Monthly Archives: November 2019

A Very Scalzi Christmas is Out!

Just in time for the holidays!  As a reminder, this collection features fifteen stories about Christmas and the holidays, including three that are exclusive to this collection: “Christmas in July,” “Jangle the Elf Grants Wishes” and “Resolutions for the New Year.” Plus illustrations by the super-talented Natalie Metzger for every story (and the cover, obviously). […]

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Whatever Holiday Shopping Guide 2019 Starts Monday!

Every year as the holiday season begins I run a shopping guide for the holidays, and over the years it’s been quite successful: Lots of people have found out about excellent books and crafts and charities and what have you, making for excellent gift-giving opportunities during the holiday season. I’ve decided to do it again this […]

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Zeus and Smudge Welcome You to Thanksgivingtime

It’s after 5pm on Thanksgiving Eve, so we are officially in Thanksgivingtime, in which the early foodstuffs are being prepared so that there will be room in the oven tomorrow for the turkey and other things that need to be made on the day. So cakes and pies and certain casseroles that are reheatable: tonight […]

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Very Very Early Pixel 4 Impressions

I had pre-ordered a Pixel 4XL earlier this year and when it didn’t actually arrive on the day the phone came out (or several days after that), I cancelled the pre-order, on the basis that I was willing to pay the pre-order premium because I would get the phone as soon as possible, and Google […]

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A Very Scalzi Christmas Down the Last 100 Copies of the Signed Limited Hardcover

Here’s the news from Subterranean Press itself: A Very @Scalzi Christmas is shipping — and we've held back the last 100 copies for direct customers! We had way more orders than we could fill from wholesalers and large retailers, so don't delay in picking up your copy: https://t.co/fVog3LczDE pic.twitter.com/NFl5HvDFSe — SubPress (@SubPress) November 25, 2019 […]

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Trying the Astrophotograpy Mode on my Pixel Phone

I haven’t upgraded to the Pixel 4 yet, but one of its star attractions for the camera, the “astrophotography mode,” debuted on the Pixel 3 last week. I got up at a ridiculously early hour this morning for other reasons (i.e., cat woke me up), and the stars were visible for the first time in […]

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Reader Request Week 2019 #10: Short Bits

Time to close out this year’s Reader Request Week with some short takes on questions I didn’t otherwise get to: Dean Laws: Hey Scalzi, can you trust photographs anymore? Could we ever? Photographs were being manipulated and altered basically as soon as they were invented, and whether that fiddling was soft focus on a movie […]

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Reader Request Week 2019 #9: Writing Short Bits

And now, quick(er) answers to some of the questions about writing that popped up this week in this year’s reader requests: Kufat: Now that you’ve got a bunch of ongoing series, I was wondering how you feel about reader requests. Specifically open-ended things like “I hope we see more of character X” or “Could we […]

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RIP Gahan Wilson

Family and friends of Gahan Wilson are reporting that the master illustrator passed on yesterday. I can’t claim to have known him, but I was a fan of his since I was a child and one of the great highlights of my career was when Subterranean Press hired him to do the cover for the […]

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The Big Idea: Colin MacIver

There are few words more laden with negative association than “traitor” — it’s an apparent repudiation of country and of honor. Is there ever a time when there could be more to the word than that? Author Colin MacIver muses on this subject in his Big Idea post for his novel Turncoat. COLIN MacIVER: Throughout […]

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Reader Request Week 2019 #7: How My Wife Can Stand Me

Wayne Kearney asks: How does your wife stand you? Being a writer/engineer myself, I require a lot of ‘alone time’ to do my thing. My wife tends to alternate between “Why are you bothering me?” and “Why aren’t you paying attention to me?” How do you work out that balance or do you? Failure is […]

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Reader Request Week 2019 #6: Being Entertained as an Artist

Acshenglut asks about: Being entertained as an artist: I’ve often wondered if it is possible for a writer or other artist to look at work in their medium or a related medium (film and plays are still storytelling, for instance) as mere entertainment. Is there such a thing as entertainment for an artist, or is […]

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Reader Request Week 2019 #5: Civility

In an email, Pablo asks: Civility: A genuine plea for common understanding, or just another tool to oppress? I mean, why not both? Which is to say that one can genuinely wish for “civility” — a sort of courtly and dignified mode of discourse — without understanding all the ways that “civility” generally favors the […]

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Reader Request Week 2019 #3: Blogging With Extreme Confidence

David Orr asks: One noteworthy aspect of your blogging style is your extreme confidence. If you have an opinion to offer, you may caveat it in various ways, but usually not in ways that indicate any uncertainty. For instance, you rarely prefix statements with “I think that” or “Probably” or other indications that while this […]

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Reader Request Week 2019 #2: The War Between the Generations

Cristoph asks: What’s your take on the generational conflicts of our time, currently manifesting in the “Ok Boomer” saying? I think it’s par for the course, actually. Generational conflict makes for a good story and for good copy, and for the last 100 years or so in the US, at least, there’s been a low-grade […]

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