Scalzi has fun with sci-fi writing
John Scalzi — best-selling novelist, creator of one of the most popular personal blogs in the world and president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) — is, by trade, a man of many words.
And I mean that in the best possible way. Scalzi, who resides with his family in Bradford, Ohio, speaks with enthusiasm, knowledge and wit about writing and publishing as well as about his current projects.
Let’s start with his comments about his most recent novel, a science-fiction comedy titled “Redshirts.” Scalzi will debut his newest novel (set for publication Tuesday) at 7 p.m. Thursday at Books & Co. at The Greene in Beavercreek.
“Redshirts is, in some ways, a love letter to science fiction’s convention of a captain or officer — think Captain Kirk on ‘Star Trek’ — taking an unknown ensign, often dressed in a red shirt, on an away team. Statistically speaking, this doesn’t bode well for the redshirt. The officer survives, but the redshirt is just as likely to get eaten by a space badger,” says Scalzi, demonstrating his style of humor.
“But ‘Redshirts’ is more than a send-up,” Scalzi adds. “It’s told from the point of a view of, well, a redshirt, and shows that while not everyone gets to be a hero of a famous story, everyone can be a hero of his or her own personal story, with interesting, full lives that have value in and of themselves.”
At least until the space badgers show up.
Scalzi’s other novels also work on several levels. They include “Old Man’s War,” “The Last Colony” and “Zoe’s Tale,” each of which was nominated for the SFWA’s Hugo Award for Best Novel, publishing’s top science-fiction/ fantasy award, in their respective years.
He is working with developers on a video-game version of “Old Man’s War,” which is in the preproduction stage for a movie and is listed on the NPR.com reader poll of the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books/ Series.
“One of the things I love about writing science fiction is that I can have fun with the genre,” Scalzi says. “Yet within the genre, I can write character-driven stories that explore human nature, relationships … whatever.”
“Whatever” also happens to be the name of Scalzi’s blog, which he started in 1998, “before the word ‘blog’ was a common term.”
How was he savvy enough to become one of the first bloggers and keep at it until whatever.scalzi.com became one of the world’s most popular personal blogs (5.4 million visits in 2011; 50,000 regular subscribers)?
“Since I write science fiction, I’d love to say a future version of myself came to me in 1998 and said, ‘Hey, start a blog!’ ” Scalzi jokes.
The truth is that Scalzi, who grew up in California, was a movie critic for the Fresno Bee in his first job after college. He then took a position as a columnist and editor at America Online in Columbus.
After he left that to pursue freelance writing in 1998, “I decided to keep up my column-writing skills with a blog.”
Two compilations of writing from Scalzi’s Whatever blog have been published; one of them, “Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever 1998-2008” (Subterranean Press, Tor Books) earned the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Related Book.
His blog has been instrumental in his fictionwriting career. In December 2002, Scalzi decided to serialize his first novel, “Old Man’s War,” posting a chapter a day just to get reader feedback.
One of those readers happened to be Patrick Nielson Hayden, senior editor at Tor, who contacted Scalzi to discuss publishing his novel.
“And that’s how I accidentally became a science-fiction writer,” Scalzi says. Then in all seriousness he adds, “This isn’t how I’d recommend trying to break into publishing. The chances of having your novel found by an editor through a blog are even more daunting than the chances of it being picked up through an agent or traditional submissions.”
He does recommend exploring professional organizations such as SFWA for guidance in starting and building a writing career.
And he cites a love of reading as a child as an important factor in his writing.
“My favorite Dewey decimal numbers as a kid were 520 (astronomy) and 031 (encyclopedias in American English),” Scalzi says. “I loved reading anything, but especially about space and trivia.”