Today's the day! Murder By Other Means, the second installment of the the "Dispatcher" series, is now available on Audible! Like The Dispatcher, it is performed by the estimable Zachary Quinto, and once again the story is filled with intrigue and danger, in a world where murder i … | Continue reading
There's a line, made famous from the movies, that Dan Hanks is thinking about with his newest novel, Captain Moxley and the Ember of the Empire. The problem is... that line doesn't go far enough. DAN HANKS: “It belongs in a museum.” That’s the quote we all know and love, uttered … | Continue reading
(photo is from before pandemic, don't worry) This past weekend I took a stroll down to German Village in Columbus, Ohio. My pals and I perused some shops, admired the architecture, saw two super cute cats, and best of all, ate at Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Restaurant, which from … | Continue reading
For her story Yellow Jessamine, author Caitlin Starling comes up with an interesting definition of the word "family." She's here to tell you why this particular definition works, in this particular case. CAITLIN STARLING: When I was first drafting Yellow Jessamine, I described it … | Continue reading
It's now been a couple of days since The Last Emperox won the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction novel, and thus, as we can see from this File 770 post and thread, there has been some commentary on how I and my book won this particular award (and how some other winners might h … | Continue reading
In a near-future irradiated America, blood still runs red, but its value has changed. In The Phlebotomist, author Chris Panatier takes us through a post-war world where human’s tendencies towards altruism, prejudice, and control all pivot on the tip of a butterfly needle. Read on … | Continue reading
As I just noted on Twitter: https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/1302986704945664001 For reference, the old "top" speed of my DSL was 6Mbps, and mostly operated at between 4 and 5. This was fine when I subscribed in the early part of this century, but has become increasingly untenab … | Continue reading
And I'm more than a little surprised about it, because the finalist list in the Best Science Fiction Novel category was so absurdly strong. I mean, Margaret Atwood? Martha Wells? Tamsyn Muir? Chuck Wendig? Just as examples? Come on. Embarrassment of riches, there. But, you know. … | Continue reading
Someday (hopefully) I will be a famous author, but in the meantime I thought it would be entertaining to show you all a poem I wrote when I was sixteen, because someday these will be lost relics of my youth! Before you read it, just know it's not actually about anyone or anything … | Continue reading
What it looked like from Ohio this morning. Maybe it's the science fiction author in me talking, but one day I think people will live there, not just on a base but on a permanent basis. And as wild as that (still) is, for them, it will just be... life. That's the interesting part … | Continue reading
To start off with, for those of you who don't know, an AMV is an animated music video. Basically, you take art or clips from animated shows or anime, and put it to music. I used to watch a lot of AMVs when I was a teenager, and over the years of watching them I… | Continue reading
Not too long ago, Simon Stephenson had a chance encounter that rocked him to his core and made him question some of his long-held assumptions. No, it's (probably) not what you think. But it was an event that set him on the path to his novel, Set My Heart to Five. Are you prepared … | Continue reading
Folks: I've recently begun to see an upswing in comments which begin with some variation of "I expect this comment to be deleted/malleted/otherwise expunged, but..." I think this is done for two reasons. About five percent of the time it's someone genuinely not knowing whether wh … | Continue reading
Where I live, Trump flags and signs are extremely common, to the point where it's almost weird to see a Biden sign. The other day, however, I saw a new kind of Trump flag I've never seen before, but I saw two in the same day and thought it was so incredibly bizarre I just… | Continue reading
This was the year I was meant to be the literary Guest of Honor at Dragon Con in Atlanta, but then the plague happened, so this weekend I will be at home. But! I will also be at Dragon Con! As literary Guest of Honor! Because it like every other convention has gone virtual this… | Continue reading
There's the book you're meant to write, and then there's the book you write because it just seems like it would be more fun. Guess which book Knight Watch is! Author Tim Akers is here to explain how it came to be. TIM AKERS: Knight Watch wasn’t the book I was supposed to be writi … | Continue reading
I'm getting an uptick of these recently, and apparently people don't read the policy I have linked on every page of this site, so: Hey, you have a great idea that you think I would be awesome if I wrote, either something new or as part of an existing series I write, and you want… | Continue reading
How can someone without a heartbeat find true love? Take a walk between life and death with author Alice James' latest novel, Grave Secrets, and find out what zombies have that living men just don't. ALICE JAMES: What’s in the brain of a brain eater? Why on earth did I write Grav … | Continue reading
Howdy! I hope everyone had a nice weekend, and if you didn't, I hope the next one is better. I don't really have a lot going on in my head right now, so I thought I'd share some photos of mine for those of you who don't have Instagram or don't follow me (which, no… | Continue reading
Oh, hello there! It's the last day of August -- I know, it only feels like a year since August first -- and after this it's two months and three days until Election Day here in the United States. Here's what we know about that: * The president and the GOP would be very happy… | Continue reading
Love Death + Robots came out eighteen months ago on Netflix, so if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it. If you don't know, it's an eighteen episode anthology of science fiction and fantasy animated shorts. I was so excited for it that I watched it the night it came out … | Continue reading
I enjoyed Bill & Ted Face the Music quite a bit, which is utterly unsurprising as I am both Gen-X, i.e., the generation of Bill and/or Ted, and also I used to live in San Dimas, home of Bill and Ted and the town in which almost all of this film takes place (fictionally; it… | Continue reading
We're rounding into the home stretch for August, and here are the new books and ARCs we're talking along with us as we go. See anything here you'd like to bring into September with you? Share in the comments! | Continue reading
Here's an interesting assertion from the folks at SFFAudio, offered as part of a longer thread which I'll not link directly to here, mostly because I want to focus on this particular point, but which you may find on their Twitter feed: The reason HEINLEIN isn't read more today is … | Continue reading
Missed the actual sunset, but I think this is an acceptable substitute. Enjoy. -- JS | Continue reading
Hello, everyone! I hope you're all having a great Thursday, or whatever day it happens to be when you read this. Today I wanted to share with you something very important to me; my pin collection! However, since I have about eighty pins, I'm just showing you a couple of my favori … | Continue reading
Author Liz Williams has spent more than a little amount of time pouring herself into her contemporary fairytale, Comet Weather -- more time, in fact, than she ever imagined she might. In today's Big Idea, join her as she describes what went into crafting this female-led, Somerset … | Continue reading
https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic/status/1298728742500667392 And it's going to be very very bad when it hits. If you're in its path and can get out, get out. If you can't get out, be as safe as you can. Here's all the latest, from NOAA. -- JS | Continue reading
We've had some good ones lately, but this one seems especially evocative. -- JS | Continue reading
Seriously, I wrote it, scheduled it, reread it, went ooooooh, nooooo, trashed and deleted it, and now no one will ever know its contents but me. Also, inasmuch as this episode of Binging With Babish is about a burrito, it was on point. Also also, I would totally make this, except … | Continue reading
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a game I've quickly become obsessed with. Released earlier this month, Fall Guys is the newest and bestest version of a Battle Royale game. It is also the cutest and most colorful game I've seen in a while, and I am definitely one for aesthetically … | Continue reading
Admit it: you were just not thinking to yourself, "Hey, didn't Scalzi tell us he wrote a sequel to The Dispatcher? Whatever happened to that?" Here's what happened to it: It's called Murder by Other Means, and it's coming out on Audible in audio first, as an Audible Original and … | Continue reading
https://youtu.be/Cgnf0nOWuD4?t=39 Trust me, you're getting the better end of the bargain here. Zoe's amazing. Here's her site. Go buy some of her music. -- JS | Continue reading
The second generation of the Pixel Buds wireless headphones have been out for a while and I've been interested in picking up a pair, since I have the previous iteration and was looking to upgrade. However, I wanted to get them in the Oh-So-Orange color, which only became availabl … | Continue reading
It's Ray Bradbury's 100th birthday today, so to note the day, I'm reposting the essay I wrote about meeting him when I was twelve, which was featured in the Subterranean Press special, expanded edition of The Martian Chronicles. It was written while he was still alive, and I know … | Continue reading
Inasmuch as Athena wrote today about her experience at a spa, and has also launched an occasional series called Small Business Saturday, in which she talks about a small business whose products she has tried and enjoyed, and because I also review things here from time to time (mo … | Continue reading
When I was seventeen, I watched Yuri On Ice; a sports anime about a figure skater from Japan. In this anime, the main character's parents own an onsen resort, or basically a hot springs/bath house kinda place. You may also have seen one of these in Spirited Away, but just in case … | Continue reading
As most of you have figured out by now, there are currently two writers here at Whatever: Me, John Scalzi, who has been here for a while, and Athena Scalzi, who came on staff as of this month. On RSS/email as well as on the AMP versions of site, the author byline is evident, but… | Continue reading
The dimwitted bigot brigade finally came across my piece about the Science Fiction canon from a couple of weeks ago and had a predictable spasm about it, asserting how it was evidence that (I'm paraphrasing from various sources, here) a) science fiction and fantasy was dying, b) … | Continue reading
Moving is hard. Moving to Venus is harder. Author Derek Künsken shows us just how difficult acclimating to strange new lands can be, and what it means to be a family in a place so far from home in his Big Idea, The House of Styx. DEREK KÜNSKEN: I often start my stories from a sen … | Continue reading
2020 has been undoubtedly and completely fucked. Don't get me wrong, things before 2020 were fucked, too, but it just seems so much more prominent this year. Everything is bad all the time and nothing ever seems to get better. There are so many issues to be angry about. There are … | Continue reading
Author Thomas Levenson's has discovered that when it comes to writing books, one thing truly does lead to another. And thus, we have Money for Nothing, a look at one of the most ruinous financial collapses in the western world, and how one of the greatest minds of the 17th centur … | Continue reading
I've been wanting to get a new e-ink book reader lately, but the problem with doing that is, since most e-ink readers are tied into one book-selling ecosystem or another, you pretty much have to choose which retailer you read in e-ink from, whilst everyone else you have ebooks wi … | Continue reading
In today's Big Idea for Blood World, author Chris Mooney asks the tough questions, hitting hard on the morality of exploiting some people to help others, making readers ask themselves if they would willingly benefit from others' suffering for what they thought was a noble cause. … | Continue reading
It's not every week that a new book and ARC stack shows up on a Monday -- but this is that week! What books here would you want to read through your workdays? Share in the comments. | Continue reading
I was looking through some writing from the mid-90s last night -- no particular reason for it, I was just wandering through my own archives -- and after having done so, noted this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/1295177110399614976 I will note this is just the sort … | Continue reading
Schools opening up has been a hot topic of debate lately, for obvious reasons. It's finally the end of summer and kids are starting to go back to school, and it seems like every school is handling things differently. Some are doing half online, half in-person classes, some are ju … | Continue reading
Perhaps a tad grungier than Athena's contribution, but heck, that's fine. Enjoy (and if you like it, click through to the band's Bandcamp page). -- JS | Continue reading