Monthly Archives: January 2022
Tonight’s Weird Sky
Posted on January 31, 2022 38 Comments
I’m not 100% sure what the clouds were doing tonight, but it was more than a little ominous. Although as I understand it the real bad weather is later in the week, when we’re going to get up to two feet of snow in a couple of days. Hopefully actually not that much. How’s the […]
Mobile Site Looks Wonky
Posted on January 29, 2022 1 Comment
I suspect it’s due to WordPress doing an update and that wreaking a little havoc with the mobile site version. I’m looking into it now. Update: I have the mobile version porting into a default WordPress theme at the moment while I look about, so it should be readable if not entirely fully featured. If […]
Censors and Boycotts: A Twitter Thread
Posted on January 28, 2022 32 Comments
Posting here for archive purposes. In an email, I was asked, given the rise of book bans in schools/libraries, if it made sense for me/other authors to ask publishers to stop sending our books to affected states until they pulled their heads out – a boycott, basically. So here’s why I think that’s not a […]
Get Your Stylophone On
Posted on January 28, 2022 3 Comments
Because you can never have too much Stylophone in your life, the Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra’s new album, Stylophonika, produced in part by, of all people, Tony Visconti. Their take on the Blade Runner end titles is my favorite bit. You can buy the album here, if you’re intrigued enough. — JS
New Books and ARCs, 1/28/22
Posted on January 28, 2022 10 Comments
January is hurtling to a close, but before we get there: A new stack of books and ARCs sent to the Scalzi Compound! What here do you want to take into February with you? Share in the comments.
The Big Idea: Chad Orzel
Posted on January 27, 2022 10 Comments
Chad Orzel is one of my favorite explainers of scientific concepts, and in his new book A Brief History of Timekeeping, he covers one of my favorite topics: Time. But the story of time isn’t just about time itself, as you will see — it’s also about those who try to keep it. CHAD ORZEL: […]
Oh, Look, a Box of Kaiju ARCs
Posted on January 26, 2022 16 Comments
Tor asked me if I would have a use for extra ARCs and I allowed I might; I have some people I need to slip them to. That said, I suspect at least one will come up for a contest here, uuhhhhh, soon. (Speaking of which, I emailed the winner of the last Kaiju contest […]
Under the Surface
Posted on January 25, 2022 21 Comments
I mentioned on Twitter today that this song from Encanto makes me tear up, not because I see myself in it but because I see any number of women I know in it — specifically, the hyper-competent women who do what’s necessary for their family and community, and do it so well that it’s easy […]
The Big Idea: Sarah J Daley
Posted on January 25, 2022 2 Comments
In today’s Big Idea, author Sarah J. Daley lets you in on a secret for how to create a badass character, like she has in her novel Obsidian. All you have to do is break some stuff first. The whole world, for a start. SARAH J. DALEY: Everyone loves an apocalypse. There’s just something intriguing […]
Smudge Offers You His Current Author Portrait
Posted on January 24, 2022 23 Comments
Actually, it might be his official CEO portrait. Honestly one can never tell with my cats these days. They are all very ambitious. As for me, it’s nice to know that if this writer thing falls through, I’ll have pet portraiture to fall back on. In other news, Krissy and I are back home from […]
Sugar and Charlie Wish You a Pleasant Day
Posted on January 20, 2022 11 Comments
And they hope you are doing well. I’m taking a mini vacation with Krissy over the next couple of days and can’t guarantee I’ll update until Monday. I might! But then I might not. Please let the adorable visages of my pets hold you until then. — JS
When Electric Cars Cross Over (From a CO2 Standpoint)
Posted on January 19, 2022 48 Comments
Interesting video above on a study from Volvo about when, from a total production and use point of view, its electric cars become less of an overall emissions burden than their most-equivalent internal combustion cars (Volvo’s own report on it, in pdf form, is here). The gist of it is that EV cars are less […]
The Big Idea: Cassandra Rose Clarke
Posted on January 19, 2022 3 Comments
If only you knew the power of the dark side — or at least, entertained, the possibility that there’s more complexity to it than frequently advertised. Cassandra Rose Clarke delves into the deep darkness in this Big Idea for The Beholden, and comes back with something not often expected. CASSANDRA ROSE CLARKE: The story of […]
On the “New Movement” in SF/F: An Archived Twitter Thread
Posted on January 17, 2022 49 Comments
Wrote this up on Twitter just now; archiving here for posterity. Because this is a Twitter thread, please note that the very first graf below is referring to the screen cap of text below it. So, I do have a take on how this movement functions, strictly as a practical matter, and involving the Hugos […]
This Man Needs a Haircut
Posted on January 17, 2022 15 Comments
I believe I’ve noted before that one of the big problems with being mostly bald is the thinner your hair is, the shorter it needs to be to look reasonably good. I am at point where “reasonably good” will require a clipping with a 5mm setting. That said, I like this picture a lot. It’s […]
The Big Idea: Gwynne Garfinkle
Posted on January 17, 2022
In life, we make choices, and we have to live with them. But as Gwynne Garfinkle details in this Big Idea for Can’t Find My Way Home, maybe sometimes the choices we make have consequences even beyond that. GWYNNE GARFINKLE: My novel Can’t Find My Way Home began as the story of a young actress […]
Sunset, 1/16/22
Posted on January 16, 2022 12 Comments
Those clouds look hardly ominous at all! Actually, what’s really ominous is that they have not budged for hours. They’re just lurking there to the south. We’ll see if they make a move when nightfalls. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow you’ll know why. — JS
Portrait of the Author As a Component of a “Punk-Or-Core” Formulation
Posted on January 15, 2022 51 Comments
From time to time, people who wish to comment on science fiction and fantasy will choose to typify the current state of the genre in a way that suits their rhetorical needs, often creating a new-and-possibly-not-especially-cogent subgenre of it by offering up some noun with the suffixes “-punk” or “-core” attached. On occasion, in course […]
Review: The Tragedy of Macbeth
Posted on January 14, 2022 16 Comments
First off, it doesn’t really feel like a Coen Brothers movie, probably because it isn’t: for the first time Joel Coen has put out a movie without his brother Ethan either in the producer or co-director seat. But I’ve seen people lump this into the “Coen Brothers” rubric, possibly more out of habit than anything […]
An Omicron Update
Posted on January 13, 2022 62 Comments
I’ve been asked a couple of times about how we’re doing and how we at the Scalzi Compound are dealing with the current Omicron wave of COVID infections out in the world. The short version is: We’re fine, and are dealing with it like we dealt with the previous waves. For my part specifically, I’m […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying