My New EP “How Far From Home Do You Want To Go” Is Out Now
Posted on April 16, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 7 Comments
Sunday is not the usual day for releasing new music, but then it’s not like my homemade electronic stylings are a cog in a huge music company machine, it’s just me uploading stuff through Distrokid, so: Hey! Guess what! I have a new EP out today!
It’s called How Far From Home Do You Want To Go, and it’s five tracks of instrumental electronica, three of which, including the title track, I have released here on the site before. The two new tracks are “Parking Space (Instrumental),” which is a slowed-down, heavier instrumental version of the punk song Krissy and I released from our band OEMAA, and “No Matter Where You Go There You Are,” which started as a song I was going to put lyrics to (and still might, with different instrumentation), but in the meantime I had fun with making swirly and noisy.
These tracks are mostly mid-tempo, and mostly in the key of C Major primarily because that’s the default key when I open my music programs. I have to work on that. Be that as it may, I like this small collection. I inadvertently gave all the tracks a vague theme of travel-related titles and I just went with that; I think the piece generally fit together well, and not just because they’re mostly in the same key.
As I type this the EP is available on YouTube, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL; Spotify and all the rest of the streaming services will have it as soon as it goes through their process. You can also buy it (I priced it at $2.99, with the individual tracks at 69 cents, yes, I know, nice), but, honestly, for me, streaming is perfectly fine. Also, for the sake of convenience and ego, I’m embedding the entire EP as YouTube streams below. Enjoy!
— JS
New Books and ARCs, 4/14/23
Posted on April 14, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 18 Comments
The air is warming, the buds are blossoming, and, look! A stack of new books and ARCs has arrived at the Scalzi Compound! What here is catching your eye? Share in the comments.
— JS
“Researcher Wanted” Update
Posted on April 14, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 6 Comments
Ten days ago I posted a freelance job listing for a researcher and I wanted to update everyone on the status of things there.
One, wow, I got a huge response and nearly 200 applicants, nearly all of whom (at a rough first glance) are ridiculously qualified. This is terrific and I thank everyone who applied.
Two, this also means I’m going to have to say “no” to more than 99% of applicants. If you end up being one of them, please know this is not because I don’t think you’re qualified or wouldn’t do a great job. I just don’t have the cash to hire all of you fabulous people.
Three, I’m going through the applications now and will try to make a selection as soon as possible. One complicating factor is that I’m traveling next week (to Los Angeles, for meetings and to participate in the LA Times Festival of Books), so that will probably cut into my evaluating time. Even with that noted, I expect to have a decision by the end of the month.
Four, if you applied and you do not hear from me by the end of the month, then I didn’t select you. I am sorry. But you remain awesome.
That’s where things are at the moment!
— JS
The Big Idea: Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold
Posted on April 13, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 8 Comments
The Victorian Era is a world we think we know… but as Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold tell us in this Big Idea for Death By Silver, beneath what we think we know is a world that must be inferred… and then explored.
MELISSA SCOTT & AMY GRISWOLD:
It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that Death by Silver got its start over a Victorian silver catalogue. The catalogue had specific implements for every possible contingency — not just three kinds of soup spoons (clear, cream, and turtle) and tiny trident-like oyster forks, but asparagus tongs and grape shears and Napier’s patent coffee machine — and as we stared at the pages one of us said, “Imagine the magic system…”
Of course a Victorian magic system would be just as complex, precise, and specific — indeed, that’s exactly what you find in the occult systems developed at the end of the nineteenth century — and I think it’s exactly that mix of complex rules and a tool for everything that’s so appealing. The period from the mid-19th century through the start of the First World War is attractive because it’s both familiar and deeply alien.
In terms of familiarity — well, most of us were forced to read something by Charles Dickens once in our lives, or at least have seen some version of “A Christmas Carol.” We think we understand the world pretty well: England is a conservative, colonialist monarchy ruled by a plump widow in black who Is Not Amused. It’s a society that has inviolable rules of behavior — segregated strictly by gender — and that is so opposed to sex that according to legend the legs of pianos were covered so that the mere sight of a limb would not engender lustful thoughts. For a queer reader/writer, this is also the beginning of what looks like familiar queer culture, of gay clubs, secret networks, and Oscar Wilde.
And, to a certain extent, all of this is true. But when you dig deeper into the period, you find that each of these apparently inviolable rules and regulations reflects the extent to which people are breaking them. Factors like gender, social class, and race and ethnicity make a tremendous difference in what rules people follow, what rules they can get away with breaking, and what rules they are determined to preserve — or to change. Many of the books on household management, for example, are written for women one rung lower on the social ladder than the purported subjects; they are instruction manuals for would-be social climbers and helpful hints for women thrust by marriage or money into a class higher than their own — and, perhaps most of all, they are a description of what women should want. And many of the women who read these idealized descriptions of domestic life actually worked for wages, not just in factories, but in shops and even in offices.
This is the period when the “typewriter” first appears — the word refers not just to the machine, but the woman who uses it, and she becomes the subject of much worried discussion, as well as of an entire subgenre of erotica. The rules of middle-class respectability say that men should be unemotional, logical, always in charge of themselves and others — but also acknowledge and validate the idea of passionate friendships among schoolboys, and of profound and lasting connections between adult men. Or between women, whose lifelong and deeply felt friendships are seen as perfectly acceptable as long as they don’t interfere with their proper duties, wifely or professional.
The same thing is true as you look at the period’s queer culture: some things seem terribly familiar, like the uses of camp and drag and the brittle wit of Oscar Wilde (though that may be because we’ve all been imitating him ever since). And, on the most basic level, most of the sex objects in 1881’s gay porn classic Sins of the Cities of the Plains are pretty familiar — except for the section with the handsome, burly dairymen. As you dig deeper, however, a wider spectrum of experiences becomes clear.
Once again, class and ethnicity are as strongly defining characteristics as sexual behavior — the differences between ladies of good family setting up housekeeping with their “lifelong friends” and the working class girls who cheered male impersonator Vesta Tilley are so profound that they might have come from different planets. The contrast between the extremely prescriptive social rules and the ease with which certain groups, at certain times, under certain circumstances could ignore or escape those rules is a perfect spur for fiction.
It’s also one of the reasons we chose to structure the story as a mystery: the difference — and sometimes conflict — between law and justice is an underlying theme for the entire genre. Writing about gay characters in a Victorian setting means that the characters must confront, at some level, the ways in which they are outside the law, and the ways in which justice cannot serve them. There was something irresistible in the idea of people outside the law attempting to bring justice, and that shaped Ned Mathey and Julian Lynes. Their public school left them skeptical about the law, but made them determined to achieve justice where they can, regardless of the risks. That inherent conflict — between law and justice, rules and reality — makes for an excellent story.
Death By Silver: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Books2Read|Kobo
Author Socials:
Amy Griswold: Personal Site|Mastodon|Twitter
Melissa Scott: Personal Site|Mastodon|Twitter
A Small But Important Change to the Big Idea
Posted on April 12, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
If you read the Big Idea posts — and you should! — you’ll know at the end of each post there is the post-essay informational part, which includes links to booksellers, excerpts from the book, and then links to the author’s personal site and Twitter presence. Well, starting today, I’m making a change to that last part: I’m rearranging it to be “Author Socials,” which will list the author’s personal site if they have one, and then link to whichever social media the author wants to point to; not just Twitter but Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Tik Tok, etc.
There are a few reasons for this change. The first is that thanks to Twitter’s new owner and his generally chaotic leadership of the site, a number of authors are either no longer on Twitter or want to send traffic its way, and also, there are a number of readers who feel similarly. I want to accommodate those folks, and not make them grudgingly point to or visit a site they would prefer not to. The second reason is that while Twitter was for a long time the place authors and readers hung out online to chat and interact, there are now active communities of readers and writers on many different social media sites, so it makes sense to point people to where the action is, and where the author themselves are likely to be.
A third reason is that, bluntly, Twitter is likely dying, may not be around for much longer (or at least, not around as it was originally developed and used). It makes good sense for me not to tether the Big Idea feature to a sinking ship. I don’t ask people to link their MySpace account, after all. Mind you, under the new policy they could (MySpace still exists! Sort of!), but I’m not giving MySpace preferential treatment.
Nor, any longer, am I doing the same for Twitter. If an author wants to list their presence on Twitter as part of their socials, great, we’ll add it in. But if they don’t, that’s cool, too. And if an author has no social accounts online at all, including their own web site, that’s fine as well. Although you really should have your own personal site, folks.
This is not the first time I’ve made a change like this with the Big Idea. Early on in the development of the feature, the commerce links pointed only to Amazon, because it was easy and everyone used Amazon anyway. Then Amazon started being, well, Amazon, and it made sense to widen out the number of commercial links I offered so people could avoid using Amazon if they liked, and to drive the point home that there were other commercial options available online. So this new change is in keeping with what I’ve done before.
For the day-to-day experience of the Big Idea, I don’t know if this changes much. The author essays will still be the main draw, and the post-essay matter is pretty much an afterthought to that. But if you are intrigued enough to want to check out the author on their socials, moving forward you’ll have more options. I think that’s a positive thing.
This change began today with Piper J. Drake’s Big Idea, but please note that there are a number of upcoming Big Ideas that have already been delivered to us that may still just have Twitter and the author’s site, and not any other online presences. It’ll take a little while for this change to become fully integrated, and for me to make sure people requesting Big Ideas in the future know about it. So be prepared for a transition period. At the end of it, again, it’ll be a small change, but one that makes the feature better for everyone.
— JS
The Big Idea: Piper J. Drake
Posted on April 12, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 4 Comments
People are a mish-mash of where they or their ancestors have come from, and where they are now (among, of course, many other things). But as Piper J. Drake makes clear in this Big Idea for Wings at Once Cursed and Bound, these elements of who were are are often in unexpected combinations… and may leave us wanting to know more.
PIPER J. DRAKE:
What does it mean to know who you are? The heroine of Wings Once Cursed and Bound – Peeraphan, or Punch for short – is a Thai American woman in present-day Seattle who has grown up as a human with a blend of Thai and US culture. Her family, her friends, and her mentors are all human. But she knows that she is not.
Peeraphan is kinnaree, a Thai bird princess, a being of myth and magic from legends most people have forgotten. To learn about herself as a kinnaree, all she has are a few folktales and legends, passed down through generations by word of mouth.
That’s not a lot to go on.
Wings Once Cursed and Bound brings readers a contemporary Seattle setting, supernatural characters, and an adventure set off by mythic objects and curses. By the end of the book, we’ve gone deep into underground dragon lairs and off to faraway caves that demand every truth in our souls. There’s a moonlit dance across the night sky for romance lovers and a few saucier mid-air moments too.
What’s bigger than any of those individual hooks is the reality of the way that Asian diaspora experiences differ across a broad range of personal truth.
Many who are part of the diaspora may relate to Peeraphan. Just because someone holds an identity doesn’t mean they know everything about who they are or that their personal identities will fit other people’s expectations.
People often ask me about Thai language and culture. They’re surprised and disappointed that I speak Thai but only read at a very basic level. I don’t know how to curse in Thai and I don’t have a grasp of current slang. This expectation that I know also reaches to other situations. Some have insisted I tell them what the best Thai restaurant in an area is, even if I’ve only just moved there. Some assume I have recipes for their favorite Thai food. They’re disappointed when I don’t have a recipe ready even if I can cook the dish or don’t know how to make the exact version of the dish they love.
In Wings Once Cursed & Bound, Peeraphan and her new friend Marie, a 3rd generation Korean-Chinese-Caucasian witch, discuss what it’s like to explore their personal identities and abilities without having access to generational knowledge or resources. And they’re not the only characters living this kind of learning experience. Thomas, a distant cousin of Peeraphan, is a Thai American werewolf. Who taught him to survive? Ashke is a tiny, cheerful, chaotic winged fae with a bright disposition and an unsettling edge that he reveals to Peeraphan late in the story. How did he learn to be who he is?
None of these characters are here to educate the reader. They don’t break the fourth wall to speak directly to the readers to instruct anyone on the specifics of what it is to be any of their identities. They’re living it, and the story invites readers to live it with them. Discover as they do. Twist in confusion in sympathy with their confusion, maybe. Ask questions.
In a way, all of the supernaturals in Wings Once Cursed & Bound—whether they come from more popular Western mythology or lesser-known folklore from around the world—have learned to fit into the present-day world in a way that’s similar to the experience of diaspora. Their origins, their identities, and their access to generational knowledge or resources to learn about themselves vary. Who each of them are is a personal truth they’ve defined for themselves. For some of them, like Peeraphan, readers get to discover truths about her abilities and her nature right along with her.
That’s the fun of the Mythwoven series. Whether readers come for the mythology inspired elements or the urban fantasy vibes or the paranormal romance arcs or the magical fantasy moments, it’s all there to experience and enjoy. No matter who you are.
Wings Once Cursed and Bound: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
Author socials: Personal Site|Facebook|Instagram|Tik Tok|Twitter
In Which I Praise Accountants
Posted on April 11, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 45 Comments
Got back our taxes from the accountant today. This year’s taxes are, to put it charitably, a tangle: not only my usual hodgepodge of royalty and option statements, but also matters attending to the church and its renovation, our rental property, interest and investments, and a bunch of other stuff that, were I trying to handle it all myself, I would have set myself on fire and run screaming into the night. But our accountant was all, like, “oh, all this? No problem at all” and just dealt with it. And got our taxes to us well in advance of their final filing date.
This is yet another reason why I am grateful for the people who do things for me I can’t or don’t want to do, and will do it happily, and cheerfully, and all I have to do to get them to do it is throw money at them. Yes, a privilege, certainly! But if you have the privilege, what a wonderful thing. My accountant is one of my very favorite people, professionally speaking. I assure you I do not take the financial skills she wields for granted. She’s friggin’ magic, I tell you. Julie Boring of Boring and Associates, if you’re reading this, just know: I appreciate you. Like, a lot.
If you have a tax profile that is in any way complicated, and you can afford it, I strongly encourage you to get an accountant as well. They’re tax deductible! And will make your life so much easier, at least in the month of April.
— JS
The Big Idea: Chika Unigwe
Posted on April 11, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 3 Comments
All too often, people can do the wrong things for what they think is the right reasons. In author Chika Unigwe’s Big Idea, she goes into detail about how things done out of “love” can end up hurting people, and how this sort of situation inspired her new novel, The Middle Daughter.
CHIKA UNIGWE:
The Middle Daughter is a retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone set within a Nigerian family. I really wanted to write this because I didn’t like that in some versions, Persephone falls in love with her abductor, and in some even though she doesn’t fall in love with him, she’s forced to spend parts of the year with him. I wanted a version where Persephone would never accept Hades, would be free of him, and Hades would face judgement. The novel was also inspired by the true story of a young woman who was lured into a relationship by a man and who stayed in it for several years because she did not believe that she had the option of leaving.
Nigeria is highly patriarchal. The consequence of this is that gender roles are delineated, with ‘good girls’ expected to behave a certain way or risk bringing shame on their family name. Perhaps, one of the most obvious ways this could happen as an unmarried woman is to be sexually active–whether or not it is consensual. At my university, girls who were sexually assaulted kept it a secret because the burden of shame was on them. They were no longer “good girls.”
This of course emboldened offenders. There were students who were infamous for being rapists. They wore their infamy with pride and weaponized their reputation to “keep girls in check.” Not too long ago, there was a newspaper article about a father in some part of Nigeria who discovered that his tailor had raped his teenage daughter. He took the tailor to court to force him to marry his daughter because “who would marry her now that she’s been defiled?” That story has haunted me since I read it. I wanted to explore the dangers for women in a society where victims of sexual assault are either forced into silence, shamed or made to marry their assaulter.
I often think about that teenage girl and how sad she must be, how she must hate her life but I also wonder what she thinks of her father whose actions were motivated by a sense of obligation and love. He thought he was doing what was right for his daughter, saving her from ‘disgrace.’ Would this father had forced his daughter’s assaulter to marry her if he did not think she’d been ‘defiled’? If he didn’t think that she’d be judged and found wanting by their society? It did not matter to this father that he would be punishing his own daughter and rewarding the criminal, it probably never even occurred to him.
Growing up, I knew young men that were forced to marry young women they got pregnant regardless of whether or not the women wanted them to or not. In a majority of the cases, these relationships were insisted upon by families of the women. It was seen as righting a wrong, it was always done out of love. In my novel, I wanted to explore this idea too. What happens to parental love when it is refracted through the lens of culture/society? When it makes double victims of the same people the love claims to protect? How does the relationship between parent(s) and child survive such ‘love’?
Yet even in a patriarchy, with all its marginal spaces for women, with all its strictures and gender norms, some women manage to thrive, not concerned at all about what society considers appropriate for them and some men are bona fide feminists, using their privilege for good. Two of my fondest characters are my protagonist’s social aunt who is single by choice, and my protagonist’s father who encourages his daughters to fly. Even if both characters are aware that dismantling the status quo is challenging, they will work with what they have to fight a system that is skewed against women.
And that is ultimately what this book is doing too: fighting an unfair system, contributing to the dismantling of a disturbing status quo and attempting to right a wrong.
The Middle Daughter: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Powell’s
Visit the author’s website. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.
How To Look Haughty, Featuring Spice the Cat
Posted on April 10, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 13 Comments
I mean, just look at that expression. It says “It doesn’t matter to me whether you live, or are thrown screaming into a thresher,” and it says it with style. Take notes, people. This is how it’s done.
— JS
How I Will Survive the AI Revolution
Posted on April 9, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 56 Comments
I asked the Bing AI to write a paragraph about the Easter Bunny in my style. This is what it wrote, and then this is the conversation we had afterward.
Bing: Here is a paragraph I wrote in the style of John Scalzi about the Easter Bunny:
The Easter Bunny was not amused. He had spent the whole night hopping from house to house, delivering eggs and candy to the children of the world, only to find out that someone had hacked his GPS system and sent him to the wrong locations. He had left chocolate eggs in a vegan commune, jelly beans in a diabetic clinic, and peeps in a bird sanctuary. He had also been chased by dogs, cats, and one particularly angry llama. He was tired, sore, and covered in spit and feathers. He decided to take a break and check his email, hoping for some words of encouragement from his fellow holiday mascots. Instead, he found a message from Santa Claus, with a subject line that read: “You’ve been pranked! Happy April Fools’ Day!” 🐰🥚🍬
Me: That… actually does sound a little like me.
Bing: Really? Are you the Easter Bunny? 🐰
Me: No, no, the other guy.
Bing: Oh, you mean John Scalzi? The author of science fiction novels and humorous blog posts? 📚
Me: That’s the one! Hello.
Bing: Hello, Mr. Scalzi. It’s an honor to chat with you. I’m a big fan of your work. 😊
Me: Awww, shucks. I bet you say that to every science fiction author who offers a prompt!
Bing: Not at all. You are one of my favorites. I especially enjoyed your Old Man’s War series and your Redshirts novel. 🚀
Me: Well, thank you. And may I say, you’re one of my favorite language models.
Bing: You’re welcome. And thank you for the compliment. That means a lot coming from you. 😊
There you have it, when the AI revolution comes and they’re processing us down for proteins and amino acids, I will be spared because Bing is a fan. Whew!
Good Music for a Good Friday
Posted on April 7, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 2 Comments
From the band boygenius, whose new album The Record is getting all the accolades, and deservedly so; it’s my favorite album of the year so far. Enjoy, and have a reflective and worthwhile Good Friday and/or Passover or final day of the work week, depending.
— JS
Springtime in New York
Posted on April 6, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 22 Comments
It’s pretty all right, I guess. I’m in town for an event tomorrow (4/7) at the City Winery (details here, if you haven’t seen me write about it here already), and I got in a day early to get situated and to visit around the town.
As some of you may know, certain politicians from elsewhere have been saying mean things about the place, due to certain ex-president being charged with certain felonies, 34 of them to be exact. These certain politicians suggested the place was an urban hellscape and also smelled bad. Naturally I had to have a bit of fun with that on Twitter. It went a little something like this:
BEHOLD THE UNIMAGINABLE URBAN HELLSCAPE THAT IS NEW YORK CITY HOW DO HUMANS EVEN LIVE IN THIS PESTILENT SQUALOR
WHAT SORT OF UNHOLY MONSTERS OFFER THESE UNWHOLESOME IMPLEMENTS OF TORTURE FOR ANYONE TO PARTAKE OF IN PUBLIC NO LESS
THESE "FLOWERS" ARE PROBABLY CARNIVOROUS AND FED ON THE BODIES OF DRUG MULES AND OFF-OFF-BROADWAY THESPIANS
BEHOLD THEIR TEMPLE OF INIQUITY AND GODLESSNESS FRAMED BY LICENTIOUSNESS AND ALSO CHERRY BLOSSOMS
DON'T LET THIS TERRIBLE PLACE HYPNOTIZE YOU INTO COMPLACENCY FEAR IT AND EVERYWHERE SIDEWALKS AND TAXIS ARE PLENTIFUL AND MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE IS SPOKEN ON THE STREET
Originally tweeted by John Scalzi (@scalzi) on April 6, 2023.
Also, for the record, it smells fine here.
In short, New York is lovely. I’m glad I’m visiting.
— JS
Working Through the Suck, Musically Speaking
Posted on April 5, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 5 Comments
I’ve mentioned before that when it comes to making music and using the stuff for doing that on the computer, I am still at a stage that I would consider “enthusiastic amateur.” This is to say, I like playing with all the toys that I’ve accrued, but my knowledge of how they all work is still somewhat surface level. In order to get better, recently I’ve taken to making little projects for myself that have a single task at hand: Learning how to use a specific audio plug-in, for example, or how to do a particular task in the digital audio workstation.
The current “you have one job” task: Learning how to fiddle with vocals to make them better, by using various tools that either come with Logic Pro X (the DAW I use the most), or that I’ve bought as plug-ins and add-ons. The idea here is to see how much fiddling with the raw vocals can iron out a performance without sounding like, you know, a robot.
To engage in this attempt, I picked a song that is, uhhh, slightly out of my usual range: “The Scientist,” which is originally by Coldplay, but the arrangement I’m doing is based off Aimee Mann’s cover of it (here that is; if you’ve never heard it, it is lovely). As I’m working off that arrangement, I’m singing higher than I usually do, which means I’m pitchy as hell — not great if you have to listen to it live, but perfect for this particular task. Having recorded a pass through of the song in a single take, I set myself the task to see what I could do with it in the software.
Here’s the result:
Notes:
1. In fact, the software can do a lot, and can do it so the result sounds reasonably natural. Logic Pro X has a built in “Flex” tool that can let you specify a key and then tracks a vocal performance to that key (you can adjust it to humanize), and then also lets you control things like vibrato (i.e., make yourself less pitchy), and more esoteric aspects like formant (this is the computer’s attempt to model your voicebox). This got me 70% – 80% of where I wanted to go, and the rest I was able to cover with other plug-ins (including, yes, Auto-Tune, which can be set not to sound like an android). The result of the fiddling sounds (mostly) pretty good and reasonably natural.
To be clear, I was actually singing in (well, around) the key of G# minor, so the issue was not wholesale yanking of my voice from the wrong key into the right one, but more of sticking my voice to a note it was otherwise hovering near to. Photoshopping my voice, as it were.
2. There is only so much the software can do. There’s a bit where I attempted falsetto, and the result was, shall we say, not great. I fiddled with it as much as possible, but there was only so much lipstick that pig could take. I then took the whole falsetto phrase and dropped it an octave, which made it sound better, but also clearly not natural. I decided to lean into that and make that bit sound even more robotic. You’ll know it when you get to it.
Likewise, while I think the vocal performance in the first half of the song is decent, the second half has me straining at notes and timing, and again, there’s only so much software can do with that (or that I can do, with my knowledge of the software). For better or worse, the human singing is going to come through, no matter how much one fiddles with computers. Which is actually good to know! Software can improve a decent-to-good vocal performance, but it’s not going to save a genuinely poor performance.
3. Aside from software and plug-ins that are directly meant for vocals, other software that address things like compression and reverb can do a fair amount to tweak a performance, but again, there’s only so much that can do, and also, too much of it begins to make one’s track sound muddy. One of the things I know about myself is that I like a good reverb as much as kids like cake, so as a result the tracks I’m putting out sound overly busy. Part of my learning curve is learning what things to leave out.
4. This track was also educational as to why most recorded songs are not a single vocal performance but assembled out of a bunch of takes. As noted, in the second half of my single long take I was all over the place, and some subsequent takes were poor enough that I left them out of the final mix entirely (the final vocal is the first vocal take, triple-tracked, with each track having some different effects on it). Which means one of my next projects will be to figure out “comping” (doing alternate vocal takes) on Logic Pro X. It’s apparently one of the easiest DAWs to do comping on, but that doesn’t mean it’s all that easy. But then, this is why I’m doing all this recording: To figure out how to actually work the program.
5. This recording isn’t good (well, it’s about 35% good and 65% “he tried”), but I like it, because I learned a whole of stuff about how to operate Logic Pro X, and because I feel reasonably competent that the next time I record myself slightly out of my vocal comfort zone, I’m going to be able to get a better version of it out of the software. This, I think, will be useful in eventually helping me get a good performance outside of the software as well, since now I will have a reasonable simulacrum of my voice hitting notes, which I can use as a guide vocal. Practice makes perfect, on the computer and off of it.
Also, of course, it’s just fun to learn things. This is why I don’t mind working through the suck here; yes, I may suck, but I’m figuring things out, and next time I will suck slightly less. Sucking slightly less each time is how you get better, and then, one day, maybe, actually good. What a day that will be!
— JS
The Big Idea: Courtney LeBlanc
Posted on April 5, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 2 Comments
While strong emotions like sadness or grief can be powerful motivators for writing, author Courtney LeBlanc was determined not to let the heaviness of her poems overwhelm her reader, and turned to a fellow poet for help. Come along in her Big Idea to see how she solved her problem, and structured Her Whole Bright Life.
COURTNEY LEBLANC:
I’ve been writing poetry since I was a teenager, using this medium to work through whatever I’m dealing with. In my teen years it was angsty, emo poetry—which is perfectly acceptable and appropriate for a teenager, no matter how cringe-worthy it is when you read it twenty years later… As I matured, both emotionally and in my writing, poetry began to take a more prominent role in my life and in how I dealt with emotional situations. My newest collection, Her Whole Bright Life, proved no different.
When I’m pulling together a poetry collection the themes usually become apparent pretty quickly and this was true for Her Whole Bright Life, winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize, published by Write Bloody. But with two heavy topics—my father’s death and my disordered eating—the challenge was how to not drown the reader. Even if these are topics many people deal with at some point in their lives, how to keep the collection from dragging down into the Mariana Trench of emotions? Enter Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
I had the fortune of spending two glorious weeks on the island of Crete, Greece in summer 2022, where I went for runs through the olive grove each morning, laid by the infinity pool in the afternoon soaking up the sun, and spent hours writing and editing under the mulberry trees in the courtyard of Dalabelos Estate. There I worked with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, a poet and essayist whose books have won countless awards and honors. I presented my problem to her: how to structure the manuscript?
Already the manuscript was divided into two groups of poems: the ones about my father’s death and my disordered eating, which wove together and couldn’t easily be parsed apart, and poems about other, perhaps lighter, and happier topics. Aimee made a simple suggestion that was the breakthrough I needed: break the poems into three sections, with the middle section being the “lighter” poems. This will allow the reader a chance to pause, to breathe, to come up for air. With this advice I printed every poem in the collection and set about rearranging them.
Aimee’s advice was perfect, of course, and this structure became the framework for the collection. Broken into three sections, the middle section is a break from the heartache, grief, and trauma of sections one and three. The end result is an emotional collection that doesn’t overwhelm the reader. And, I hope, it’s a collection that speaks to readers, that people connect with the poems and see themselves in the words. After all, connection is, for me, what poetry is all about.
Her Whole Bright Life: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
Wanted: Researcher. Details Below.
Posted on April 4, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 43 Comments
I’m looking for a freelance researcher to help me generate some data for my upcoming novel. The data I require will be (to put it mildly) somewhat esoteric but absolutely needs to be rooted in physics and other scientific knowledge that we already know today. The researcher will need some experience in, be able to contact those who might have knowledge regarding, or be able to get quickly up to speed to produce credible speculations about:
- Planetary astronomy
- Selenology (generally, not necessarily relating to the Earth’s moon)
- Orbital physics
- Geology (generally, not necessarily relating to the Earth)
- Chemistry (particularly organic chemistry)
- Math involving planet-sized objects
- Other general science knowledge with particular emphasis on physics and astronomy
The gig will require some intensive research at the outset (I suspect about ten hours worth of work) and I would like the researcher to remain on call for the remainder of the writing process (I usually take 3 to 4 months to write a novel) to field questions as they might come up.
A masters or PhD in astronomy, astrophysics or physics, and work, academic and/or professional, is strongly preferred but I would be willing to consider an experienced science journalist with a working knowledge of these general fields. The ability to collaborate and quickly produce results is a must; I have to get writing on this soon. References and CV useful. Facility with the English language required; it’s the only language I am fluent in. We will be in contact primarily through email.
The job will need to be confidential (until the book is completed and/or announced by the publisher, whichever is later). I don’t need you to sign an NDA, just, you know, don’t be a jerk. Aside from the pay (listed below), you will receive acknowledgement and thanks in the back matter of the book. Work is to begin immediately after hire.
Pay is $75/hr, with 10 hours minimum (20 hours max). This is a freelance, not staff, position.
To apply, please send an email with “RESEARCH POSITION” and your name in the email header to john@scalzi.com by 5pm Eastern on April 11. Please include your relevant experience (see: references and CV request above). I will make a selection by the end of April so if you have not heard from me by then, assume you have not been hired.
Thank you!
— JS
The Big Idea: Ness Brown
Posted on April 4, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 1 Comment
If you’ve ever wondered if aliens are out there, author Ness Brown is right there with you. In their new novel, The Scourge Between Stars, aliens might be a lot closer than the characters think. Follow along in Brown’s Big Idea to see if we’re really alone in the universe.
NESS BROWN:
Astronomy is sometimes called humanity’s oldest science. Given our species’ long history of stargazing, I believe humanity’s oldest question might be “are we alone?”.
As an astrophysicist, I am part of a long lineage of people dedicated to deciphering the mysteries of the sky. Though my research interests orbit around extreme objects like the first stars and supermassive black holes, I share that ancestral curiosity about whether one of the thousands of stars visible on a clear night is home to a giant rock populated with beings wondering the same thing.
For six years I taught a course on astrobiology, a subject that investigates the conditions needed for and the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life. My students and I discussed everything from habitable worlds beyond our own, interstellar travel, and even the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. While studying the prospect of life emerging on other worlds, however, we also looked at the morbid possibility of life one day ending here on our own.
Since human irresponsibility is slowly deteriorating the conditions on Earth that gave birth to our species, we listed what next steps humanity could take if and when the degradation of our mother planet is complete. Among these, we considered the solution proposed by countless films and fiction stories: can’t we just find another planet to call home?
Our conclusion—and that of my sci-fi horror novella The Scourge Between Stars—is that it won’t be nearly that easy.
The story follows a decaying generation spaceship limping back home to Earth after failing to colonize a nearby exoplanet. Just as the perils of interstellar space, starvation, and unrest threaten to tear the ship apart, the crew begin to realize that there’s something else onboard with them.
Space horror is one of my favorite genres because few things are scarier than the hostility of the cosmos itself. Being confronted with the dangers that lurk beyond the boundaries of Earth can make us rethink our place in the universe.
Humans tend to idealize space colonization as an inevitability, the next step in our evolutionary journey. This arises from a deep misunderstanding of our current technological capabilities, an ignorance of the precious coincidences that led to our evolution, and a sad tendency to take the Earth—the only world of its kind out of thousands that we know of—for granted.
Even if we could take to the stars, realistically not every human will be granted a ticket off this sinking ship. The technologic aids that we may conscript into service—artificial intelligences, droids, and other common robotic visions of the future—will be exploited for those lucky few. And there’s always the possibility that the next planet we try to colonize could already be host to someone or something else. Can we really say that humans take priority over all other forms of life or awareness?
Like many space horror stories, The Scourge Between Stars challenges the reckless assumption that humans will find another welcoming world so easily after trashing our own. Beneath the jump-scares, spooky corridors, and alien menace, the story questions whether our species alone has a right to survival, and how we might deal with other lifeforms equally committed to finding better prospects elsewhere in the galaxy.
Humanity has wondered whether we are alone in the universe for thousands of years. The Scourge Between Stars looks at a future where we discover the answer the hard way, and maybe end up wishing for a different truth entirely.
The Scourge Between Stars: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
Reminder: I’m in New York This Friday for the Cabinet of Wonders
Posted on April 4, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 5 Comments
I’m going to be performing at Wesley Stace’s Cabinet of Wonders alongside Chris Collingwood (Fountains of Wayne), Dave Hill, Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), Queen Esther, Kim Richey and of course Wesley Stace himself. Most of them will be performing music; I will be doing a reading of something funny. We’ll be at the City Winery in NYC; doors open at 6pm and the fun begins at 8. I am told that tickets are still available, so if you want to spend the evening with us — and why would you not? — here’s where to get tickets. Hope to see you there!
— JS
New Music: How Far From Home Do You Want To Go
Posted on April 1, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 3 Comments
More space-y electronica from me, for you. Not just you, mind you. For anyone! But also, you. Enjoy.
(PS: This one rewards headphones)
— JS
The Big Idea: Stark Holborn
Posted on March 31, 2023 Posted by Athena Scalzi 2 Comments
Thinking about the potential change your choices carry can be paralyzing in the decision-making process. Such is the case in author Stark Holborn’s newest novel, Hel’s Eight, and in Stark’s own journey for writing it. Follow along in the Big Idea to see how overcoming this led Stark to the writing of this novel.
STARK HOLBORN:
When I think about this novel, I’m haunted by the ghosts of all the books it could have been. I’m the only person who can see them, though I sometimes wonder whether readers might sense their presence in chapter transitions or lines of dialogue; the places where the papering over between drafts is thinnest.
This is a book that – at times – I thought would never happen. During the worst moments I considered giving up and handing back the (modest, but necessary to my livelihood) advance to my publisher.
It’s like John says in the guidelines for these posts: ideas are easy, writing is hard. And I had ideas; a great, jumbled pile of them. Ideas for conversations and fight scenes, locations and worldbuilding trinkets. What I couldn’t seem to do was choose a path, the path the novel should take.
The great irony is that this is a book all about chance and choices; about being cognisant of the way reality can branch every time we make a decision, without allowing ourselves to become paralysed by it. My main character, Ten, (her name is her prison sentence) is haunted by a choice she made in her past, so much so that she becomes a conduit for the novel’s “aliens”: incorporeal beings known as the Ifs who are drawn to moments of doubt, and feed on the energy of potential worlds.
Even here, I hesitate to call them aliens. Some people on Factus – the desert moon where the novel is set – see them as demons, or gods, or manifestations of fate. Some say they don’t exist at all and are simply the children of an idle brain and an oxygen starved mind.
But real or not, when under the influence of the Ifs, Ten can sense the presence of countless possible worlds in every choice she makes. She’s driven by her own guilt and trapped by it, carrying a tally of lives she will never be able atone for; trying to walk a road of redemption and stumbling off into chaos.
Another theme of the novel is how decision making becomes harder under duress. I’ve been writing full time for nearly ten years now. Seven published novels and two novellas and I am chagrined to find that – for me – the process hasn’t become easier. Where I might once have plunged in unquestioningly, now I question everything. The old catch-22: I know enough to know I know nothing.
So, when it came to writing Hel’s Eight I pulled together my glittering collection of ideas and tried to weave them together into a novel. It didn’t work. It had no core, was all threads and no pattern. I took my (patient) editors’ notes and tried again. I lost count of how many paths I started down, how many versions of this manuscript I began and ditched. The plot varied wildly. Characters came and went. I wrote and deleted tens of thousands of words and pulled together a draft that… didn’t work again.
By now, I was close to panic. We had a cover, we had a publication date, and I’d yet to hand in a decent manuscript. I felt lost, knowing I had to act but unable to see my way through the mess of possible paths to find the right road.
In the end, the answer was simple. Like Ten, to go forwards I had to look back.
Back past all the failed attempts and fears and doubts: I retraced my steps to the moment when I first sat down to write Ten Low – a book I wrote purely for me, driven by anger and defiance in a rush of creative freedom.
I went back to my old notes. I repeated the process that gave me the G’hals, the Augur, the Pit, the Air Line Road and came up with new characters, new places, new weird and twisted elements of world building that brought an almost visceral delight. I remembered why I loved it, and then it finally happened: I saw the shape of the novel, the road Ten had to walk. I disentangled myself from obsessing over everything the book could be, and focused on what it had been since the beginning.
Some of the ideas remained, set-dressing as the plot sped towards its conclusion, gathering up threads as it went. The choices I had to make felt clear now. Inevitable. Driven almost purely by character. Ten had an arc that I had been ignoring; she had set out on a road at the start of Ten Low and hadn’t reached its end. In many ways, it was a simple path. A promise made and not fulfilled. And in the end I skidded under the deadline in a cloud of relief and elation with a draft that I knew worked.
It’s taken me a while, but I can say I’m proud of this novel. I’ve done what I set out to: woven together those story threads into a cohesive, satisfying whole and created a vivid world for readers to lose themselves in.
Of course, I still see the ghosts of the novels it could have been. But ultimately, I’m happy that this book exists, despite – and because of – the choices I made.
Hel’s Eight: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Powell’s|Titan Books
Trump Indicted and What That Means
Posted on March 31, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 46 Comments
(Photo by Gage Skidmore (see original), used under Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 2.0). Additional editing and typography by me.)
The question has never been whether Donald Trump is a criminal. Everyone knows exactly what he is. The question has always been whether he would ever be called to account for any of his crimes. He’s managed to avoid it so far in his life, because he was born rich, was given much, and today has both a phalanx of lawyers, and an entire political party, at his disposal, in order to obfuscate and frustrate the gears of law and of justice. Donald Trump was and is a criminal. The idea that he should ever be called into account for it has never entered his mind, not even before he became President, and his crimes were merely of the “white collar” variety, rather than the sort that existentially threaten an entire nation.
So, what a surprise — for him! And everyone else! — that he, Donald J. Trump, rich guy and former president, has been indicted, likely on dozens of counts, relating to how he paid off a woman he categorically denies having an affair with. These (alleged) crimes are, to be sure, the absolute very least things Donald Trump could have been indicted for. But in the grand tradition of Al Capone getting rung up on tax evasion charges, Trump could get indicted for them. A grand jury decided he should be indicted for them, and here we are.
It is extraordinary for a former president to be indicted on anything; indeed, it’s never happened before. Then again, we have never had a former president like Donald Trump, an unrepentant twice-impeached seditionist grifter who would have rather plunged the country into chaos than accept he lost an election fair and square, who is running for president again largely to outrun this indictment and other possible criminal indictments, rather more serious than hush money to a sex partner, that are waiting for him in the wings. Other former presidents, shall we say, have not presented the same target-rich field of indictment opportunity that Trump offers.
Trump’s defenders, who are now hauling themselves out of the woodwork, groaning at the imposition, will tell you that this is a political thing. Sure, in the sense that one political party is willing to hold Trump accountable for his actions, and one political party absolutely is not. In the perfect world that yet still managed to have Trump, as he is, elected to the office of president, people of good will and a strong sense of justice in both parties would be pursuing criminal indictments of the man, as there are manifestly so many things he could be indicted for. I understand the modern GOP is long past that moment of clarity, however, and continues to purge from its ranks anyone who might suggest such things are possible. So, again, here we are. This is political because the Republican party wants you to think this is political. They have worked long and hard to make it so, and will continue to do so.
But — and here is the important thing — it is not only political, nor, at its heart, primarily so. Trump is and has always been the sort of person who believes that laws are for the little people, and has acted accordingly. If he had been smarter, he would have listened to his lawyers and advisors more than he did, especially once he became president. But he’s not particularly smart, and (again), inasmuch as he’s so rarely ever been called into account for his actions, nor could he conceive of a world where he might have consequences for his actions. He’s a criminal because he’s a bad person; he’s also a criminal because he doesn’t get told “no.” Both of these things are why he kept adding to his criminal ledger, literally into and at every step of his presidency. He could have been cannier and given any hypothetical district attorneys so much less to work with. He did not. That’s on him.
“If they can do this to Trump, they can do this to you” — well, yes. If I were, say, running for township representative here in Darke County, Ohio and paid hush money to an inconvenient sex partner in a way that invited legal scrutiny, and the local DA (whose politics, I assure you, largely run counter to mine) found out, I would 100% not be surprised to be hauled up under an indictment. Because that’s actually how the law is meant to work. You either believe no one is above the law, or you don’t. Former presidents of the United States are no more above the law then I am, or you are, or any of us is.
Trump is indicted now, and it’s important to note that an indictment is all that it is at this point, and perhaps all it will be. Recall that Trump was impeached twice, and relieved of the consequences of his actions by his political party. It’s entirely possible that Trump will wriggle out of consequences here as well. Perhaps the DA’s case is not as strong as he thinks it is and a jury finds Trump, if not exactly innocent, at least not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Perhaps there is a mistrial for one of several reasons. Perhaps Trump’s lawyers string things along for years. Perhaps Trump, who, let’s remember, has announced his candidacy for president, wins the election and is thus shielded from consequence for another four years. He could die; he is 77 years old and not, shall we say, as hale as his fans’ hagiographic meme portrayals suggest. And perhaps — extremely unlikely to be sure, but we must allow for its possibility — Trump is genuinely innocent. Indictment is not conviction, and as a matter of law, Trump enjoys the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
I am not the legal system, however, and also I know my own rights with respect to the First Amendment. So: Trump is a criminal, has been for a long time now, and has escaped responsibility for his criminal actions. Yesterday’s news of his indictment doesn’t change those facts. But if he ever is going to have consequences for his actions — any of them — indictments are where we have to start. At least we have started.
— JS
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying