48 Comments on “Where is John Scalzi?”

1. If I’m not mistaken, you’re in San Fransisco, which seems to be a common theme in books I’ve read recently.
   (I mean, I was looking for it in The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, but, then I re-read Little Brother right after, and, while I knew it took place in San Fransisco, I just found it funny that I read two almost entirely unrelated books that took place in the same place. On the other hand, reading the Milk biography gave me an ok understanding of the geography, or at least neighborhoods of San Fran, which in turn allowed me to understand Little Brother better than the first time I read it.

2. You were enlisted to fight Godzilla, were enlarged to City Destroying Author size, vanquished the lizard but were decapitated in the process, and now your ghostly giant disembodied head haunts the skyline of a city which I don’t recognize?

3. Vancouver B.C.? Sutton Place or the Hyatt, is my guess.

4. Welcome to Vancouver, eh! I’m pretty sure that’s the Scotiabank Theatre on Burrard Street, and it looks like you’re between Robson and Smithe, or, in other words, about two and a half blocks away from where I’m working.

   You should walk down Burrard to the Community Garden on Davie Street! Get there and ask yourself what sort of crazy town converts valuable downtown real-estate into green-thumb paradise. :)

5. Cincinnati? That looks like W. 4th between Vine and Race. You had to connect in Minneapolis to fly from Dayton to Cincinnati? That can’t be right.

6. Vancouver… but it’s easy since I read Mr. Mallozzi’s blog too!

7. Buhbuhbuh that’s only 100 miles and change from Seattle! All the famous folk call when they stopin the area…;(

8. pardon, NEVER stop by…

9. Gallifrey.

10. Well, not Chicago. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear SF doesn’t have snow, but I would be surprised that Vancouver doesn’t. But that’s just because I’m forgetting what a world without snow looks like this winter….

11. Is it just me or do all cities look alike these days? Why can’t architects try for some creativity?

12. That’s definitely downtown Vancouver. Scotiabank Theatre, and that crane that’s building the Shangri-la-la/whatever condo down there.

    Sheraton One Wall is my guess?

    How long are you staying? Any chance I can take you out for dinner and get my books autographed? :P

13. @ 10 JulieB

    He missed the giant dump by about a week. It was mayhem in late December because of the massive snowfall and Vancouver’s inability to handle it.

14. Jeff @ #5
    If John flew from Dayton to Cincy he’s not nearly as smart as I’ve given him credit for and I would have to suspect the Krissy is secretly writing his books.

15. Actually, Athena’s been penning the OMW books since The Ghost Brigades.

16. Clue? My wife says I do not have one…..she is correct….although San Fran or Vancouver….and one of my fav bands, The Action Design is in house…..

17. I dunno where the hell it is but I watch out for the huge creature poking his head above the horizon at the end of the street.

18. I didn’t immediately think of Godzilla, though I saw the ghostly reflection right off, and my brain dragged me into an alternate perceptive reality wherein I struggled to guess where John could be that had such a realistically detailed model city on display.

19. Rl’yeh. Definitely Rl’yeh. You can see Great Cthulhu coming through the fog at the very top, center-right.

20. All other clues aside, he’s someplace where they spell it “theatre.”

    (Yes, I know a couple of “Broadway” venues in New York affect the spelling, but those are edge cases.)

21. I’m going to assume Canada (Ontario?) as I know you are out to dinner with Stargate writer Joseph Mallozzi.
    :)

    it’s either that or L.A.
    which I doubt.

22. You’re in The Future. A place where buildings can reach beyond four stories high, and where individual lights can exist without flame. You’re where the fire is distributed along channels so that people in the towers can partake of the energy. You totally suck for not sharing the Future.

23. There’s not enough Syd Mead going on there for it to be San Angeles. I’m disappointed.

24. I concur with the Vancouver folks. And, if so, are you doing any public speaking on this visit?

25. Wait, I thought it was like a “Where’s Waldo” thing, and I saw him under the streetlamp by the “Theatre” sign.

26. So proud of myself for saying “Canada” in my head before I read the responses. Did make a good effort to locate Chicago landmarks until I realized:
    1) theatre is spelled wrong for a U.S. city
    2) In Chicago you’d have to have captured some of the ridiculously copious amounts of snow we have on the ground, or in the city the ridiculously dirty copious amounts of snow. Bleh.

    Enjoy your trip!

27. Xopher: Are you sure that’s not the Great and Powerful Oz? No? Okay; I get them confused.

    Kevin@14: Joking, of course. He would, in fact, take the paddle steamer down the Great Miami River to Hamilton, then catch a flatboat on the Little Miami straight into Porkopolis.

28. Vancouver!!!
    Am I right?

29. Toledo! City of Industry! Gateway to Bowling Green and Mid-Upper-North-West Ohio!

    Home to the Scary Laughing Clown Car Wash, off Rte. 23. Home to unusually good strip-mall Thai food. Home to a wide variety of all-the-same used bookstores. Home to Cedar Point.

    TOLEDO! CATCH THE FEVER!

30. The first sentence reveals Scalzi’s location.

    Indeed, my guess is most definitely Vancouver!!!
    Can you tell us of the adventures you have at Fuel?

31. Haha could you tell how excited I got when I went over to read Joe’s blog and he mentioned Scalzi? I mean, it’s only because of the Book of the Month club that I found Whatever in the first place! So hearing that you were dining together was like über-awesomeness for me :-)

32. I have it narrowed down to Atlanta, Cleveland, South Bend, Wasilla or any other place in North America. How close was I?

33. Jess is close with Toledo.

    It’s actually Maumee.

34. nice ghost…

35. Toledo? Maumee? You guys are silly. Clearly it is Rossford.

36. Well if you do come to Seattle, let us know or something.

    Buy you a sake at the sake shop and such.

37. Tipp City!

38. Clearly you are in New Hampshire, the City State.

39. 16th floor, IIANM.

40. Clearly you are in a room in your hotel. You tell us that yourself. But you don’t tell us when you bought yourself a hotel. I knew you were doing well with your writing, but I didn’t know you were doing *that* well.

41. You bastard. Rub my nose in it that you’re in the Bay Area, and I’m stuck on the set of Ice Road Truckers.

42. You’re in your head. That’s a virtual reality scene. If you look down the block you can tell that the next part of the map hasn’t ‘rezzed up” yet. Kinda like looking into the distance in Half-Life 2.

    :-)

43. Hi there Mr Scalzi

    Long time reader, first time poster here. You are in Vancouver, recovering from a wonderful meal (probably in Fuel!) with the coolest television producer in BC, Mr Joseph Mallozzi!! (He tipped is off on his blog!!)

    Hope you had a great meal and enjoy your time in BC!! If you get a chance, pop along to Don Francesco’s restaurant….Great salmon!!

    Shirt’n’Tie

44. Looks like Vancouver to me, especially given the spelling of “Theatre” combined with the Sociabank logo.

45. Hope dinner was great,but given Malozzi’s penchant for dining I’d say that was a foregone conclusion.

46. Vancouver. looking down Burrard.

    Welcome. I don’t think you can quite see my boat from your hotel. :-)

47. @ 13 Diondi Tan — Wow. I’d have figured it would be Canadian law to always be prepared for snow. :)

    @ 26 KayTi: Sorry — didn’t mean to confuse the issue. It really only marginally looks like Chicago. But first noticible difference was the lack of snow.

    And our area just got 3 more inches today, just in time for the -40 wind-chill factor headed in tonight.

48. That’s the damn theatre where I saw The Spirit. It must pay!!