Hello, everyone! I hope y'all's weekend has been awesome so far! My week has been pretty uneventful, but today I actually did something fun and exciting! I got to go kayaking at Lodi Lake with my Cali family. I've only been kayaking a couple of times before, and each time my arms … | Continue reading
Hey! It's Friday! And that makes it a very time to show off another stack of new books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound this week. See anything here that piques your interest? Let us know in the comments. | Continue reading
Hey, everyone! Welcome to another edition of "What You Should Be Watching"! And, yes, it's another YouTube one because, hey, there's a lot of good content on YouTube, and it's free, unlike Netflix or whatever, so. For this edition, I have chosen another cooking channel, mainly be … | Continue reading
Next week I'll be at Worldcon 76 in sunny San Jose, California. Want to know my schedule of events while I'm there? Sure you do! This is what it is. All events in the San Jose Convention Center unless otherwise noted: Thursday, August 16: 8pm: Retro Hugos Party (includes 80s danc … | Continue reading
One perk of being in California is I get to hang out with two cool cats, or rather dogs, Diego and Lola! I know it's only Tuesday, but, hey, it's been a long week! You deserve these dogs! Lola is younger than Diego by two years, and has the black stripe pattern. Diego has more… | Continue reading
The Webb Schools of California, which is the high school I went to way back when, has updated its handbook with a section for "Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Students" and as far as I can see it gets it right -- establishing explicitly that Webb students have a right to id … | Continue reading
The real reason I have come to California is for one thing and one thing only: In-N-Out. A.K.A. the greatest burger place ever. No burger place, nay, no fast food place can compare to the glorious burger joint known as In-N-Out. It is truly a shame that they are only on the Weste … | Continue reading
So, I don't know if you know this, but next month will mark the 20th anniversary of the existence of Whatever. This is a fact that among other things is causing me both practical and existential reflection on what this place is, and what it means to me, and what is the best way t … | Continue reading
Hello, everyone! Tomorrow is Monday, and that is always a bummer. So I thought I would bestow upon y'all this song I recently found to help you make it through. Also, it's been in my head for about a week and I want others to suffer the ear-worm with me. I heard this from the… | Continue reading
As we're easing into the first weekend of the last month of summer, here's a nice, varied stack of new books and ARCs that have come to the Scalzi Compound. What is making your eyes say "yes"? Tell us all in the comments. | Continue reading
Hello, everyone! Today I will be sharing a short story I just wrote the other night for class. It had to be two and a half pages long, no more, no less, which was kind of difficult to make it fit perfectly into that amount of space, mostly because of pacing issues. This is also… | Continue reading
I posted a thought earlier on Twitter today and I'll repost it here in non-tweet form: It's really frustrating to me that more people don't understand that racist/alt-right people have gamified their rhetoric; they're not interested in discussion, they're slapping down cards from … | Continue reading
Trust in your friend, colleagues and superiors is a good thing... mostly. In Planetside, author Michael Mammay considers the price of loyalty and the cost of trust, and how both can end up being different than one might expect. MICHAEL MAMMAY: The big idea that became Planetside … | Continue reading
A good one to start August with, I'd say. | Continue reading
Ah, yes, the Big Apple! I have no idea why they call it that, but in case you didn't read my last post, that's where I was last week! Instead of going to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Meg and I went to the Brooklyn Museum because it was a hundred million degrees outside and the … | Continue reading
A dash of fan fiction, a smidge of authorial inspiration and a dollop of a world-famous investigator adds up to a brand-new concoction in Claire O'Dell's novel A Study in Honor. How did this all come about? As O'Dell will tell you, it was elementary. CLAIRE O'DELL: A Study in Hon … | Continue reading
https://youtu.be/gqUJdcCjUIA The video itself is enigmatic (who are all these young people doing slightly odd things while looking miserable? Would they be less miserable if they, like, stopped posing and went to get snacks?), but the song is good and the band, The Naked and Famo … | Continue reading
I was thrilled when The Collapsing Empire was announced as the winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, but was not present for the ceremony because one of my best friends on the planet was getting married, and, well, priorities. Fortunately the good people at Lo … | Continue reading
It sometimes amazed people that we here at the Scalzi Compound still have a landline. We do, basically because I receive (terrible, horrible, low-speed) internet service through my phone company, and it's basically cheaper to bundle it with a landline than to get it by itself. An … | Continue reading
So, apropos of nothing in particular, let’s say you wish to communicate privately with someone you’ve not communicated with privately before, for whatever reason you might have. And, wa… | Continue reading
Smudge is a curious fellow, and also, when I use the bathroom, if there is no other human in the house, I don't always close the door entirely. The confluence of these two facts today is why, while standing at the toilet today, doing my business, Smudge barged in and, needing to … | Continue reading
Hello, everyone! I hope you have all been having a fantastic week, I know I have been! New York has been awesome so far and it hasn't rained nearly as much as I thought it would, so that's a plus. Honestly, I haven't done too much. I'm generally a pretty lazy person, so I might… | Continue reading
For European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, author Theodora Goss considers a famous Victorian book, character and author for an extended thought on who and what can truly be called a monster. Grab your stakes and let's hammer this one home, shall we? THEODORA GOSS: In The … | Continue reading
I just did a tweetstorm about the recent contrempts involving Worldcon. As many of you know, there was a dustup about programming (among other issues) for which the head of the Worldcon apologized and took action on, including bringing in a team headed up by Mary Robinette Kowal … | Continue reading
One of the great questions in literature, genre or otherwise, is: What makes a person a monster? In One of Us, author Craig DiLouie takes a crack at the question... and the answer. CRAIG DiLOUIE: My novel One of Us began as a misunderstood monster novel and ended up a much more a … | Continue reading
Who doesn't love traveling? Everyone loves a good vacation; so many amazing places to go, spectacles to behold, adventurous things to do, traveling is enriching and can be super awesome! Unfortunately, traveling is also expensive, and tiring, both physically, mentally, and emotio … | Continue reading
City of Islands is author Kali Wallace's first children's book, and in writing it, she was thinking about where the balances were in telling a story for children, and still telling a story with some complexity. For her Big Idea, she's here to talk about finding that balance, espe … | Continue reading
Hey, everyone! Hope you all had an awesome weekend. This weekend, thanks to my friend, I got to try virtual reality. More specifically, I played Beat Saber for like, three hours, and my arms are extremely sore. Beat Saber is this awesome rhythm game where you basically have two l … | Continue reading
A Twitter thread on the recent contrempts at Worldcon 76, where many newer writers (including some Hugo finalists) were not represented on the initial programming slate: https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/1021473325623767040 https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/1021473917884612609 ht … | Continue reading
Hello, everyone! I'm here today to tell y'all about my upcoming travel schedule. On Tuesday, I leave for New York City, where I will be staying with my wonderful friends, Meg and Will. New York City is such an awesome place and I'm so happy to be going for the third year in a row … | Continue reading
Another week of summer passed, another summer weekend on tap, and a perfect time to catch up to these new books and ARCs that have arrived at Scalzi Compound. Anything in this stack that you'd enjoy reading on a warm summer night? Let us know in the comments! | Continue reading
And what exactly am I doing in Cleveland? I have a private speaking engagement! Which, uh, means you can't come unless you're part of the organization I'm doing the speaking engagement for. Sorry, Cleveland. Know my love for you exists anyway. Hope you're having an excellent Frid … | Continue reading
One thing about me you should know is that I love anime. If you've seen any of my "What You Should Be Watching" posts, you'll know that I love cartoons, too. Anything animated! Artists are amazing! But that's a separate thing entirely. So today I'm going to tell you about my all- … | Continue reading
Someone once said that life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. Jason Denzel can relate to that -- life certainly happened to him between writing his previous book on his new one, Mystic Dragon. Here's how he incorporated what was going in his life into the writ … | Continue reading
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk6iSDngeKm/?taken-by=ascalzi98 Hey everyone, you all deserve a flower! What for? For whatever you think you did well on this week! Maybe you cleaned your room for the first time in months, maybe you did really awesome at your job recently, or perhaps … | Continue reading
I'm doing a thing this evening in Cincinnati, and usually when I'm in Cincy I head home because it's drivable, but tomorrow I'm doing a thing in Kentucky, so it made sense to stay here in town. And then on Friday I head to Cleveland for another thing! I am just doing a lot of… | Continue reading
Nicole Kornher-Stace has some esoteric random influences for her novel Latchkey, which include a classic philosophical work, a popular video game... and a disease. Well, sort of for the last one. Here she is to sort it all out. NICOLE KORNHER-STACE: When I was eight years old, I … | Continue reading
City of Islands is author Kali Wallace's first children's book, and in writing it, she was thinking about where the balances were in telling a story for children, and still telling a story with some complexity. For her Big Idea, she's here to talk about finding that balance, espe … | Continue reading
Or, as I noted elsewhere: "Tonight's Sunset as a Hotel Room Painting." I think I could get at $25 for this! Here's what it look like zoomed out a bit: We do have pretty skies here, I have to say. | Continue reading
Today, Hugo and Nebula Award winner James Patrick Kelly is here to tell you why you need more short stories in your reading diet. And coincidentally, The Promise of Space and Other Stories, his latest collection of short stories, just happens to be out! JAMES PATRICK KELLY: I ris … | Continue reading
https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/1018872998554726401 Which is that I got the first pass page proofs this morning and read the book through, front to back, for the first time since sending it in a month ago. Folks, this book is really good. Like, better than I remember it being w … | Continue reading
People with a familiarity with time travel tropes may have heard of the "grandfather paradox." But now, author Wendy Nikel proposes a corollary for her newest, The Grandmother Paradox. WENDY NIKEL: As an author, I struggle with titles, and I don't normally settle on one until a s … | Continue reading
Hello everyone! Today I'm going to tell you about this awesome comic that a reader of this blog told me about (when I posted about Death as a character). It is a comic about the personification of death, otherwise known as Dee, befriending a teenage girl named Emily! They become … | Continue reading
In other words, Smudge update! This little guy has been living it up here in the Scalzi compound and is being an adorable pain in the neck! He is the most playful kitten we've ever had, Sugar and Spice as kittens don't even compare to how crazy this dude is. He loves chewing on c … | Continue reading
Friday the 13th is a lucky day here at the Scalzi Compound, because I get to show off all these new books and ARCs to you. What here would you consider yourself lucky to read? Tell us all in the comments! | Continue reading
My first personal awareness of Hayao Miyazaki didn't occur until I was well into adulthood, but for Raz Greenberg, his journey with the great animator started much earlier, and led him to write a book on the filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki: Exploring the Early Work of Japan's Greatest … | Continue reading
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of "What You Should Be Watching"! Today I'll be telling you about Final Space, a TBS original adult cartoon. It's a sci-fi that takes place in an Earth where aliens are totally normal, and the Earth has a military-style organization … | Continue reading
What is best in life? If you are, say, Conan the Barbarian, you have one sort of answer. If you are Jay Schiffman, or one of his characters in his novel Game of the Gods, your answer might be very different indeed. JAY SCHIFFMAN: There are two aspects of my life that have signifi … | Continue reading