstances are such that it might be unsafe for you to legally acquire my work.

In each of those cases, do what you have to do, it’s fine.

I understand that some of you will choose to pirate even if you have the means to pay for the work, or have access to a library. I’m not particularly interested in your reasons why.

In all cases, if you acquire a pirated work of mine and later decide you want to make it up to me — this has actually happened — you don’t need to send me money directly. You can buy a book of mine for yourself or someone else instead, or buy a book (not necessarily mine) for a kid you know, or donate to a literacy charity in your country. In the United States, I like First Book, Reading is Fundamental, and the Imagination Library, or you can find a literacy organization local to you.

Finally, let me note that when you’ve paid me for a book of mine, in whatever format, it’s my opinion that you own that book and however you choose to secure that ownership is your business.

Happy buying and happy reading!

— JS

A Winter Walk, 12/28/24

Posted on December 28, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      11 Comments

There’s a local nature preserve nearby and Charlie looks forward to her walks there; when doesn’t get one for whatever reason she gets mopey. Today was not a mopey day. Weather here has been unseasonably warm (it’s currently 54 degrees), but it’s going to dip again with the turn of the year, so she might as well enjoy it while she can. And so should we.

— JS

New Books and ARCs, 12/27/24

Posted on December 27, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      20 Comments

And now, the last stack of New Books and ARCs of 2024, featuring quite a few snazzy limited editions by the always fabulous Subterranean Press. What here would you like to take into the new year?

— JS

Happy Bach Sing Day

Posted on December 26, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      9 Comments

I know. But look, I like a good pun, and also, some really bad ones.

— JS

Happy Charliemas

Posted on December 25, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      12 Comments

We here in the Scalzi household don’t typically give too many gifts to each other at Christmas — we have enough stuff — although we’re happy to give them to others, because it’s fun and shows an appreciation for having them in your life. One of the people that we give gifts to is Charlie the dog, who, although she doesn’t know it’s Christmas today (or what Christmas is in any meaningful sense), is nevertheless excited to get presents, especially when they’re big knuckles of bone that she can work on for several weeks. She was flummoxed by the wrapping, however, and eventually looked over to Krissy with a “help a pal out, here” look. Krissy helped and the big damn bone was carried off in triumph.

If you celebrated Christmas today, I hope it gave you the same amount of joy that Charlie felt, carrying off her Christmas bone.

— JS

Christmas Eve at the Old Church

Posted on December 24, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      14 Comments

We had family over to the church for Christmas Eve, and it was a evening of food and togetherness and very large inflatable snowmen possibly menacing a very small Santa and his eight electrified reindeer. It’s fun to have your own church sometimes.

I hope you’re having a lovely evening and that tomorrow is equally lovely, especially if Christmas is your holiday. Tomorrow evening also begins Hanukkah, so if that’s your thing, I hope it is also lovely. And if you have planned for tomorrow is to have it be a Wednesday, I hope that’s pretty great for you too.

— JS

Happy Birthday, Athena

Posted on December 23, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      35 Comments

Another year, another instance of Krissy and I waking up our daughter with a cake on her birthday. It’s nice to have little traditions like this. This is also where I reiterate that my kid is the best and that I’m really glad I get to be her dad. That, too, is tradition.

I believe that most of you know that Athena is now a full-time employee of Scalzi Enterprises. We have some pretty interesting plans, and we’ll get into that more when the year clicks over. For now, we’re going to enjoy her birthday, and the holiday season.

Happy birthday, Athena. I love you.

— JS

Sunset, 12/22/24

Posted on December 22, 2024    Posted by John Scalzi      4 Comments

As the year winds down, at least we’re getting some good sunsets to see us off.

— JS