Monthly Archives: March 2016
Reader Request Week 2016 #5: Pronouns
Posted on March 23, 2016 119 Comments
Bebe asks: My younger child, a sophomore in college, has asked me to use “they” “them” as their preferred pronouns. I live in a very liberal and gender-choice aware New England college town, and I still find this difficult to consistently comply with. Sometimes my English major brain rebels at using plurals for a single […]
Quick Tuesday Night Recap, 3/23/16
Posted on March 23, 2016 20 Comments
Because apparently now I’ve made it a thing to write something about the Tuesday night primaries on Wednesday. 1. Hey, hey, Bernie Sanders fans! You had a good night last night, with Sanders thumping Clinton in Utah and Idaho by roughly 80/20 in both states and overall winning more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton for the first time […]
The Big Idea: Alan Smale
Posted on March 23, 2016 6 Comments
The Roman Empire in the New World? That’s the idea of Sidewise Award winner Alan Smale’s The Clash of Eagles trilogy, of which Eagle in Exile is the second book. But in imagining an alternate history, how does one give honor to actual history, and avoid the easy traps of historical fiction? Smale offers up his […]
First Light on the New Camera
Posted on March 22, 2016 33 Comments
I’ve been wanting to step up to a full frame DSLR for a while now, so this week I went ahead and ordered the Nikon D750 (for you Nikon geeks out there, I thought about getting the D810 instead but the D750 has nearly the same set of features for a lot less money, minus […]
Reader Request Week 2016 #4: Autonomous Cars
Posted on March 22, 2016 67 Comments
jlightfield asks: Autonomous cars, do they change how you will work in 10 years? Do they change how I work? No, because I work from home, on a computer, which means I don’t have to go anywhere else to work. A car is generally not involved in my workflow at all. Which is not to say I […]
Reader Request Week #3: How, and If, I Will Be Remembered
Posted on March 22, 2016 28 Comments
Steve asks: Have you ever wondered how you will be remembered by the “science fiction community”? How future critics will use you in comparison to future authors……about the legacy you have left behind you when you have gone……if you will be lost among the hundreds of authors, as many from the 50’s have been…..? No […]
The Big Idea: Susan Jane Bigelow
Posted on March 22, 2016 1 Comment
The real world can sometimes get you down. But if you’re a writer, at least, you can use that as an opportunity to imagine another world. At a low point, Susan Jane Bigelow did just that — and her novel Broken was the result. Here she is to tell you about it. SUSAN JANE BIGELOW: […]
Reader Request Week 2016 #2: Will Humans Survive?
Posted on March 21, 2016 42 Comments
We’re getting cosmic for this next question, from Greg, who asks: Earthlings have 4 billion years to figure out space colonization before the sun goes red dwarf and consumes the earth Galactus style. They also have 4 billion years before the Andromeda galaxy collides with the Milky Way galaxy, which will likely require massive technology […]
Reader Request Week 2016 #1: Living Where I Do
Posted on March 21, 2016 50 Comments
Welcome to Reader Request Week here on Whatever, where you suggest the topics I then write about. And let’s start off with this one, from Kilroy, who asks: Urban v. Suburban living: Why I live on a big ass property in the middle of nowhere with awful internet when I could be living it up […]
The Final Snows of Winter
Posted on March 19, 2016 25 Comments
It’s not much and it won’t stay very long (the temperatures will be in the 40s today), but here they are. I can say with confidence that these are the final snows of winter because the Vernal equinox here in the northern hemisphere arrives tomorrow at about 4:30am UTC, or actually 11:30pm tonight where I live. […]
New Books and ARCs, 3/18/16
Posted on March 18, 2016 32 Comments
And here we are, with another just lovely stack of books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound. What looks good to you? What would like to take home to your very own bookshelf? Tell me in the comments!
Meanwhile, in the Ohio Senate
Posted on March 18, 2016 36 Comments
Here’s a nice thing that came in the mail the other day (to my mother-in-law’s house, oddly, but whatever): A commendation from the Ohio Senate! It’s for winning the 2016 Governor’s Award for the Artis in Ohio, and also, apparently, just for being a creative sort of dude who lives in Ohio. Well, okay! I’ll […]
Notes on Awards and Slates, 3/18/16
Posted on March 18, 2016 1 Comment
They are: 1. As a reminder, I’ve withdrawn my work published in 2015 from award consideration, a fact I’ve mentioned here more than once, and which is well-known in science fiction and fantasy circles. I have no interest in that work being nominated, or suggested for nomination, for awards. To the extent that I am able, in the […]
Reader Request Week 2016: Get Your Requests In!
Posted on March 17, 2016 223 Comments
Next week is the only one in the reasonably near future where I know I’m going to be home all week long and I won’t have a deadline of some sort looming over my head, so — hey! Let’s do another Reader Request Week! For those of you just catching up, Reader Request Week is […]
The Big Idea: Sonia Orin Lyris
Posted on March 17, 2016 11 Comments
If you think about it, there are practical issues to seeing the future. This fact was not lost on Sonia Orin Lyris, and in today’s Big Idea, she delves into some of those issues and what they mean for the characters in her novel The Seer. SONIA ORIN LYRIS: In the opening scene of The […]
The Voice of the People
Posted on March 16, 2016 90 Comments
I mocked this a bit on Twitter already, but I want to mock it some more here, and also, make a somewhat more serious point. This, found on Facebook, is in reference to my post yesterday about voting for Kasich in the Ohio primary (poster anonymized to avoid the appearance of me maliciously pointing people toward some random […]
Clinton and Sanders and Trump and Kasich and Also a Bit About Cruz and Rubio
Posted on March 16, 2016 144 Comments
Well, that was an interesting Tuesday night in American politics, wasn’t it? A few thoughts about it. 1. First, sympathy for Sanders supporters out there, who after last week’s emotionally satisfying win in Michigan — even if Clinton ended the night with a net gain of delegates thanks to Mississippi — had to deal with […]
The Big Idea: Lavie Tidhar
Posted on March 16, 2016 8 Comments
World Fantasy Award-winning author Lavie Tidar came up with a awful, terrible, no-good idea for a novel — and then wrote it anyway, resulting in A Man Lies Dreaming, which then went on to garner starred reviews in the trades, award nominations and wins, and the sort of glowing praise writers dream of. What’s this […]
Hell Yes I’m Voting for Kasich Today
Posted on March 15, 2016 123 Comments
Today is primary day in Ohio, and on the GOP side of things this election is a “winner take all” sort of affair — whoever gets the most votes in the GOP primary gets to take all 66 of Ohio’s GOP delegates to the Republican National Convention, which this year, as it happens, will be in […]
The Big Idea: Adrian Selby
Posted on March 15, 2016 2 Comments
Writers write in the first person all the time, but what does it mean to do so when you’re trying to develop a world? It’s a question that mattered for Adrian Selby for his fantasy novel Snakewood. Today, he explains why. ADRIAN SELBY: “My name’s Gant and I’m sorry for my poor writing.” So begins […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying