A Dead Man Speaks
Posted on January 21, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 15 Comments
Joe Loong — the real one — reacts to Joe Loong — the fake one — getting all killed-like in The Last Colony. Yes, the character is named after him. It’s fun to brutally murder your pals! In fiction, that is. Feel I should put that last part in for liability purposes.
Hey, at least he took it in good humor, and gave your book a positive reaction anyway.
Killing your friends for fun and profit!
A fine, longstanding tradition. IIRC, in David Weber fan circles, it’s referred to as a “red shirt award.”
If you’re ever inclined to do any kind of charity fund raising activity – in all seriousness – consider putting the privilige up on eBay. Highest bidder gets to die gruesomely in your next story. It’s a fan favorite.
Hmm, there’s this charity auction I’m supposed to run in a few months…and it really is a worthy cause….
Tuckerization can be quite costly depending on the popularity of the artist.
Oooh ooh! Can I be Tor’s Joe Buckley. He has been killed a zillion times by Baen authors. It started as a joke and now grown beyond imagine. I will even create a Tor snippet site :) Hell wanted to do that anyways. (any way to get access to books early! :))
Oh.. and notice that that picture of him was a library book. John. He didn’t die hard enough :)
I must say, he’s taking it well.
You know he’s a good pal, when you can kill him – and he doesn’t take it personally. And at least you asked first, that’s class.
Well, heck, I got killed off by you, too, albeit “offstage”…as noted in the appendix to The Sagan Diary, I fell in the defense of humanity as part of Delta Company, 16th Brigade, CDF, at the Third Battle of Provence. Admittedly, that was a different deal from how Loong met his maker, but still.
@Tom: Yeah, it’s a library book. I’m a cheap bastard/waiting for the box set.
Also, I can’t think of anyone else by whom I would rather be killed (excepting a few more, um, exotic methods) — Joe
Well, now I feel a lot less guilty about decapitating you in “Bee-Faced Clown”.
I don’t think I’d work too well for a red-shirt. First name too unusual (but in a classic way), so it tends to stop the attention. You know those name frequency things, where you put in your first name and your last name and it tells you, statistically, how many people with your name are in the US? Mine usually says “There are zero people with your name in the US.” Great way to make me feel wanted. And since I go by my full name and not a nickname, it makes it even weirder.
(Why do I use an initial? Because it’s ten letters long, and a long time ago I decided it would be too tiresome to always be typing it in, it’s amusing to get mistaken for a guy by the way I write, and it would be pretty embarrassing to mistype it, which I’m pretty sure I would if I had to type it all the time.)
I suppose it’s not the same, but you did once tell me to die.
Fame and fortune for having been killed off in a Scalzi book!
And for me, Scalzi just said I was coming back as a pillbug (ooh, wait, Kafka-esqy).
Several years ago, my writing critique group decided to kill off our friend Craig in our WIPs. (I think it was a birthday present to him.) Most of the “deaths” were never read outside the group, but Gwen Hunter’s impalement-on-telephone-pole-during-car-accident made it into print in 2003, and my stabbed-with-a-sword will be out in March 2008.
With friends like us…
Did he get killed by a rock?
Hah. I got killed off in a Dorothy Sayers book. (Well, someone with my name, anyway.) Envy me, O ye people.