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| Scalzi, shortly after I electrocuted him. |
John Scalzi is cool. He’s a science fiction writer, and a year or two ago I was lamenting of never reading SF again. I was reading Wil Wheaton’s blog, and he was raving over this scifi writer guy’s blog, so I took a look. Next thing I know, I’ve read Old Man’s War, The Android’s Dream, The Last Colony, and more. Scalzi rocks.
He also has a feature on his blog, Whatever, called The Big Idea, where he gets authors to describe the process of writing their book. He asked me to contribute to The Big Idea about Death from the Skies!, so I did. It’s a bit of the back story of how the book got made, and what it was like. I haven’t written much about that here on my own blog, so go take a look.
Maybe he’ll tape bacon to my book. That would be awesome.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I think “Death from the Skies!” offers big material for SF writers. A Civilization of Survivors must deal with all that menaces: from asteroids to Big Rip/Big Crunch/Big Freeze. However, it’s a pity that the main dangers for our civilization are from us themselves…
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Yes, but did you include a chapter on how the planets are just eggs for giant space-going birds? And that one day momma bird is going to come and help her chick to hatch? Didja? Didja?
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Cool shirt Phil! Even better than my geocentric “Teach the Controversy” shirt.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Dean– when I was a kid, the first short story I ever wrote was how the Earth was an egg.
Boomer: search for heliocentrism on the blog. I’ve written about the shirt before.
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
The Android’s Dreams is something I have been meaning to go back and read.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Half way though Zoe’s Tale now. So far so good. I love how my favourite blogs have all developed this mutual admiration society.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:35 am
You mentioned “Whatever,” where authors can describe the process of writing their book(s). Did I understand that correctly? Why don’t I see it when I look at that blog? I’ll look again, but so far no success.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I looked once more. I do not see that he “gets authors” to write about their books, so much as he got you, Phil, to write about your latest book. So, this is not a general invitation for those of us who are published to write about the process, either to encourage (or discourage) others from writing? My books are not on astronomy or science fiction but I would love to share one way to write non-fiction that might please some folks and get them started. But I have nothing to say that can rival death from the skies.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
MoMan, I think you mean Scalzi’s Big Idea where author’s get to talk about their latest work on Whatever. You have to contact Scalzi to pitch your Big Idea.
More info on The Big Idea from Scalzi here…
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/09/02/attention-authors-more-big-ideas-needed/