Interview in the Dayton Daily News
Posted on August 11, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 29 Comments
I got my start as a pro writer working for newspapers, which means that I totally jazzed about the fact that today my local paper, the Dayton Daily News, devoted a whole page to me rambling on about science fiction, technology, the future, and why ill-advised selfies are destined ultimately not to matter (one day. You’re still not off the hook, Anthony Weiner).
The interview isn’t online, so far as I can tell, so if you want to read it, you should a) be in the Dayton area, b) be a subscriber to the DDN or c) go out and get a copy today. If c), I’ll say it’s an interesting interview which will be worth your time and $2 for the paper. Honest. Well, all the coupons in the Sunday paper make it worth the $2. I’m bonus content.
I hope that’s not a selfie.
Actually it is.
It actually is on line, just behind a paywall.
I guess that the rest of us will just have to wait for the story to get picked up, pay for it, or wait until someone posts an illegal copy somewhere.
Sweet – good for you John
Doesn’t the Dayton Daily News know that information wants to be free? I mean, sure, it’d probably put them out of business if it were free, but that’s a small price to pay for me getting free information.
It’s behind a cumbersome pay wall in flash at olivesoftware with formatting similar to the paper in adobe flash and behind a pay wall at http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/ in HTML with different formatting.
@Bob – Have you seen information’s lists if demands? If we give in while information is holding selfies to our head, it’ll only encourage other abstractions to threaten us. This administration does not negotiate with information.
I see that there are a couple of articles on you in the online version of the paper, re: Fuzzy Nation. Perhaps once the “new paper smell” wears off, this most recent article will also be made available on the free side?
The Sunday Washington Post has a thing in the upper right-hand corner of the front page that says something like “Contains over $224 worth of coupons!”.
Personally, I feel that really ought to read “Contains around $5 worth of coupons for shit you will actually ever buy”, but on balance, it’s still worth the $1/week subscription. And sometimes, I even have time to read the damn thing!
@Gulliver – I tried to get its demands by calling the operator and saying, “Long distance information, get me information.” After that it devolved into an Abbott and Costello routine, and not one of their better ones.
Well, since I can’t read it, I’ll just say what I can from the above.
Pretty good selfie.
Congratulations!
The ambiguity of the word ‘from’ in the headline is interesting. Ignoring the possibility that ‘the future from Ohio’ is likely to be different from the future from anywhere else, I see two possibilities:
1. They think you’re in Ohio and trying to guess the future (more likely but less interesting), or
2. They think you’re trying to guess the future by observing Ohio in particular.
In the second, more interesting case, they’ve decided that you’re extrapolating (‘guess’ is a silly headline word here; when you outright guess you don’t need anything to guess from) from conditions you observe in Ohio. What is there about Ohio that will let you determine the future? Its horrible governor? Wow, dystopian science fiction!
Seriously, I hope they were more sophisticated than to think writing science fiction is a matter of trying to guess the future. What, you WIN if you get something right, and lose if you don’t?* A trivialization, I think, of both your work and Our Beloved Genre in general. I can’t see the article, so I’ll just have to hope they did better than that.
*Asimov pointed out that people predicted in the 1930s that we’d land on the Moon, but NO ONE predicted we’d watch it on television.
There is one other way to access this article.
If your municipal, school, or whatever library, subscribes to library.pressdisplay.com you can read the paper, (and several hundred others around the world), in facsimile for free from your browser.
Rick
Calgary
There’s also, know someone in the Dayton area who’ll send you a copy of the paper.
Wow, they still print dead-tree newpapers in your part of the country? My hometown newspaper, a publication of moderate note, has not only lost a dramatic amount of weight as it trimmed sections back but also has gone to three-days-a-week dead-tree publication. I expect that, in 10 years, “The Oregonian” will be nothing but a fond memory to older people.
And that’s progress IMO.
@Scorpius 7:30PM
It isn’t, IMO, progress /yet/.
It is a step backwards in time to 30% illiteracy rates*. -_- Considering how quick it is to get something via a telephone modem nowadays? Doesn’t matter whether one can read if there is nothing to read.
SDT
*70% can read.
BTW, a compressed copy of that complete (except for what my anti-nuisance software did to it) HTML version is some 500Kbytes. I have no intention of posting it anywhere, I was just bored, and in fact prefer the MHT format for saving webpages.
I find myself feeling you are one of the rare public people who is consistently on the side of the angels. Or, at least on the side of my angels. I started in newspapers too, then made several unexpected turns. Still, there is something about newsprint (is it the smell? all those great old movies? the thrill of putting the paper to bed?) that gets my pulse going. Congratulations.
I had to search for it, and of all the places I didn’t think it would be, opposite the editorial page was where I wouldn’t have thought to look. I was looking in the Life & Arts section, since that’s where they have the book column, but you know, it was great to see a full page interview with you on it. Not that being in the DDN will make you an instant celebrity, but it’s worthwhile to note that being in the DDN does mean that more people will be able to learn about your books, which hopefully they’ll buy, so you’ll make more money so you’ll write more books for me to buy and read, so you’ll make more money…..etc….
I find it interesting that the piece on you was classified as “premium content available to subscribers” only while the story (which was more of a fluff piece) entitled “Creationist museum aims at wider audience” was easily viewable by non-subscibers such as I.
I am curious why you believe selfies in the style of Weiner will one day not matter. When will public displays of foolishness not be ridiculed?
I am a Stargate Universe fan and was impressed you were creative consultant. At first, I hated the show’s ending, but, over time, have found imagining ‘follow on’ storylines a good way to excercise my mind. I may even put it in writing one of these days.
Also on the library front, LexisNexis Academic has the interview – minus the pretty picture. Many college and university libraries purchase this database for their students, and also allow walk-in use.
I would have expected a real newspaper writer to manage to fit a verb into the first sentence. Of course, not being one myself, I can’t be sure.
I read it on Library Press Display through my public library, as Rick suggests. Very nice interview. There’s no real new information for semi-regular readers of Whatever or any SF fan who pays even slight attention to tech developments, but it’s a great ambassadorial example communication to the non-SF mainstream. Congratulations, John!
Thanks for the Library Press idea, @Rick Grant, it worked like a charm. Yet another reason to appreciate the public library system:)
I think a badger and an ice cream cone fighting crime would be totally cool.
@Linda Lee Thanks for posting that it was on LexisNexis Academic.
Thanks, Rick Grant, that worked nicely. Yay for libraries.