Wil Wheaton: More Handsome Than Me
Posted on June 2, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 50 Comments
As you can see by this photo, taken by Galleycat’s Ron Hogan at BEA. If the two of us were, like, the Gen-X writer version of Wham!, I am so Andrew Ridgley.
The picture is illustrating a nice bit Ron did for Galleycat that covers some of my adventures at BEA, and also features some of the first third-party commenting on Zoe’s Tale, and also about Agent to the Stars:
They’re two very different projects—one’s a space opera, the other’s a Hollywood comedy with aliens—but reading them back to back on the redeye home from LA, I realized that one of the qualities I admire most about his fiction is his ability to ground serious moral and philosophical issues in the lives of interesting characters… Not to mention, these are the fourth and fifth novels in a row where he wrote scenes that almost made me cry, the big jerk.
This is true, incidentally. I can’t get through certain scenes in Zoe’s Tale without crying, and I’ve read them a hundred times each by now. Yes, yes. I’m a big fat cry-baby; even so. Prepare yourselves, is all I’m saying.
Ok, Scalzi, you’re not preparing, you’re taunting. I can’t wait for my copy.
I look forward to the Subterranean Press Special Edition that comes with a box of kleenex inside the jacket flap.
I will happily admit that I cried while reading TSD. You just like toying with our fragile emotions, don’t you John, don’t you?!
Incidentally, did you poo in Wil’s cornflakes or something? He looks disturbed and you look very triumphant.
Coincidence? Mebbe not!
(Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, I spelled coincidence correctly on the first try. Go me!)
Okay, seriously. I set up the initial lunch with Wheaton, and now when you come to town I don’t even get a phone call? And you rub it in with photos? I’m wounded. Is this all because of that episode with the goat? How many times can I apologize for that? There was no way I could’ve known she wasn’t house-broken.
Well, Wheaton is rocking a Minibosses shirt, so that does give him some points, I suppose. But I don’t know if it’s necessarily in the ‘handsome’ department….
I keep forgetting Wil Wheaton is still around my age and will be until one of us is dead.
Cause in my mind’s eye he’s still the same age I was in junior high school….
Dang syndication anyway.
Dammit, just when I was forgetting how hot Wil Wheaton is…thanks John!
I guess that blows my theory that they were really the same person.
#8 – Obvious Photoshop job.
Yes, Alternative. Now you have seen them together.
But wait. You saw a picture (possibly altered) of someone who looks like John Scalzi, and claims to be him, standing with someone who looks like Wil Wheaton, and claims to be him. So, does this really blow your theory? Maybe, maybe not!
Another reason I love the novels of John Scalzi so much that I couldn’t quite work into that post — He’s the kind of writer who will spend a couple hundred pages building up a particular character as the novel’s resident asshole, then give that character one of the most emotionally powerful scenes in the story… and make it work.
Y’know, in that picture Wil Wheaton looks remarkably like my friend Dan. So I’m gonna email the picture to Dan and ask him just how did he manage to meet Scalzi and why didn’t he invite me along, dammit!
There is a reason some people get paid to be in front of cameras and others do there job alone in a small room. ::runs::
there = their
Nathan = red faced
Burns!:
Well, to be fair, I wasn’t planning on seeing Wil when I was there. He just happened to be at BEA, too.
Anyway, I’m coming back to town in November. We’ll hang then. Oh, yes.
Yes, yes. Very pretty. That Wheaton is a spectacular specimen there can be no doubt. And you’re cute as a bug’s ear, of course. Blah, blah.
I’d rather a picture of you with Jessica Harper.
Yes, I have been brought to tears a number of times already and I’m only on page 216. It’s a wonderful book.
I can haz a caption contest based on that picture? Kthxbai.
Um, I just showed the photo to my spouse. My wife declared “Oh he’s hot.” It was directed at the man on the right. Sorry John but at least she likes your cats!
Dude, I know I lose the hotness race to Wil. See the title to the entry. But you know what I have? A good personality.
Shayera:
Oh, good, glad you’re liking it so far.
Having a trippy moment…. looking at that pic while watching an old episode of Star Trek: TNG… whoa.
Didn’t Scalzi co-star with Jessica Harper in My Favorite Year?
No, wait, I’m thinking of Peter O’Toole.
Oh, God. If I’m not hotter than Peter O’Toole at the moment, I’m jumping out of a window. One on the first floor, to be sure. Even so.
Scalzi, it’s no reflection on you whatsoever, but I feel obliged to point out that even though Peter O’Toole is 500 years old and made of tissue paper, I think he is still smokin’ hot.
Damn. Wesley Crusher grew up to be Commander Riker?!
Karen:
I have no objection to him being smokin’ hot at the age of 76 (or whatever). I just want, at age 39, to be ever-so-slightly more so.
I agree with Mike. When the heck did Wil start growing that beard? He’s OK when he’s clean-shaven, not bad with a goat, but that beard… Mmm… Yummy. Definitely more of a Riker look than a Wesley look!
But yes, we’ve already established that Wil is much hotter than you. The real question is: Which of you is a bigger nerd? You’re both major bloggers, you’re both writers… Wil wrote for Dungeon magazine, was the guest of honour at PAX, and is wearing a Minibosses T-shirt. You, on the other hand, write science fiction for a living. So… That’s a tough choice. There’s certainly enough geekery between the two of you to have warped local space and time… But in a good way. :-)
I won’t hazard as to who is the biggest nerd, Wil or I, but I will note that Cory Doctorow and I had a nerd throwdown in the lobby of the Bonaventure hotel on Saturday night. I could tell you who won that one, but where’s the fun in that?
Scalzi, my wife says you don’t look to bad. For this I hate you.
Will looks good, too. Like a mature Wil Wheaton.
Can’t wait to read the new one. I NEED IT!!!
And both of you look like dorks next to China Mieville, so it’s all good.
Wil Wheaton is still a few days or weeks younger than Jon Frakes was when he started playing Riker with a beard.
I second the motion for a Jessica Harper photo, preferably one from Inserts.
Wil Wheaton makes me ashamed that I hated Wesley Crusher.
Chang @ 29, I just finished it. I laughed, I cried (often) and a couple times I snorted with laughter. I was forced to hide in my office so my staff didn’t see me crying.
Zoe’s a fantastic character. And I loved the book. (See, this is why I don’t write reviews.) I’m an inarticulate mass of “OMG You must read this book!”
And now I’m off to re-read Old Man’s War.
What, no comment by Wil?
I understand Wil’s mostly away from keyboard at the moment, due to real life things.
Yowza. I can has Wil Weeten?
Damn. Wesley Crusher grew up to be Commander Riker?!
WAH! STOP THAT! I hated Riker!
32. Phillip J. Birmingham.
Good. You *should* feel bad. Really Bad.
I cannot wait for “Zoe’s Tale.” I still need to read “The Last Colony,” as I can’t find it in stores but will wait for the paperback this summer.
I am so glad to see this posting. My wife sent me a link to her favorite knitting blog, with the claim that the Yarn Harlot stalking Shatner and Nimoy was way cooler than the nerdy stuff I’m always talking about. I tried explaining to her that if John Scalzi had a sock he was knitting, he would have snapped a couple of pictures of Wil wearing said socks. And the pictures would have been way better resolution.
Going with the Wham! reference… so what would your big, baggy, large-font t-shirts say?
Hey, the scene with John Perry and the alien general watching the ships get blown out of the sky in The Last Colony actually chokes me up. By that point in the trilogy, you get an idea of what a fundamentally good guy Perry is, and when he’s forced to do something horrible, it’s heart-wrenching.
“And both of you look like dorks next to China Mieville, so it’s all good.”
And China looks like a dink next to Richard K. Morgan. We’re in a geek death spiral now folks.
38 BeVibe:
Good. You *should* feel bad. Really Bad.
Now, let’s not push it. I had my reasons.
JerolJ:
Not that I have all that many leanings in this regard, but China’s definitely hunkier than RKM. Just sayin’.
Come on people! It’s not about the looks! It’s about the intelligence! Can’t you see the intelligence seething from their eyes?
I can’t get that episode of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show out of my brain. Wil Wheaton with a beard equals Mushy Shorts. And always will.
Damn you for making me feel old. I read your post and my first thought was not “who’s Andrew Ridgley” (which would have made me feel much better). it was “Andrew Ridgley had much longer hair.”
Well, I would agree with the title, but it’s only ’cause I haven’t had a crush on you since my days running home after middle school to catch ST:TNG.
Yum – Wil Wheaton grew up nice! And a beard, too…dreamy!