Monthly Archives: April 2012
The Hugo Award Nominees, 2012
Posted on April 7, 2012 56 Comments
Here they are. See if you can find me! More thoughts in just a bit (update: more thoughts here). Best Novel (932 ballots) Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor) A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra) Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit) Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey) Leviathan Wakes […]
A Cat and His Fuzzy (And Vice Versa)
Posted on April 6, 2012 19 Comments
Lopsided Cat and Papa Fuzzy share a special moment. I believe I may have mentioned that the personalities (and physical descriptions) of the Fuzzy Family in Fuzzy Nation are based at least partially on the family cats; Papa Fuzzy clearly shares some DNA with Lopsided Cat. Lopsided Cat, for his part, finds Papa Fuzzy very […]
Catherynne Valente Lays Some Truth On You
Posted on April 6, 2012 202 Comments
About the Christopher Priest’s Clarke Rant and why a woman wouldn’t have been gotten the same pass for it that he did. As a reminder of my own thoughts on the general topic of men and women talking on the Internet: The Sort of Crap I Don’t Get. If you don’t think this all still […]
Your Friday Music
Posted on April 6, 2012 11 Comments
“Midnight City,” by M83. This is also M83. A different one. One is named after the other. Guess which! If you celebrate it, happy Good Friday. If you don’t celebrate it, have a good Friday.
What I Did With My Afternoon
Posted on April 5, 2012 64 Comments
Got the #GOPWarOnCaterpillars hashtag to trend worldwide on Twitter. Context: While discussing whether the GOP was carrying on a general War on Women with recent abortion access legislation in various states, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus pooh-poohed the idea, saying: If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media […]
Scalzi Shakes His Cane At The Kids’ Music Today
Posted on April 5, 2012 62 Comments
The song in question: “Ass Back Home” by Gym Class Heroes: It’s a song in the genre of “Musician pines for his woman back home while he’s out on the road, totally not partaking in groupies,” the most famous of which for my generation is Journey’s lighter-launcher “Faithfully.” The song itself is actually not bad, […]
Warning: Objects May Be Dorkier Than They Appear in Photo
Posted on April 5, 2012 76 Comments
Folks over at Google announced Google Glass yesterday, their plan to put video screens into your glasses, and showed off their prototype by wrapping them around the heads of some very attractive people (See Lyndon and Emily, above) as a way to show how having a monitor being strapped to your head could be handsome […]
The Big Idea: David J. Silbey
Posted on April 5, 2012 12 Comments
The famous maxim says that history is written by the winners. But happens when the other side not only doesn’t write a history, but can’t? This was the challenge that Cornell historian David J. Silbey faced when writing The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China — The Boxers, mostly Chinese peasants, were ill-equipped […]
This Year’s Dewey Donation System Charity Drive Is ON
Posted on April 5, 2012 6 Comments
My friend Pamela Ribon, in addition to being one of the funniest human beings in the history of the known world, also has a philanthropic side, which comes out every year with the Dewey Donation System, her drive to connect books with needy libraries in the United States and abroad. As someone who is big […]
Now Even More Redshirts Excerpted For Your Delight + A Review
Posted on April 4, 2012 26 Comments
Remember last week when Tor.com offered up the prologue and the first two chapters of Redshirts for you to read, if you registered for their site? Those were some good times, yes? Well, now the times are even better, my friends, because Tor.com has added two additional chapters to the excerpt, bringing you all the […]
Evil? Or the Victim of Pernicious Framing?
Posted on April 4, 2012
Over at FilmCritic.com I do a mind experiment and point out that some of the most famous “bad guys” in science fiction film — the aliens of the Alien film series, as an example — aren’t necessarily evil, and indeed are doing things that are in fact totally understandable, if you look at it from […]
Hugo Award Nominations to be Announced This Saturday, April 7, 4pm Eastern
Posted on April 3, 2012 10 Comments
This is me putting on my Chicon 7 Toastmaster hat to say: Hey! You want to know who got nominated for the Hugos (and the Campbell) this year! That’s why you will be paying attention this very Saturday, at 4pm Eastern time, because that is when the Hugo slate will be announced. You can get […]
Caine’s Law is Out
Posted on April 3, 2012 21 Comments
During Reader Request Week, I was asked if I had seen an advance copy of Caine’s Law, Matthew Woodring Stover’s latest book in his “Acts of Caine” fantasy series. Well, a close-up of the cover blurb of the book — which is out today — should give an answer to that: So, yes. Yes, I […]
The Big Idea: Leah Bobet
Posted on April 3, 2012 22 Comments
When it comes to the creative impulse, never underestimate the power of watching someone else get something wrong. Author Leah Bobet, whose debut novel Above hits stores today, found her inspiration when she got aggravated at what she was seeing in her television set. And just as a bit of sand in an oyster shell […]
Hungarian Old Man’s War Cover
Posted on April 3, 2012 42 Comments
There it is. One of the few with an actual old man on the cover. For those of you in Hungary, it will apparently come out on May 10, which just happens to be my birthday, so that’s nice. For everyone else, well, it also comes out on May 10, but you may have more […]
Redshirts Audiobook News + Tabletop
Posted on April 2, 2012 30 Comments
I can tell you this now that it is not April Fools Day and you will believe me. Many of you have asked whether there will be an audiobook version of Redshirts, and if so, who will be reading it. The answers: Yes, there will be an audiobook version of Redshirts; And, yes, it will […]
Win the Scalzi Tor Collection
Posted on April 2, 2012 24 Comments
So, uh, hey: Want to win every single Tor book I’ve ever written? If you sign up for the Tor/Forge Newsletter (or if you are already a newsletter subscriber, enter at the link I’m about to give you), you can be entered in a sweepstakes for copies of all my Tor books, including the upcoming […]
A Note of Appreciation for Madeleine Rosca
Posted on April 2, 2012 43 Comments
Anyone whose seen the covers for the manga of The Shadow War of the Night Dragon has fallen in love with them, and for good reason: They are fantastic, and fantastically funny. Full credit for that goes to artist Madeleine Rosca (of Hollow Fields fame), who did a terrific job incorporating elements of what I […]
THIS WILL NOT STAND
Posted on April 1, 2012 60 Comments
Some miscreant by the name of Scott Lynch — whoever he is — is typing horrible, slanderous lies about me and my art ON THE INTERNET, thus besmirching that last bastion of temperate reason and truthfulness. THIS WILL NOT STAND. Naturally, I have replied to his splenetic libels over there with sweet and gentle correction. […]
My New Manga Series, Announced at Tor.com
Posted on April 1, 2012 53 Comments
Okay, so here’s an announcement that I’ve been sitting on for a while, which I can finally tell you about: I’m doing a manga series. It’s a format I’ve been curious about for a while — we had planned a manga series around Old Man’s War a few years ago, but it had gotten hung […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying