Monthly Archives: August 2016

First Day of School, 2016

And Athena is ready for it! This is Athena’s senior year, and this year she’s doing something a little different; basically, having exhausted the possibilities of her lovely but very small local rural high school, this year Athena is taking classes at the local community college. She’ll be getting credit toward her high school graduation […]

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The University of Chicago, Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces

Last week the University of Chicago caused a bit of an uproar by sending out a letter to incoming students telling them not to expect intellectual safe spaces or trigger warnings when it came to critical inquiry. This caused celebration in some quarters and consternation in others, in both cases in no small part to […]

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The Big Idea: Beth Cato

The Earth trembles as Beth Cato appears to talk about her new novel, Breath of Earth! No, seriously, it’s got earthquakes in it — and they’re a big part of the story. BETH CATO: As a native Californian, it’s only right that one of my earliest memories is of an earthquake. I was three-years-old when […]

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The Big Idea: Kate Milford

The War of 1812 is back! Sort of! In The Left-Handed Fate, author Kate Milford uses that little-remembered war as a backdrop for her story, and her musings on the nature of justice, particularly from the perspective of younger readers. KATE MILFORD: Writing about war for kids is difficult, and probably every book that attempts […]

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The Rest of MidAmeriCon II

The folks at my reading wave hello. We had fun. pic.twitter.com/F5epRVzHbS — John Scalzi (@scalzi) August 19, 2016 Now that I’ve opined about the Hugos, how was the rest of my MidAmeriCon II? I had fun! My schedule was relatively light: Two panels, a reading, a signing and a kaffeklatsch, which left a lot of […]

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Gum on the Shoe of History, or, Why the Hugos Are Still Not Destroyed

Before I get into the post-mortem of 2016’s Hugo Awards that I promised, let me first say that the award that made me happiest was Naomi Kritzer winning the Best Short Story Hugo for “Cat Pictures Please.” Naomi and I go waaaaaaay back — if she was not actually the first person I knew in science fiction genre […]

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View From a Hotel Window, Kansas City Edition + Look! I’m in Rolling Stone!

Kansas City yesterday as we got into town. Today is overcast, so you’re getting the better picture, even if it’s slightly tardy. Today at MidAmeriCon, at 1pm, I’m doing a reading, where I will be reading two (2) pieces no one has ever heard me read before. If you’re at the convention, don’t miss it. […]

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New Book and ARCs, 8/17/16

Feast your eyes on these new books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound in the last couple of weeks. Anything here you’d like to dig into? Tell us in the comments. Also, starting tomorrow I’ll be at MidAmeriCon II, this year’s Worldcon. Here’s my schedule there. If you’ll be there, come see […]

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The Big Idea: Bishop O’Connell

What’s in a place? For The Returned, and its author Bishop O’Connell, quite a lot, indeed. BISHOP O’CONNELL: Location as a character. I travel a lot for my day job and because the jobs tend to be longer term, I get a chance to explore new towns all over the country. There’s something special about […]

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The Big Idea: Caroline M. Yoachim

In the writing and collecting of the stories which comprise Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World, author Caroline M. Yoachim discovered the thread that runs through them. What’s the thread and how does it weave into each of the tales? Yoachim is here to explain. CAROLINE M. YOACHIM: When I was putting together […]

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The Big Idea: Brooke Johnson

To finish up your week, here’s Brooke Johnson to tell you about her new novel The Guild Conspiracy, and how, sometimes, you have to fall to rise again. BROOKE JOHNSON: When I was writing the first draft of The Brass Giant back in 2011, I thought it was going to be a standalone novel, a […]

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Midnight Star: Renegade is Out!

Hey! I’m tremendously excited to announce that Midnight Star: Renegade, the mobile first person shooter that I’ve been working on with Industrial Toys, is now out and ready for you to play on iOS devices. It’s the sequel to last year’s Midnight Star game and features many of the same bad guys, kicked up with new […]

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Declining My Dragon Award Nomination

Earlier in the year DragonCon announced they would inaugurate the Dragon Awards, a fan-voted award covering science fiction and fantasy literature, games and media. Last night, the list of nominees was sent out to people who had signed up to nominate and vote for the awards (you can see the full list here) and it […]

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Trump, and His Jokes, and You

I write funny things professionally, and have done for years. I’ve made a fair amount of money and even won some awards for funny things I’ve written. So as a professional writer of funny things I have thoughts on Donald Trump’s oblique joke yesterday about how great it would be if a gun nut assassinated Hillary Clinton and/or some of […]

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The Big Idea: Jay Kristoff

If Jay Kristoff had managed nothing else with this Big Idea piece for his new novel Nevernight, he would have had arguably one of the most grabbing first sentences in the history of the feature. But there’s more to it than the first sentence, promise. JAY KRISTOFF: Nevernight started with an argument about vaginas. More accurately, […]

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