scalzi’s new book is out

What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t remind everyone that John Scalzi’s newest book, Zoe’s Tale hit bookstores today?

John says:

I’m really proud of Zoë as a character; I think she’s one of the best I’ve ever written. I also think that that in many ways Zoe’s Tale is the best book in the entire Old Man’s War sequence, which is saying something, considering it’s the fourth book in the universe, and two of them have got Hugo nods. But there it is: The amount of work I had to do to get Zoë right is also reflected in the rest of the book as well. It’s good.

I’m also happy to say that the goal of making this a standalone novel seems to have been achieved: I’ve heard back from folks who have read the book cold, without having read the other books in the sequence, and it’s worked for them. This is good news because, as most of you know, Zoe’s Tale was written with an eye toward opening up this universe to younger readers who might have missed the other books; it’s the book I can point to when someone asks if they can give a book of mine to their daughter or nephew or whomever.

I’m currently reading (and loving) Soon I will be Invincible,* but as soon as I finish it, Zoe’s Tale is at the top of my list, leapfrogging over a giant stack of books that just said, “Hey! We’ve been waiting in line here! Come on! No cuts!”

Sorry, giant stack of books, but I like the Old Man’s War universe so damn much, it always gets cuts.

… okay, back cuts behind Immortal Iron Fist. Sorry, The Terror, you’ll have to keep waiting. (But if Zoe’s Tale is anything like the other books in the Old Man’s War universe, you’ll only have to wait a few days. I usually have a damn hard time putting them down.)

*Link and title fixed. I was in a hurry to get out of the house when I wrote this post this morning.

pour it in my hand for a dime

I woke up this morning and for the first time since I provided experimental proof of the First Law of Motion, I wasn’t in any pain or discomfort.

“Oh good,” I thought, “Things are looking up! Maybe I won’t have to load myself up with stupid painkillers today!”

I got out of bed, grabbed a cup of coffee and a seat at the dining room table, and checked my e-mail.

There were some nice notes from readers about Happiest Days and the audio version of Just A Geek. There wasn’t any spam.

I was feeling good. Damn good. I was thinking about maybe even heading down to the park for a gentle swim in the pool . . . and that’s when without warning, I was hit by one of the biggest sneezes I think I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t have time to grab a pillow, I didn’t have time to splint myself. All I could do was reflexively cover my face with my hand to catch the scream.

I felt and heard the pop in my side, down low where my doctor had shown me the break on my xray last week. My back immediately went into a spasm as my body made an effort – just a few seconds too late – to immobilize the affected area.

Nolan poked his head into the room.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” I said in my best Marcellus Wallace voice, “I’m pretty far from okay.” In my head, I added the “muthafukkin” that Pulp Fiction quoting purists are currently sucking their teeth at me for leaving out.

I slowly stood up and went to the kitchen. I shoveled a bunch of cereal into my face and took the pain medication I’ve been wanting so desperately to get off for the last few days.

I tried to bend down to pet my dog, and learned a rather painful lesson about getting crazy ideas in my head about doing silly things like trying to bend down to pet my dog with a broken rib.

This all happened about 45 minutes ago. The pain meds are starting to kick in, which means that it’s really in my best interest to get offline and go watch more Olympics as the stupid sets in.

Until I return, please enjoy the following clip, which has been on my mind for the last ten days:

thirty-seven? in a row?

I met Kevin Smith at Comic-Con, back in 2000 or 2001. The encounter was so incredibly embarrassing, I can’t bring myself to recall it, but can be summed up thusly: I made a complete fool of myself, and as a testament to his kindness, he didn’t make me feel like a total asshole. (Note for the record that I was a total blathering idiot, and also note that I defy every single person reading this to sit on a couch next to Kevin Smith and not lose their shit because you’re sitting next to One of Us who is living the dream.)

I’ve always lamented that I made such a fool out of myself, because if he remembers anything about me at all, it’s probably something like, “Oh man, that guy is an idiot.”

This morning, my inbox was filled with e-mail about this art show Kevin Smith’s doing called Crazy 4 Cult 2 that opens in Hollywood next Saturday, including a link to this fucking awesome painting, that completely owns in the face:

thebody.jpg

There are a ton of magnificent works on display in Kevin Smith’s blog, but that’s not even the best part of the post, which is this:

I saw “Watchmen.” It’s fucking astounding. The Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed prevents me from saying much, but I can spout the following with complete joygasmic enthusiasm: Snyder and Co. have pulled it off.

Remember that feeling of watching “Sin City” on the big screen and being blown away by what a faithful translation of the source material it was, in terms of both content and visuals? Triple that, and you’ll come close to watching “Watchmen.” Even Alan Moore might be surprised at how close the movie is to the book. March can’t come soon enough.

See? Living the dream.

The show opens on August 22 at Gallery 1988 on Melrose, which is next door to Golden Apple. He says that there were over 1000 people last year, so if you’re going, you should plan on showing up early.

various awesome things

My story The Art of War in the latest Star Trek manga got a really nice mention at Trek Movie dot Com:

Fans of Wil Wheaton’s blog or books know him to be an adroit writer of nonfiction, an almost Mark Twain for the geek crowd if you don’t mind such a comparison. Yet his “Art of War” story shows he is talented with fictional narratives, too. The story involves Kirk and a Klingon named Kring both trapped together in a collapsed mine on the planet Angrena. The “enemies forced to cooperate” situation isn’t unique to science fiction or to Star Trek, be it the film Enemy Mine or “The Enemy” and “Darmok” episodes of TNG. These kinds of narratives succeed if there is something different about how they are told and if they provide the reader with something to think about with the characters or a social lesson. Wheaton does all of these things with his comic.

They gave me 10 out of 10! Dude!

My friend and editor, Luis Reyes, is also getting rave reviews for his story, The Humanitarian, which I still haven’t seen because my damn contributor’s copy hasn’t shown up, yet. Luis is a great guy who took one in the chest when TokyoPop . . . uh . . . popped . . . a few months ago. I remember talking with him about his story while he was working on it, and he was really hopeful that people would like it. Sounds like they did: “Once in a while, a Star Trek story is so incredibly good that it stays with you forever.”

Cheyenne Wright did a pretty awesome drawing of a guy who looks like me, but cooler.

scaled.wil_color.jpg

How much do you want a shirt that says “GE [lightning bolt] EK” right now? I guarantee it’s not as much as I do.

Depeche Mode: The Singles 1986-1998 is available from Amazon MP3 for 3.99 today only. I am not ashamed to admit that I loved Depeche Mode when I was a teenager. Any DM fans out there notice how, depending on your age, your seminal DM album is either Music for the Masses or Violator? Mine is the former, though I still love the latter.

xkcd and Diesel Sweeties made me giggle so hard it hurt my chest. Thanks for nothing, guys.

This isn’t awesome, but it’s important that I share: there’s a current crop of e-mails going around that appear to be from CNN or MSNBC. They’re not. They go to very well-designed pages that can fool people into installing malware. I don’t ask this often, but please share this bit of news with your friends who are . . . vulnerable . . . to this sort of attack.

There’s some really cool new stuff at Propeller 2.0 that I’m excited about, including the growing awesomeness of the Geek group.

Great Showdowns of the 8-bit Era is beautiful. (via reddit)

That reminds me: If I collected some of my favorite Games of Our Lives into a book, would you be interested in buying it? (Note that it was all WFH and as such the AV Club owns all the material; I’d have to convince them to give me permission, but before I bother trying to do that, I wanted to gauge interest here.)

I hate that NBC is delaying their “live” prime time Olympics for West Coast viewers, but their online coverage is incredible. If you’re only watching the Olympics in prime time, you’re really missing out on some great events, like Table Tennis, Archery, Rowing, Soccer, and Handball. I mean, gymnastics and swimming are neat and all, but there’s a lot more to the games than just those events. Durr.

Jefbot hates me, but it’s all in good fun. The next strip in the series is gold, Jerry. GOLD!

Top Shelf is rapidly becoming one of my favorite publishers. Like Vertigo or Blue Note, I can pick up anything from them and know I’m going to love it. I want to do a proper review at some point, but the book Super Spy by Matt Kindt is absolutely magnificent, and proves that graphic storytelling exists as literature. You can see one of the stories in the book here.

Finally:

Me: Ah! I hate this song! Change it! Change it!

Ryan: Hey, when we played the endless setlist, you said –

Me: We were playing for five hours! I don’t think anyone should be held accountable for anything they said, did, or turned off during the endless setlist. Now let’s never speak of this again.

Ryan: But –

Me: NEVER. AGAIN.

Ryan went back to school this morning. My ribs hurt so much, I couldn’t hug him as much as I needed to, making an already-difficult goodbye extra painful. He’s grown up and matured so much in the last six months, I just love having him around. He’s really grown into a fine young man, and is someone I’d like to hang around with even if he wasn’t my son. I’m going to miss him a lot.