Read the First Two Chapters of Fuzzy Nation

The release of Fuzzy Nation is now exactly one week away, and to get you excited about it — as if you were not excited enough alreadyTor.com has chapters one and two available for your perusal, in which we meet Jack Holloway, the book’s protagonist, learn of his unusual way of setting off explosives, and get a sense of his people skills, such as they are. Enjoy. And if you like them, rumor has it that tomorrow, io9 will feature chapters three and four. It’s like a dream come true, it is!

Also, being that it is “run-up” week for the book, I will have all sorts of surprises coming up for you over the coming days. Oh, so many surprises. Well, mostly just excerpts and giveaways and stuff like that. Which I suppose really isn’t all that surprising, is it. Well, look surprised when it happens anyway, okay? Thank you.

35 Comments on “Read the First Two Chapters of Fuzzy Nation”

  1. The first two chapters are free…

    You would have made a great drug dealer.

    Best of luck with the release.

  2. I’ve already preordered the Kindle version so this is just a tease to get me even more frustrated before May 10. John, What’s all this about chapt 3 &4 on io9? I couldn’t find ANYTHING on IO9.

  3. John – I look forward to seeing you at Books & Co @ The Greene next week in Dayton. I’ll have my copy of Fuzzy Nation in hand!

  4. The first two chapters certainly didn’t disappoint. I re-read Little Fuzzy on the plane ride back from LAX this past weekend in preparation (it had been *years*). It feels like your take on Jack has him being just as ornery and sharp – and likeable – a protagonist as Piper’s orginial character. Really looking forward to reading the full reboot.

  5. There were a lot of tuckerizations I saw in those first 2 chapters. Not just Wheaton Aubrey, but about half of those court cases Jack cites.

    I like what I saw. I don’t know if it was having Little Fuzzy in my head (even though it’s been over a decade), but Zara XXIII triggered almost exactly the same images as Zarathustra in my head. The same light, the same feel. Well done you.

  6. I liked it so far, and I’ll be buying ASAP… but I have a question: Why is an interstellar civilization looking for coal?

  7. To see how much a woodchuck can chuck? Assuming a woodchuck could chuck it in the first place, that is.

  8. If I was any more excited about it, I’d need to breathe into a paper bag.

  9. Cool. I’m almost through the original, then I’ll move on to John’s version. Then perhaps I’ll read the other books in the series. I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Of course, the dated tech references are fun: watching Jack Holloway DEVELOP FILM and transmit data by AUDIO MODEM is funny as heck in a civilization that has mastered FTL travel and encountered a dozen alien sapient races. :)

    But their fondness for highballs notwithstanding, it’s a supremely entertaining read…I wish I’d gotten to it sooner. One of my friends recommended it by saying that he’d discovered it in 5th grade, still has it on his shelf, has read it six times and that my reading and John’s writing is prompting a seventh. Good Times.

  10. Coal fired space ships?

    The energy density needed for FTL would be quite a bit higher than coal or any other chemical reaction, I would imagine. Fission or fusion territory.

    Maybe its a mcguffin mining company, like that one in the Avatar movie.

    The way you introduced the dog had me a little worred. But after that, good read.

  11. Here is a first (for me at least) I just pre-ordered the book for my nook on BN.com! If I had noticed you could do this earlier, I would have. Either way, I already bought my copy. Now just to wait. Thanks for the sample to tide me over.

  12. Are the book signings going to be kid-friendly enough for me to bring an 8 year-old?

  13. Greg @22: One of the founding technologies of Piper’s interstellar civilization was an undescribed method of directly converting nuclear energy into electric current. You put radioactive stuff into a “collapsium*” container and stick this gadget on the end, and it is now a battery with nuclear energy level densities.

    My vague impression is that it somehow caused all radioactive materials to decay, not just fissionables, but I could be wrong about that.

    I don’t recall any mention of coal in Piper, but if it was there it would be for chemical feedstock or something. I’d assume the same with the Scalzi version.

    * Collapsium is like degenerate matter or neutronium, except for being almost complete different and much less dangerous. Used for radiation shielding.

  14. Litigants names I recognize from the SF business: Hildebrand, Mieville, and Martin. Who are Buchheit, Levensohn, Greene, and Winston?

  15. I’d never read the original – read it on my iTouch while flying from San Fran to Toronto. Enjoyed the original, and looking forward to the rest of FuN!

  16. Captain@28: directly converting nuclear energy into electric current

    Oh, man, if only that were available today.

  17. Gilmoure@23,

    Cosmic Computer is great, but I love Four-Day Planet and Lone Star Planet even more.

  18. @29, Buccheit is Steve Buchheit (he has a posting to this effect on his blog).

  19. I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to join the adulation.

    I’ve read the chapters. They’re not a bad story. Not Piper, but not bad.

    But … they’re not Little Fuzzy.

    Jack Holloway isn’t there, no matter what you call the lead character. That guy he’s talking to isn’t Victor Grego, either, nor anyone else at the Chartered Zarathustra Company (well, he’s got a bit of Ernst Mallin in him, I guess). The Chartered Zarathustra Company, exclusive to Zarathustra, isn’t ZaraCorp, some kind of multi-planetary with a thing about coal. Really, there’s no reason for the names to match at all; it would be better without them.

    Don’t we have enough of Hollywood digging up dead men’s bones?

  20. This was the first time I’ve listened to a fiction audiobook, and I’m glad I listened to it instead of reading, not just because it took less time. The best thing was hearing Wil say, “Shut up, Wheaton!” Was that name chosen deliberately? Anyway, Wil was a good choice for this; he has a slight sarcasm in his voice that somehow suits the story perfectly.

    The worst thing was not hearing Paul and Storm’s ‘Fuzzy Man’ at the end, as I’d expected to. But, there was the original Little Fuzzy at the end, which kind of made up for it (I haven’t finished that yet, but the voice already makes it sound 1962ish.)

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