John Scalzi

Novels, novellas, collections:

Agent to the Stars — (2005) Publisher: The space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity's first interstellar friendship. There's just one problem: They're hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. So getting humanity's trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal. Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He's one of Hollywood's hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it's quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he's going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

The Android's Dream — (2006) Publisher: A human diplomat creates an interstellar incident when he kills an alien diplomat in a most…unusual…way. To avoid war, Earth's government must find an equally unusual object: A type of sheep ("The Android's Dream"), used in the alien race's coronation ceremony. To find the sheep, the government turns to Harry Creek, ex-cop, war hero and hacker extraordinare, who with the help of Brian Javna, a childhood friend turned artificial intelligence, scours the earth looking for the rare creature. And they find it, in the unknowing form of Robin Baker, pet store owner, whose genes contain traces of the sheep DNA. But there are others with plans for the sheep as well: Mercenaries employed by the military. Adherents of a secret religion based on the writings of a 21st century science fiction author. And alien races, eager to start a revolution on their home world and a war on Earth. To keep our planet from being enslaved, Harry will have to pull off the greatest diplomatic coup in history, a grand gambit that will take him from the halls of power to the lava-strewn battlefields of alien worlds. There's only one chance to get it right, to save the life of Robin Baker — and to protect the future of humanity.

The Sagan Diary — (2007) Available for download at Audible.com. Publisher: Fans of John Scalzi's "Old Man" universe, prepare yourselves: there's a long new story in that universe, told from the point of view of one of the series' most intriguing characters. Subterranean Press is proud to publish The Sagan Diary, a long novelette that for the first time looks at the worlds of the Hugo-nominated Old Man's War and its sequel The Ghost Brigades from the point of view of Lieutenant Jane Sagan, who in a series of diary entries gives her views on some of the events included in the series... and sheds new light into some previously unexplored corners. If you thought you knew Jane Sagan before, prepare to be surprised.

METAtropolis — (2009) Available for download at Audible.com. Publisher: A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment... A bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement... A courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city... A slacker in a zero-footprint town get a most unusual new job... and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes. Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to METAtropolis. More than an anthology, METAtropolis is the brainchild of five of science fiction's hottest writers Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder and project editor John Scalzi who combined their talents to build a new urban future, and then wrote their own stories in this collectively-constructed world. The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before. You're at the city limits now. See what's waiting on the other side.

Metatropolis

Metatropolis is an interesting book, to say the least: in addition to being a "shared world" anthology, featuring stories from five authors working in the same "collectively-constructed" future setting, it's also (as far as I know) unique in that it was released first as an audio book (reviewed below by Kat) and only subsequently as a traditional "paper" book, first as a limited edition by Subterranean Press, and now in a shiny new edition by Tor.

The concept of the book's shared world is equally interesting: due to environmental change and political upheaval, the idea of national government has been superseded by something akin to city states, often self-governed or in partnership with other cities across the world, while outside the city walls the situation may be more similar to what you'd find in a post-apocalyptic novel. Each of the five stories collected in Metatropolis explores the concept of what such a city or society might be like in interesting, different and (mostly) successful ways.

If you're not sold yet, the list of authors reads like a veritable All Star team of current, interesting SFF authors: Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder and John Scalzi, who also served as editor for the entire project.

"In the Forests of the Night" by Jay Lake opens Metatropolis with a powerful story about a mysterious and charismatic stranger arriving in Cascadiopolis — a hidden city situated in the Cascades area that stretches from Portland up to Vancouver. As the first story in the anthology, it unfortunately bears the burden of having to include some world-building information, which is (more or less gracefully) handled by including extracts from economics and sociology texts that draw up the anthology's shared world future in a few quick strokes. Passing over those necessary info dumps, you'll find a beautiful story, effectively displaying a number of different perspectives, written in gorgeous, dense prose that just begs to be reread. The story lays on the William Blake a bit too thickly — the main character's name Tygre is one thing, but naming part of the city Symmetry was a bit much for me. Still, filled with characters that have the raw power of archetypes, this is nothing short of an excellent story. (Four stars.)

Tobias Buckell's entry, with the groan-inducing title "Stochasti-City", switches us over to a drastically changed Detroit, and to Reginald, an ex-military bar bouncer who becomes involved in a unique urban rebellion. The story has a not-quite-here-yet future realism that reminded me of Cory Doctorow, with several elements that seem as if they could be happening today — but not quite. I enjoyed Reginald's story of gradual personal awakening, the more subtly handled world-building touches, and especially the sense of real social change occurring in the story. (Three stars.)

Next up is Elizabeth Bear's "The Red in the Sky is our Blood," the gripping story of Cadence Grange and her not-quite-stepdaughter Firuza. It describes another unique social experiment, cleverly hinted at in Tobias Buckell's story, and also refers back to the Cascades setting of "In the Forests of the Night," which pulls the entire anthology so far into a coherent whole and helps its fictional world become more real. This story also contains the most beautiful prose in the entire anthology (which is saying a lot, given that it also features Jay Lake). Just read this gem of a sentence: "Cadie could picture the conversation like intersecting fingers, locked at the base but pointing in incompatible directions, pushing against one another." (Four stars.)

John Scalzi's story "Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis" (which, I believe, is Latin for "Look, I'm smart and know impressive quotes") just didn't work for me. Its protagonist Benjamin has the smarmy, sarcastic sense of humor of almost every character in the author's novels, and the plot, involving a slacker forced into gross manual labor, somehow manages to be improbable at first and predictable towards the end. It also involves large amounts of pig excrement. There are some interesting looks at people living in a city-based society, contrasted effectively with life outside in the wilderness, but aside from this, I could have done without it. Still, if you generally enjoy John Scalzi's style and sense of humor, you will probably like this story too. (One star.)

Thankfully, Karl Schroeder's "To Hie from Far Cilenia" closes out Metatropolis with a sizzling mind-bender of a story about technology-enhanced "virtual" levels of society that overlay — and influence — everyday reality. The ending rattles a bit, but there are enough stunning ideas (cyranoids!) to make "To Hie from Far Cilenia" a story that's almost impossible to summarize, but also one you're guaranteed to remember for a long time. (Four stars.)

Taken all together, Metatropolis is a unique and mostly high quality collection of connected stories by some of today's most exciting authors. On one level, the anthology has an important and relevant message about the state of our present society and the direction we're heading in. On another, it's just a great read with some truly memorable stories. Check it out. —Stefan Raets

METAtropolis

It’s not a utopia. It’s just maybe something that sucks a little less.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it turns out that all those eco-freaks were right all along. We humans destroyed the planet and now we’ve got to live with the mess we’ve made. Many world governments, including the U.S., have been essentially dismantled and large, mostly independent and self-governing city-states have taken their place.

Under the direction of John Scalzi, the story authors — Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, and Scalzi himself — got together to map out their new post-apocalyptic world and their goals for  METAtropolis. (Scalzi gives insight into some of this during the introductions to each story in the audiobook version.) Thus, though the stories are set in different locales and use different characters, the history and rules are the same, and they sometimes even reference each other. This sounds like a terrific idea, and indeed the focus on collaboration is evident. I liked that some concepts, such as “turking”, are introduced and explained in one story, then used again in a later one.

So what about the stories?

“In the Forests of the Night” by Jay Lake: After the collapse of the United States government, The Cascadian Independence Project is finally thriving and is populated by Silicon Valley techies who are more interested in being green than in venture capitalism. They live in holes in the ground, develop new technologies, and just want to be left alone to live together cooperatively. Their lives are disrupted when a messiah figure shows up.

I love Jay Lake’s style — character-driven, detailed, lush — and I enjoyed the setting of Cascadia — the swath of rich forest land in the Pacific Northwest. But this story didn’t hold together for me. The inclusion of the messiah figure was confusing and had no relation to the rest of the stories. Also, since a lot of this new world’s background (e.g., oil crunch, resource drain, etc.) was provided in this story, there’s quite a lot of exposition (about how we humans have destroyed the world) to suffer through. This got old pretty quickly because the green anti-capitalism messages were just too heavy-handed. However, the audio production of this story was excellent and Michael Hogan is a terrific reader.

Tobias Buckell’s story, “Stochasti-City,” set in Detroit, was much better. At least there was a coherent story and an interesting main character here. Reginald is just looking out for himself, but when he takes a risky high-paying turking job, he gets involved with some anti-automobile eco-terrorists. I enjoyed this character and some of the ideas that Buckell presents, though all of the anti-whatever themes were starting to grate. Again, another nice reading, this one by Scott Brick.

Elizabeth Bear’s “The Red in the Sky is Our Blood” is also set in Detroit and complements Buckell’s story. I think this story was supposed to be hopeful, as it imagined a way that like-minded people might live and work together for their common good, but I just found it bleak and depressing. In Elizabeth Bear’s character’s own words: “It’s not a utopia. It’s just maybe something that sucks a little less.” This story was read by Kandyse McClure who does a good job.

John Scalzi tells a light-hearted story that, for the first time in this collection, was entertaining in its own right. That is, its plot and characters weren’t over-shadowed by the message. Benjy, who lives in New St. Louis, has waited until the last minute to get his job and is in danger of being exiled. The city government assigns jobs, but because Benjy is a slacker and didn’t do so well on his aptitude tests, he gets stuck doing the worst job in the city. The reader, Alessandro Guiliani, had Benjy down perfectly and “Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis” was very funny. I laughed aloud often and finally felt like I wasn’t wasting my time with  METAtropolis.

Stefan Rudnicki, who I completely adore, read Karl Schroeder’s “To Hie from Far Celenia,” but that’s not the only reason I liked it. Here we learn that people of post-apocalyptic Earth are starting to deal with life by retreating into virtual worlds that have their own economies and constantly shifting world maps. Some people do this for fun (perhaps they never got over the steampunk fad and they still want to wear paisley and pocket watches, for example) and some do it for other reasons… I enjoyed the world-building in this story and it stretched my brain more than the previous tales did. Also, the future evolution we experience in this story is the one that seems most likely to me, and there were a few ideas that truly fascinated me, such as the autistic Cyranoid.

All in all, I loved the premise of  METAtropolis, the authors did a great job with their collaboration, and the production, by Brilliance Audio, was excellent. However, I only truly enjoyed half of the collection because, until John Scalzi’s story, I just got tired of reading about climate change, zero footprint, carbon load, globalization, resource drains, big-capital, etc. These anti-everything messages aren’t new and interesting ideas anymore, and they were just too heavy-handed for greedy humans like me. —Kat Hooper

The God Engines — (2009) Publisher: Captain Ean Tephe is a man of faith, whose allegiance to his lord and to his ship is uncontested. The Bishopry Militant knows this — and so, when it needs a ship and crew to undertake a secret, sacred mission to a hidden land, Tephe is the captain to whom the task is given. Tephe knows from that the start that his mission will be a test of his skill as a leader of men and as a devout follower of his god. It’s what he doesn’t know that matters: to what ends his faith and his ship will ultimately be put — and that the tests he will face will come not onlyfrom his god and the Bishopry Militant, but from another, more malevolent source entirely... Author John Scalzi has ascended to the top ranks of modern science fiction with the best-selling, Hugo-nominated novels Old Man’s War and Zoe’s Tale. Now he tries his hand at fantasy, with a dark and different novella that takes your expectations of what fantasy is and does, and sends them tumbling. Say your prayers... and behold The God Engines.

The God Engines

AUTHOR INFORMATION: John Scalzi’s debut novel, Old Man’s War, was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. His other science fiction novels include Agent to the Stars, The Android’s Dream, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe’s Tale. He has also written several non-fiction books, The Sagan Diary novella, various short fiction, and edited the anthology METAtropolis. In 2006, John Scalzi won the John W. Campbell Award for Best Writer, and in 2009 won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book for Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever 1998 – 2008.
 
CLASSIFICATION: Despite mostly taking place on the spaceship Righteous, The God Engines is not really science fiction. Instead, The God Engines is a tale of dark fantasy with parts of the novella falling into horror territory. Think Steven Erikson meets Tim Lebbon meets Clive Barker…
 
FORMAT/INFO: The God Engines is 136 pages long divided over eleven chapters. Includes interior illustrations provided by Vincent Chong. Narration is in the third-person, exclusively via Captain Ean Tephe. The God Engines is self-contained. The God Engines is scheduled for publication in December 2009 via Subterranean Press and will be available in two editions: 1) A fully cloth-bound hardcover and a 2) Signed/Numbered fully leather-bound edition limited to 400 copies. Cover art provided by Vincent Chong.
 
ANALYSIS: John Scalzi is another author I’ve never read before, even though I own several of his novels. It’s an oversight I’ve been meaning to correct for some time now, but just never got around to doing. However, that all changed as soon as I heard about John Scalzi’s novella, The God Engines. Billed as the writer’s take on fantasy that “takes your expectations of what fantasy is and does, and sends them tumbling,” The God Engines instantly intrigued me and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy. Much to my pleasure, The God Engines is every bit as good, if not better, than advertised.
 
In The God Engines, John Scalzi introduces readers to a dark and chilling world where gods not only exist, but can also be tortured, enslaved, or even killed. A world where science has been replaced by faith, where Defiled gods are used as ‘engines’ to power spaceships, where followers may be blessed with Talents — “a thing gods give followers to channel their grace, so the followers may use that grace to their own ends” — and where faith is a tangible power. A world of rooks, Bishop’s Men, and commentaries. A world that is highly imaginative, mostly original (parts of the novella reminded me of James Clemens’ Godslayer Chronicles), immersive despite having only 136 pages to bring the concept to life, and utterly captivating.
 
In this grim, yet fascinating world, readers will meet a small and well-drawn cast of characters — Captain Ean Tephe of the ship Righteous, Priest Andso, Commander Neal Forn, rook Shalle, the Defiled of the Righteous — who play a pivotal role in the events recorded in The God Engines. Events that are straightforward for the most part, but culminate in an explosive and mind-blowing finish full of dark twists and shocking revelations…
 
Negatively, I have just one complaint with The God Engines... it’s too short. Most of the novellas I’ve read before were set in established universes that I was already familiar with (Steven Erikson, Alan Campbell, Tim Lebbon, etc), and therefore worked extremely well as complimentary pieces or introductions to the author. As far as I know, The God Engines is not part of an already established universe, and is somewhat of a departure from the author’s other work, so it doesn’t really fall in either category. Instead, The God Engines is an epic-scale idea condensed into novella form. Even though the plot, setting and characters are handled skillfully in the short time allotted, it just seemed like parts of the novella felt rushed or skimmed over, and I believe The God Engines would have worked even better as a full-length novel.

That said, the novella as it is leaves an indelible impression on the reader. It is a hauntingly powerful and provocative tale that will have John Scalzi fans, fantasy lovers, and newcomers alike talking about The God Engines. —Robert Thompson

The God Engines

Ean Tephe, captain of the Righteous, is a man of great faith. In fact, it’s the faith of Tephe and his crew that keeps Righteous running — it gives power to their god, enabling him to enslave the captured god which powers the spaceship. Somehow, the “defiled” god, like all the conquered gods that run the spaceships in Tephe’s land, are able to swallow light-years of space to transport their crews wherever they need to go. When Captain Tephe and his crew are sent on a missionary journey to proselytize a new planet and their god engine starts to act up, Tephe’s suddenly in danger of losing his religion.

The God Engines, which I listened to on audio (Brilliance Audio) narrated by Christopher Lane, has a tantalizing premise and some appealing characters. I liked Captain Ean Tephe, his capable first mate, and Shalle, the woman who “nurtures the faith” of the officers. The vicious and angry god who is chained to Righteous was truly frightening (Lane’s creepy voice amplified this). The plot, which is slow at the beginning, rapidly speeds up at the end (this is only 3 hours on audio) and becomes intense, scary, twisty, and surprising.

Perhaps it was John Scalzi’s intention, but I never felt comfortable reading The God Engines. My first problem is that it’s closer to horror than science-fantasy. The plot is unpleasant all the way through and it lacks any of Scalzi’s well-known humor or lightness. I was tense and unsettled the whole time I was listening. I realize that this is personal problem, of course, and many readers will appreciate this unexpected darkness from John Scalzi.

My second issue is that The God Engines is simply too short for what it tries to do. I enjoy reading novellas, but they tend to work better when the setting is already familiar, either because they’re set in our own world or in a world the author has explored before. This world, which is entirely new for Scalzi’s readers, was just starting to feel real and I was just settling into it by the time the story was over. Similarly, the idea of blindly worshiping a god whose character you’re unsure of is tantalizing (though not original), but the surface of this concept was merely scratched and I wasn’t given enough time to deeply consider how this would play out in this world. Likewise, the importance and pitfalls of faith were just beginning to be explored.

The ending of The God Engines felt arbitrary and unsatisfying. Scalzi abandoned his characters, world, ideas, and story, just as he was getting going. It’s nice to see John Scalzi trying something new, but I can’t help but wonder if maybe he didn’t like it either. —Kat Hooper

Fuzzy Nation — (2011) Publisher: Jack Holloway works alone, for reasons he doesn’t care to talk about. One hundred seventy-eight light-years from ZaraCorp’s head office on Earth, hundreds of miles from their headquarters on-planet, Jack is content as an independent contractor, prospecting and surveying at his own pace. Then, in the wake of an accidental cliff collapse, Jack discovers a seam of unimaginably valuable jewels, to which he manages to lay legal claim just as ZaraCorp cancels their contract with him. Briefly in the catbird seat, Jack pressures ZaraCorp into recognizing his claim, and cuts them in as partners to help extract the wealth. But there’s another wrinkle to ZaraCorp’s relationship with the planet Zarathustra. Their entire legal right to exploit the verdant Earthlike planet is based on being able to certify to the authorities on Earth that Zarathustra is home to no sentient species. Then a small furry biped — trusting, appealing, and ridiculously cute — shows up at Jack’s outback home, followed by its family. As it dawns on Jack that, despite their stature, these are people, he begins to suspect that ZaraCorp’s claim to a planet’s worth of wealth is flimsy indeed... and that ZaraCorp may stop at nothing to eliminate the “fuzzys” before their existence becomes more widely known.

Fuzzy Nation

When Jack Holloway’s dog blows up a cliff during a prospecting mission on the planet Zarathustra, Jack loses his contract with ZaraCorp. Fortunately, inside the cliff he discovers the biggest vein of precious gems that have ever been found on the planet and he gets to take a percentage of the profits as finder’s fee. Things start to get complicated when Jack returns home to discover that his house has been invaded by a fuzzy mammal that seems a lot smarter than he should be on this planet that has no sapient creatures. When he calls in his ex-girlfriend, ZaraCorp’s biologist, to have a look, they realize that there may be trouble ahead. A sapient race means that ZaraCorp will have to give up their rights to the planet’s resources. Murder attempts and court cases ensue.

Fuzzy Nation is John Scalzi’s “reboot” of H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy. I mostly enjoyed Piper’s original plotline, but his novel got bogged down in long repetitive discussions about sapience which included some outdated ideas about the nature of consciousness. Not his fault, of course, since those ideas were trendy (though not empirically derived) back then, but they did make Little Fuzzy feel dated. In addition, the court proceedings were laughable and this is not likely to be dismissed by today’s readers who have grown up watching courtroom drama on TV.

In Fuzzy Nation, Scalzi has not only ditched the bad court procedures and old psychology (he replaced Freud’s psychoanalytic theory with Theory of Mind), but he has also eliminated the dull sapience discussions, too. This is still a story about what it means to be sapient, but Scalzi manages to intelligently address the issue without making us watch his characters sit around and talk about it. He also does a better job of explaining why humans shouldn’t be removing resources from planets with sapient races.

Scalzi’s characters are also more vibrant, especially Jack Holloway who, in Piper’s version, addressed himself as “Pappy Jack.” In Scalzi’s version, Holloway is a young hot-head who doesn’t seem to be able to open his mouth without spitting testosterone. Jack’s dog Carl is a welcome addition and his interactions with the cute Fuzzies gives the book some warmth and humor. I also liked Jack’s ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend who becomes Jack’s lawyer. All of the men in Scalzi’s story are unrelievedly aggressive and sarcastic, and I’m tempted to assume this is some manifestation of John Scalzi’s own personality, but instead I’ll argue that those types of personalities are likely to be disproportionately found on a distant inhospitable planet that’s home to man-eating raptors.

I listened to the audiobook version of Fuzzy Nation which has been produced by Brilliance Audio and Audible Frontiers. It’s the same recording, but the Audible Frontiers version includes H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy. Fuzzy Nation is narrated by John Scalzi’s friend, actor Wil “Don’t be a Dick!” Wheaton. He did a great job with all of the characters and he was especially perfect for the role of Jack Holloway. (I guess it’s okay to be a dick if you’re just acting).

Fuzzy Nation is a successful re-write of Piper’s classic, and I can heartily recommend it. The audio version is especially rewarding. If you want to read Little Fuzzy first, you can download a free print version because it’s in the public domain. —Kat Hooper

Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas — (2012) Publisher: Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better… until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces, (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed. Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is… and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.