Monthly Archives: July 2017
Sugar Wishes to Inform You That All the August Big Idea Slots Have Been Scheduled
Posted on July 31, 2017 7 Comments
I thought a cat picture would spice up an otherwise fairly pedestrian announcement. In any event: If you’ve not yet heard back from me re: an August Big Idea slot, they’re all filled up. Sorry. On to September!
Kicked Out of My Office
Posted on July 29, 2017 50 Comments
Once again I have lost control of my office in terms of clutter, and once again Krissy has kicked me out of the office so she can set a flame thrower to it go through and declutter for me because my own personal definition of “declutter” is “shove things toward walls and then add more […]
New Books and ARCs, 7/28/17
Posted on July 28, 2017 14 Comments
For your delight, this last weekend of July: A stack of new books and ARCs. Is there anything here that would make it to your own “must read” stack? Tell us in the comments!
So, Healthcare, 7/28/17
Posted on July 28, 2017 95 Comments
Some various thoughts on where things are today: 1. Hooray for senators Murkowski and Collins and McCain, and also every single Democratic senator for knocking back this bullshit that was so egregious that they literally had to take the vote in the middle of the night because it couldn’t stand up to scrutiny in the […]
The Big Idea: Adam Christopher
Posted on July 27, 2017 5 Comments
Congratulations! Your book was a success! Now do that trick a second time! In discussing Killing is My Business, author Adam Christopher talks about doing the thing that you did so well all over again — but different this time. ADAM CHRISTOPHER: You know how it goes, the difficult second album: a band spends years […]
A Note on Trump’s Proposed Ban of Transgender People in the Military
Posted on July 26, 2017 139 Comments
Leaving aside everything else that is wrong and immoral about this proposed ban, at the moment there are something like 11,000 trans people currently serving openly in the US services and reserves. They are there legally, and it is currently their right to serve openly. Trump’s ban, at first glance, appears to take away their […]
Is This The End of Our Hero, Coke Zero, Part II: The Zeroening
Posted on July 26, 2017 39 Comments
Coke announced today that it’s rebranding Coke Zero to “Coke Zero Sugar”: Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is the new and improved Coke Zero. We’ve made the great taste of Coke Zero even better by optimizing the unique blend of flavors that gave Coke Zero its real Coca-Cola taste. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is our best-tasting zero-sugar Coca-Cola […]
The Big Idea: Vivian Shaw
Posted on July 26, 2017 9 Comments
Monsters are monsters, but do they always have to be so… monstrous? Vivian Shaw considers the fundamental nature of these terrible creatures in Strange Practice, and how she came to look at them from another angle entirely. VIVIAN SHAW: What’s my big idea? The facile answer is, of course, sensible monsters. An idea which doesn’t […]
The UK Cover to Head On
Posted on July 25, 2017 9 Comments
It’s pretty. My luck in excellent covers continues. And you’ll get the book in April!
The Big Idea: Tal M. Klein
Posted on July 25, 2017 20 Comments
Teleportation: A great idea, but with some practical… problems. It’s a physics thing. In this Big Idea for The Punch Escrow, author Tal M. Klein wonders, what if you could solve those problems, not with physics, but with another branch of human intellectual endeavor entirely? TAL M. KLEIN: F#*%ing transporters, how do they work? It […]
My Morning in My Bedroom With Strange Men, a Tale From Twitter
Posted on July 24, 2017 27 Comments
It begins thusly: Men in my bedroom. With drills. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 24, 2017 Bedroom update: Now we have brought in the vacuum. The sucking has begun. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 24, 2017 Bedroom update: Things that had been previously wrapped in plastic have been unwrapped. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 24, […]
The Winner of the “Obit” ARC Contest
Posted on July 24, 2017 13 Comments
First: Which Beatles song was I thinking of? If you want to hear me sing it, here it is: If you’d rather hear the Beatles sing it (which, to be fair, is probably the better choice) it’s here: And for those of you who don’t wish to hear either version (or can’t, for whatever reason): […]
A Very Noisy Cover of Here Comes the Rain Again
Posted on July 22, 2017 14 Comments
As part of my continuing effort to justify the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription I have, I’ve been playing with my Audition audio software and learning how to use it. Today I learned how to make a multitrack file! Go me. I also played with the various filters in the software to distort and shape sounds. […]
Blacklight Sunset
Posted on July 22, 2017 12 Comments
Because sometimes it’s fun to play with Photoshop’s sliders and see what you come up with. This is what happens (in part) when you push the “dehaze” slider all the way to the right. The real sunset didn’t look like this (it looked like this), but I think it might be cool to live on […]
New Books and ARCs, 7/21/17
Posted on July 21, 2017 28 Comments
As we ease on into another summer weekend, here are the new books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound this week. What do you like here? Share your feelings in the comments!
Win This ARC of “Don’t Live For Your Obituary”
Posted on July 21, 2017 597 Comments
Here’s Sugar curling up with a good book, in this case the ARC of Don’t Live For Your Obituary, my upcoming collection of essays about writing and the writing life, which comes out in December from Subterranean Press. And you can win it! Here’s how: Tell me in the comments which Beatles song I am […]
Agent to the Stars, 20 Years On
Posted on July 21, 2017 30 Comments
So, on July 21, 1997, which was a Monday, I posted the following on the alt.society.generation-x newsgroup: Thought y’all might like to know. I’m happy, pleased, tired. 96,098 words, cranked out in a little under three months, working mostly on weekends, grinding out 5,000 words at a sitting. Learned two things: a) I *can* carry […]
The Big Idea: Nat Segaloff
Posted on July 20, 2017 13 Comments
When biographer and historian Nat Segaloff sat down to interview science fiction Grand Master Harlan Ellison for his new book A Lit Fuse, he knew that he was in for a challenge. What surprised him about the process was how much it wasn’t just about Ellison, but also about him. NAT SEGALOFF: How do you […]
Getting Lucky With College Costs
Posted on July 19, 2017 94 Comments
The bill for Athena’s fall semester at Miami University arrived a couple of days ago, and we paid it, and I have some various thoughts about that I want to share. When I went to college, 30 years ago now, I couldn’t pay for it. I did what the majority of people did then and […]
The Big Idea: Cassandra Khaw
Posted on July 19, 2017 5 Comments
Identity issues can sometimes be a bear, as the protagonist of Bearly a Lady finds out — in no small part because author Cassandra Khaw experienced something similar in her real life. CASSANDRA KHAW: The first time I came out as bisexual to a partner, it was a mess. What was a passably tolerable relationship […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying