37 Comments on “An Now, an EXCLUSIVE Sneak Preview of the Work Currently in Progress”

1. That’s gotta be a Kiva line…

2. Nice to get a window on an author’s thought process

3. Cool! First playing lawyer to piss off the Nomadenadans (sic, I don’t remember the spelling) and now playing like it’s Prague!!!!!

4. Huh. My brain wants it to be defenestrable. Rolls off the tongue more smoothly.

   I’ve no idea how the rules actually work for that construction, though.

5. I’ll leave it for the copy editor to judge.

6. A stunningly complex scene, Mr Scalzi–though I’m not certain that the synthesis really organically arises from the proceeding thesis and antithesis.

7. Always love your dialogue, John! Can’t wait to read the final product

8. “Where are the dialog tags?” he said.

9. Glad to see you are working away on a book I am waiting for (gotta love the work ethic).

10. Geez, enough with the spoilers. It’s not even out yet!

11. You had me at “window “

12. I had never read you until I picked up Redshirts a couple of months ago. I proceeded to read all of your novels in a span of a few weeks. Out of all of them, The Collapsing Empire was my favorite. I look forward to the sequel.

    Will this be a trilogy?

13. Another one bites the dust

    (And another Flow gone
    And another Flow gone
    And another one bites the dust

    Hey–they’re gonna close real soon
    The Empire shall bite the dust…)

14. Clearly set on a planet, not in space, because hello, window.

15. As the old joke goes: “What do you call 500 lawyers defenestrated?”
    A good start.

16. Well, “de fenestra” is Latin, for “out of the window”, so simply anglicizing it by adding “table” would seem a bit unwise. But this is English we’re talking about here, and any Latin phrase will just have to look after itself.

17. I’m glad to see you are a proponent of equal opportunity defenestration.

18. @ Jim C. – I don’t think so – would Kiva actually say two full sentences without a profanity?

19. Please say Wil Wheaton will narrate the audio-book again!!!!

20. Preordered on the basis of this excellent excerpt.

21. I love the malleability of the English language.

    bskin -To my ear Scalzi’s sounds better. However, Google trends shows >100 usages of defenestrable and virtually none for defenestratable.
    https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=defenestrable

22. @Susan 1:17pm – That’s a great f**king point, it may indeed be a different character :-)

23. Approved initially (by me) as a Queen fan, and as well as by my lawyer girlfriend. Win.

24. I Googled “defenestratable” and one of the top results was a Twitter name – https://twitter.com/iamanamphibian – who apparently hasn’t tweeted in over three years. But the most recent activity is a retweet of a 2015 tweet: https://twitter.com/Proxic0n/status/555440759382736897 which I found rather amusing.

25. I’m OK with anything involving tossing lawyers out a window, no matter what you call it.

26. Gah! You ruined it! Spoiler! :-)

27. Drama Queen

28. Oooh, excellent word choice! My 7th grade English teacher threatened to demonstrate “defenestration” from the second floor (don’t worry, there was a balcony).

    Does this excerpt make anyone else think of Schlock Mercenary and the attorney drones?

29. Lawyers get no love (except in Fuzzy Nation)…

    “Kill all the lawyers.”
    Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2

30. This excerpt seems sill-y, and I can’t believe you would try sash a thing. Sorry, John; it panes me to say it.

31. It could be an excerpt from an unpublished Heinlein.
    That’s meant to be high praise, by the way.

32. Tease. ^_^

    Reminds me of a joke my grandpa once told. “Sire, there is a woman without.” “Without what?” “Without food or raiment, sire.” “Then feed her and bring her in.” Boom-tish.

    In our time, there has to be an attached PSA with warnings about feudalism, droit de seigneur, and exploitation of the powerless. “If you feel threatened, phone the number at the bottom of the screen.” Lawyers, though? Fair game for everyone!

33. Does it bother you to still be referred to as “Author of The Old Man’s War”, when that was some 15 years ago and you’ve written better stuff since then? Not slamming OMW, more like comparing a chocolate donut to a maple one. I’ll eat the chocolate but be happier with the maple.

34. Jim:

    It’s overall my bestselling book and series, and the one people who aren’t otherwise fans of me are likely to have heard of. It’s marketing, not a referendum on the quality of the other books. Plus I still like the book and series. So no, it doesn’t bother me at all.

35. “Equally Defenestratable” really needs to be added to your list of Band Names

36. Just when I thought I couldn’t love your writing more.

37. Nice to see that even in the future defenstration has its uses.