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John Scalzi

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John Scalzi
File:John Scalzi.jpg
Born (1969-05-10) May 10, 1969 (age 55)
Fairfield, California, United States
OccupationWriter
Period1991–present
GenreScience fiction, Criticism, Humor
SubjectFinance, Astronomy, Writing
Website
http://www.scalzi.com

John Michael Scalzi II (born May 10, 1969) is an American author and online writer, and president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Hugo Award-nominated science fiction novel Old Man's War, released by Tor Books in January 2005, and for his blog Whatever, at which he has written daily on a number of topics since 1998. He has also written a number of non-fiction books.

Biography

Scalzi was born in California and spent his childhood there, primarily in the Los Angeles suburbs of Covina, Glendora and Claremont. Scalzi went to high school with noted blogger Josh Marshall; both were members of the class of 1987. After attending The Webb Schools of California, Scalzi attended The University of Chicago, where he was a classmate of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Auburn. Scalzi's thesis advisor, for a brief time, was Saul Bellow. Scalzi abandoned his course of study with Bellow when he became Student Ombudsman for the University. During his 1989–1990 school year Scalzi was also the editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon.

After graduating in 1991, Scalzi took a job as the film critic for the Fresno Bee newspaper, eventually also becoming a humor columnist. In 1996 he was hired as the in-house writer and editor at America Online and moved to Sterling, Virginia, with his wife, Kristine Ann Blauser, whom he had married in 1995. He was laid off in 1998, and since then he has been a full-time freelance writer and author. In 2001 Scalzi, his wife, and their daughter, Athena Marie, who was born in 1998, moved to Bradford, Ohio, to be closer to family.

Scalzi is distantly related to John Wilkes Booth.[1]

Scalzi was elected president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2010.[2] He was the only nominee on the ballot. He had previously run as a write-in candidate in 2007, challenging the sole ballot nominee that year, but was not successful.[3][4]

Career

Fiction

Scalzi's first published novel was Old Man's War, in which 75-year-old citizens of Earth are recruited to join the defense forces of human colonies in space. Scalzi noted the book's similarities to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers by thanking Heinlein in the acknowledgments of the book. Old Man's War came to publication after debuting online: Scalzi serialized the book on his web site in December 2002, which resulted in an offer for the book by Tor Books Senior Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. The hardcover edition of the book was published in January, 2005. Old Man's War was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in March 2006.

Scalzi's second published novel was Agent to the Stars. This novel was actually written prior to Old Man's War (it was written in 1997), and was placed online in 1999 as a "shareware novel" by Scalzi, who encouraged readers to send him a dollar if they liked the story (he re-released the book as "freeware" in 2004). The novel became available as a signed, limited-edition hardcover from Subterranean Press in July 2005, and featured cover art from popular Penny Arcade artist Mike Krahulik; Tor Books published it in paperback for the first time in October 2008.

In 2006, The Ghost Brigades, the sequel to Old Man's War, and The Android's Dream were released. "The Android's Dream" did not sell as well as his Old Man's War series, but is noted as the only novel, in any genre, in which the entire first chapter is entirely composed of a single, long fart joke.[citation needed]

In August 2006, Scalzi was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer for best new science fiction writer of 2005.[5]

In February 2007 a novelette set in the Old Man's War universe, called "The Sagan Diary", was published as a hardcover by Subterranean Press. Scalzi has commented that he originally wrote the book as free verse poetry, then converted it into prose format.[6] An audio reading of "The Sagan Diary" was offered through Scalzi's website in February 2007, featuring the voices of fellow science fiction authors Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Karen Meisner, Cherie Priest and Helen Smith.[7] In November of the same year, Subterranean Press also made "The Sagan Diary" text freely available online. In April 2008 Audible Frontiers produced an audiobook of the novelette, read by Stephanie Wolfe.

The third novel set in the same universe, The Last Colony, was released in April 2007. It was nominated for the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novel.[8][dead link‍]

Zoe's Tale, the fourth Old Man's War novel, presenting a different view of the events covered in The Last Colony, was published in August 2008. Zoe's Tale was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in March 2009.

Also in 2008, Audible.com released the audiobook anthology METAtropolis, edited by Scalzi and featuring short fiction in a shared world created by Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, and Karl Schroeder. METAtropolis was planned from the beginning to be released as an audio anthology prior to any print edition. The audiobook featured the voices of Battlestar Galactica actors Michael Hogan, Alessandro Juliani and Kandyse McClure and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form in 2009. A sequel audiobook, METAtropolis: Cascadia, edited by Jay Lake, came out in 2010. In 2009 Subterranean Press released a limited edition print run of METAtropolis, which was subsequently published by Tor in a standard hardcover edition, in 2010.

On April 7, 2010, Scalzi announced the pending release of a reboot of H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy, authorized by the Piper estate, with the prospective title Fuzzy Nation.[9] This has now been sold to Tor books,[10], and was published May 10th, 2011.

Scalzi has not written many short stories, but "After the Coup," featured as the first short story published originally on Tor.com, was a finalist for the 2009 Locus Award for best short story.[11] Tor released it as an e-book in 2009.[12]

On July 6, 2012, Tor announced [13] that the fifth Old Man's War novel, The Human Division, would be released episodically as several e-books from December 2012 through February 2013 and as a printed book later in 2013.

Non-fiction

Though best known for his fiction[citation needed], Scalzi has written several non-fiction books as well, including a trio for London publisher Rough Guides' reference line of books. The first of these was The Rough Guide to Money Online, released in late October 2000. This reference book featured tips on using online financial tools. According to Scalzi, it did less-than-expected business, possibly due to the collapse of the Internet bubble at about the same time the book was released. Scalzi's next non-fiction book was The Rough Guide to the Universe, an astronomy book designed for novice-to-intermediate stargazers, released in May 2003. Scalzi's third book for Rough Guides, The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, was released in October 2005. This book covered the history of science fiction and science fiction film, and listed a "canon" of 50 significant science fiction films.

Scalzi is also the author of the "Book of the Dumb" series of books from Portable Press. These books chronicle people doing stupid things. The first book in the series was released in October 2003 with a second following a year later.

In November 2005, Scalzi announced that entries from the run of the Whatever, his blog, would be compiled into a book from Subterranean Press. The book, You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing; was released by Subterranean Press in February 2007. A second collection of entries from Whatever, entitled Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever 1998 - 2008 was released in September 2008. It subsequently won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book in 2009.

Online and other writing

Scalzi registered the domain name Scalzi.com in 1998 and in that year also began writing the "Whatever," a more-or-less daily blog. The name suggests the wide range of topics Scalzi writes about there, although many of Scalzi's more memorable postings center on the topics of politics and writing. While Scalzi maintains he started Whatever to keep in practice for "pro" writing, a number of writings originally posted there have gone on to be published in traditional media, including his "I Hate Your Politics" and "Being Poor" entries, the latter of which was published in the op-ed pages of the Chicago Tribune in September 2005.

Scalzi also used the Whatever as a way to solicit fiction and non-fiction submissions on the theme of Science Fiction Clichés in 2005 for issue #4 of Subterranean Magazine, which he guest edited (published in 2006 by Subterranean Press). The original solicitation was posted in March, 2005 with the unique requirements that submissions would only be accepted electronically in plain text, and ONLY during the period between 10/1/05 and 11/1/05 instead of before a traditional deadline. After the print run sold out, the issue was made available online as a free download.[14]

Scalzi's own short story, How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story, was not printed in the magazine itself but only in a separated chapbook reserved to the people who bought the hardcover limited edition. In April 2008 Scalzi released the story as a "shareware short story" on his website.[15]

On March 29, 2007, it was announced that Scalzi had again been nominated for a Hugo Award, this time in the category "Best Fan Writer", for his online writing about the science fiction field.[16] He was the first Campbell Award winner to receive a nomination in this category. In 2008, he was again nominated for the Best Fan Writer Hugo, this time winning the award, becoming the first person to be nominated for that category and the Best Novel Hugo award at the same time since 1970.

Scalzi also uses the Whatever to help raise money for organizations and causes he supports. Notably, in June 2007 he raised over $5000 in 6 days for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State after fellow writer Joe Hill challenged him[17] to go visit the Creation Museum that had just opened near Cincinnati, not far from Scalzi's Ohio home, if Hill paid for the ticket, offering to match the cost with a donation to the charity of Scalzi's choice after he filed a comprehensive report on the trip online. Scalzi extended the deal to all Whatever readers, raised 256 times the admission price, and posted his critical report on the Creation Museum on November 12, 2007. In September 2010 he joined with Subterranean Press and authors Wil Wheaton, Patrick Rothfuss, Catherynne M. Valente, Rachel Swirsky and others to create a chapbook story collection called Clash of the Geeks, offered online in exchange for donations to the Michigan/Indiana affiliate of the Lupus Alliance of America. Some of the stories were selected from a competition run on Whatever to write a story to explain a painting Scalzi had commissioned from Jeff Zugale, that featured Scalzi as an orc and Wheaton riding a unicorn pegasus kitten.[18]

In addition to his personal site, Scalzi was a professional blogger for America Online's AOL Journals and AIM Blogs service from August 2003 through December 2007. In this role he created participatory entries (most notably the Weekend Assignment and Monday Photo Shoot), answered questions about blogging from AOL members, and posted interesting links for readers. Readers of both Scalzi's personal site and his AOL Journal "By the Way" noted distinct differences in tone at each site. Scalzi has acknowledged this tonal difference, based on the different missions of each site. Scalzi also blogged professionally for AOL's Ficlets site beginning in March 2007, writing about literature and other related topics. On December 7, 2007, Scalzi announced that by mutual agreement, his contract with AOL would not be renewed at the end of the year, in part so that he would have more time to devote to writing books.[19]

In 2008, Scalzi began writing a weekly column on science fiction/fantasy films for AMCTV.com, the Web site of cable television network AMC.

For traditional media, Scalzi wrote a DVD review column and an opinion column for the Official US Playstation Magazine from 2000 through 2006, wrote an additional DVD review column for the Dayton Daily News through 2006, and writes for other magazines and newspapers on an occasional basis. He also works as a consultant for businesses, primarily in the online and financial fields.

On January 14, 2009, Scalzi announced he would be a creative consultant on science-fiction television show Stargate Universe.[20]. He was credited as such for 39 episodes.

On April 1, 2011, Tor Books collaborated with Scalzi on an April Fool's prank, with Tor claiming "Tor Books is proud to announce the launch of John Scalzi’s new fantasy trilogy, The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, which kicks off with book one: The Dead City." This excerpt from an imaginary novel took on a life of its own, being nominated for, and winning, the 2011 Tor.com Readers’ Choice Awards for short fiction. It is also nominated for the 2012 Hugo awards in the Best Short Story category.[21]

Bibliography

Series fiction

Old Man's War universe

  • The Sagan Diary (February 2007, Subterranean Press, ISBN 978-1-59606-103-3; April 2008, Audible.com)
  • Questions for a Soldier (chapbook, Subterranean Press, December 2005, ISBN 1-59606-048-4)
  • After the Coup (eBook, Tor.com, July 2008, ASIN B003V4B4PM)
  • The Human Division Soon to be released as eBook from Tor

The Android's Dream universe

Stand-alone fiction

Stand-alone novels

Stand-alone novellas and novelettes

Stand-alone short fiction

  • "Alien Animal Encounters" (Strange Horizons (online), 15 October 2001)
  • "New Directives for Employee - Manxtse Relations" (published in Chapbook titled "Sketches of Daily Life: Two Missives From Possible Futures" by Subterranean Press, 2005. Chapbook also reprinted "Alien Animal Encounters")
  • "Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results" (Subterranean Magazine, online edition, February 2007)
  • "How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story" (chapbook, Subterranean Press, 2007; available as shareware from scalzi.com as of April, 2008)
  • "Pluto Tells All" (Subterranean Magazine, online edition), May 2007
  • "Utere nihil non extra quiritationem suis" (METAtropolis, Audible.com, 2008, Subterranean Press 2009, Tor Books 2010)[23]
  • "Denise Jones, Super Booker" (Subterranean Magazine, online edition), September 2008)
  • "The Tale of the Wicked" (The New Space Opera 2 anthology, June 2009)
  • "The President's Brain is Missing" (Tor.com, July 2010)
  • "An Election" (Subterranean Magazine presented story on Scalzi's blog, online edition), November 2010
  • "The Other Large Thing" (Short story first published on Tweetdeck's "Deck.Ly" reprinted on Scalzi's blog), August 2011

Non-fiction books

  • The Rough Guide to Money Online (October 2000, Rough Guide Books)
  • The Rough Guide to the Universe (May 2003, Rough Guide Books, ISBN 1-85828-939-4)
  • The Book of the Dumb (November 2003, Portable Press, ISBN 1-59223-149-7)
  • The Book of the Dumb 2 (November 2004, Portable Press, ISBN 1-59223-269-8)
  • The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies (October 2005, Rough Guide Books, ISBN 1-84353-520-3)
  • You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing (2007, Subterranean Press, ISBN 1-59606-063-8)
  • Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: Selected Writing, 1998–2008 (Subterranean Press, 2008, ISBN 1-59606-211-8).[24]

Editor

Awards

Nomenclature

The name of the main character from Old Man's War, John Perry, comes from the first name of the keyboardist of Journey, and the last name of the vocalist. Similarly, the character Steve Cain has the first name of the vocalist and the last name of the keyboardist. Gabriel Brahe from The Ghost Brigades was named after two Penny Arcade protagonists, and lieutenant Stross was named after fellow writer Charles Stross. There are also characters whose names are based on Neil Gaiman, Scott Sigler, JC Hutchins, E.J. Fischer[30] and Dave McKean.[31]

The name of the main character of Android's Dream is taken from the name of the street on which Scalzi lived at the time of writing.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ "The Family Assassin", post on Scalzi's blog "Whatever", May 17, 2005
  2. ^ Quick Updates for 2010-05-16, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website, posted May 16, 2010
  3. ^ "SFWA President: I'm a Write-In Candidate", post on Scalzi's blog "Whatever", May 17, 2005
  4. ^ SFWA Officer Election Results, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website, posted May 12, 2007
  5. ^ John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award Eligibility & Author Profiles, Writertopia.com
  6. ^ In Which I Now Reveal a Secret retrieved 12-13-2010
  7. ^ The Sagan Diary: The Audio Version retrieved 12-13-2010
  8. ^ 2008 Hugo Award Winners List, Denvention 3 (The 66th World Science Fiction Convention) website, posted August 9, 2008
  9. ^ "The Super Secret Thing That I Cannot Tell You About, Revealed: Introducing Fuzzy Nation", post on Scalzi's blog "Whatever", April 7, 2010
  10. ^ April 13, 2010 (2010-04-13). ""Fuzzy Nation Sold"". Whatever.scalzi.com. Retrieved 2011-12-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ 2009 Locus Award Finalists, Locus Online, retrieved 12-13-2010
  12. ^ Feed Your Reader Revisited, Tor.com, retrieved 12-13-2010
  13. ^ [1]
  14. ^ http://scalzi.com/subterranean_issue_4.pdf
  15. ^ April 16, 2008 (2008-04-16). "A Shareware Short Story: "How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story"". Scalzi.com. Retrieved 2011-12-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ "Hugo nominees, Nippon 2007 site". Nippon2007.us. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
  17. ^ "All Right, Fine, I Will Go to The Creation Museum... IF". Scalzi.com. Retrieved 2012-07-13.
  18. ^ "Clash of the Geeks". Unicornpegasuskitten.com. 2010-09-20. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
  19. ^ "An Important Announcement. By the Way, 12/7/07". Journals.aol.com. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
  20. ^ January 14, 2009 (2009-01-14). "One of My Big Announcements for January, 1/14/09". Whatever.scalzi.com. Retrieved 2011-12-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  21. ^ [2]
  22. ^ A Small Thing You May Wish to Know About My Upcoming Novel, author's personal blog
  23. ^ Subterranean Press. "METAtropilis limited edition details, Subterranean Press". Subterraneanpress.com. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
  24. ^ Scalzi's compilation "Your Hate Mail Will be Graded" delayed to 2008, SFScope
  25. ^ "2006 Locus Awards Finalists". Locusmag.com. 2006-04-24. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
  26. ^ Sidewise Awards: Past Winners and Finalists, retrieved 12-13-2010
  27. ^ Romantic Times 2008 nominees retrieved 12-13-2010
  28. ^ 2009 Locus Award Finalists, retrieved 12-13-2010
  29. ^ "The 2010 Hugo and John W. Campbell Award Nominees". AussieCon 4. April 4, 2010. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
  30. ^ January 20, 2011 (2011-01-20). "Gaaaah, I Can't Choose The Haiku Contest Finalists Because There Are Too Many Good Ones, So Here's Just The Winner – Whatever". Whatever.scalzi.com. Retrieved 2011-12-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  31. ^ "Whatever: A Review in the Chicago Maroon!". Scalzi.com. Retrieved 2011-12-13.
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