Travel broadens the mind, or so they say, but for Monica Byrne, travel to a particular Central American country did much more than that — and the result was her novel The Actual Star, which (… | Continue reading
The annual reappearance of these particular cereals has arrived. Krissy saw these in a three-pack and assumed I would want them because I eat like a sugar-amped child, and she is not wrong! I do wa… | Continue reading
Ideas come out of anywhere, and for Amanda Jayatissa, the motivating spark of the novel My Sweet Girl came out of being really, really, really annoyed. Hey, whatever works. Here’s Jayatissa t… | Continue reading
Original photo by Gage Skidmore, used under Creative Commons license. I woke this morning to the news that California governor Gavin Newsom has defeated the recall initiative against him, and appar… | Continue reading
Want a kid? Okay, but it’s gonna cost you. And before you say, “Yes, I know, I’ve seen college tuition these days,” read Calder Szewczak’s big idea for The Offset. The… | Continue reading
Another September 13, and another year of Whatever in the (virtual, electronic) books. For the site, an unusual year, in that I was not the sole writer here — through most of it Athena wrote … | Continue reading
Australian blogger and science fiction genre commentator Camestros Felapton (not their real name, the pen name is taken from logical syllogisms) has taken it upon themselves to write a fairly exhau… | Continue reading
On the same day that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was officially released as the first single off of Nirvana’s Nevermind album, September 10, 1991, I started my first post-college jo… | Continue reading
In point of fact, these days on 9/11 I don’t tend to think about it much at all, which is I think a healthy thing. It was a national shock and tragedy, and we are still living with many of th… | Continue reading
A confession: I meant to post this stack of new books and ARCs last Friday, but then I was at Dragon Con, and I was… busy. So: Here they are now! What here in the stack looks interesting to y… | Continue reading
Bluntly, I blame this on (of course) Donald Trump. The GOP has been a mess for years — decades, really — but allow me to suggest that had any other Republican been president when COVID … | Continue reading
Three weeks ago I talked about why, although I was excited to be getting a Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck, I was also glad that at the moment we still will have a gas-powered car for longer tr… | Continue reading
For the Big Idea for their novel The All-Consuming World, author Cassandra Khaw looks at life lessons, and how the reasons for them can be and frequently are different than we’ve been led to … | Continue reading
It’s a lovely day to be a dog. Or, honestly, pretty much anything. Hope the same for you, wherever you are. — JS | Continue reading
“Nature versus nurture” is a question that humans all through the years have weighed in on, and it seems likely in the future they will continue to do so. Or at least, in the future of … | Continue reading
I had fun! Thank you, that is all. Okay, I’ll add just a few more comments. 1. The first is that I was surprised and happy I was asked to be the Literary Guest of Honor this year. I had been … | Continue reading
Many years ago, television interviewer Barbara Walters rather infamously asked Katharine Hepburn, “If you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” I don’t know whether au… | Continue reading
Especially when I am in it! Because I am the literary guest of honor here at Dragon Con this year, I was put into the parade. I got into a Camaro convertable, sat on the back seat, and waved and sm… | Continue reading
First one of these in a while. It’s a decent view, too. In other news, hi, I’ve made it to Dragon Con. Even at “reduced capacity” it’s still immense. How are you today… | Continue reading
Progress happens all the time, but when do we notice it, and as importantly, when do we stop noticing it? The dynamics of progress is something Matthew FitzSimmons has been thinking about for his n… | Continue reading
Sugar, having mysteriously divined that we’re about to head out on vacation for several days, has graciously made sure our clothes have sufficient cat hair on them even without her to provide… | Continue reading
In the journey to publication, Jane of Battery Park went through many incarnations — and so did the world into which it would eventually be released. Author Jaye Viner is here to talk about b… | Continue reading
I know you were worried you were going to have to head into September alone. Nah, bro. Smudge has got you. My own “I’m not doing a whole lot of anything” time, I will note, extend… | Continue reading
A picture, they say is worth a thousand words. But as Elayne Audrey Becker is about to tell you in this Big Idea for her novel Forestborn, two pictures may be worth an entire book. ELYANE AUDREY BE… | Continue reading
Today was a day full of prepping for Dragon Con and having phone meetings about things I can’t talk about yet. So, uhhhhh, hello? I’m late updating? And have nothing particularly intere… | Continue reading
There are many ways to voluntarily turn one’s brain into a pudding, but for true mental discombobulation, you can’t beat a two-hour nap in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. I woke up ba… | Continue reading
The short story of the event here was that some of the sugar glaze of the sticky buns escaped the pan and fell to the bottom of the oven, where it started to burn and scorch; this necessitated the … | Continue reading
A friend who is visiting has brought boxes of Lebanese food and desserts, and so I’ll be spending the day hanging out with them and utterly destroying my normal daily calorie count with these… | Continue reading
Specifically, “Automated Customer Service” won an Emmy Juried Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation, going to ACS character designer Laurent Nicolas. Love Death + Ro… | Continue reading
As a madeleine was to Proust, so was a video game to Cassie Hart: A thing which spurred something inside, which then became art — the novel Butcherbird. CASSIE HART: It started in Minecraft. … | Continue reading
Here’s an obit from Variety. I’m sure in the next few days we’ll see many more. He was one of the best drummers, in rock or outside it, and equally, the coolest drummer in rock by… | Continue reading
Author R.W.W. Greene has someone he wants you to meet. It’s a person — well, entity — you’ve met before. And for Greene’s new novel Twenty Five to Life, it’s som… | Continue reading
As noted in the day’s previous entry from Athena, today’s post from her marks her last contribution to the site for a bit, as she starts up school again and focuses on classes. I am, of… | Continue reading
Hello, everyone, and welcome to what will be (spoiler) my last post for a while. There have been several times I have wanted to talk about my time at Miami University on here, but I have such compl… | Continue reading
Krissy and I went to a Dayton Dragons game today (the Dragons being Dayton’s minor league baseball team), and something happened that always happens whenever I come to see a Dayton Dragons ga… | Continue reading
And to be fair, it’s warm and humid outside. I want to be inside, too. However, if I let this critter in, the chances that it’ll be hugged by one of the cats’ teeth in the very ne… | Continue reading
Cradled in clouds. Have a great weekend, everyone. — JS | Continue reading
Another Friday, another hefty stack of new books and ARCs sent to the Scalzi Compound. What here is catching your eye? Share in the comments! — JS | Continue reading
Welcome to another installment of me trying out recipes I saw on YouTube! Today we have Claire Saffitz’s brownie recipe. Not just any brownies, though. These are malted brownies! I wasn’… | Continue reading
The past is another country — especially when you are trying to write a novel in it. Historian Adrian Goldsworthy had the skills and expertise to write about the Roman-era military encampment… | Continue reading
Which, you know, is nice. Here’s the whole list, in case you’re curious. I think it’s a pretty darn defensible list of choices for the last decade in SF/F. It reflects both the cu… | Continue reading
It’s the end of an era: with King Bullet, New York Times Bestselling Author Richard Kadrey puts a capper on the long-running and fabulous Sandman Slim series of fantasy novels. In today’… | Continue reading
A couple of months ago I noted that we had put down a reservation for a Ford F-150 Lightning, Ford’s first fully-electric truck. It’ll be primarily for Krissy’s use, as she’… | Continue reading
Does anyone else have that one thing that you consider a treat that will instantly brighten your day, pick you up when you’re down, or help get you through a rough day? For me, that’s a… | Continue reading
In the novel Departures, author E. J. Wenstrom shows us what a true utopia might look like — but of course there’s a catch to such an optimized world, as Wenstrom explores in this Big I… | Continue reading
As most of you undoubtedly know, I take and post a lot of pictures of Krissy, not only because she’s often at home and is thus a convenient subject, but also because she’s gorgeous and … | Continue reading
I was going to write a post about how writing about news and politics these days in any form longer than a tweet makes me agitated and annoyed, and what that says about my mental state at the momen… | Continue reading
Krissy has been out all day with friends, so when she got back all the pets wanted to get their quality time in with her. It’s nice to be popular. This is what Sunday looks like here, folks. … | Continue reading