An Evening with John Scalzi

Months ago I happened to see that a library the next city over was having John Scalzi in to speak. I secured two spots. Then I explained to The Husband that we had listened to Starter Villain together and really loved it and were going to go listen to the author.

Fast forward to this week when I had to remind him about it.  Then I had to remind him who John Scalzi was.  Once I reminded him about the man who inherits his uncle’s supervillain business with the cats, he got excited.  (Both times we had this discussion in a 24 hour period – because he doesn’t always listen to me.) He wanted to know why we hadn’t listened to more of his books.  So I guess we have our next binge audiobook author for group listening. 

I’ve read these stories from him too but The Husband hasn’t. I think for group listening we’ll start with one of these.

The talk was casual and fun. He wasn’t adverse to talking about the genesis of his ideas for books. I like hearing about that and so many authors get testy when asked. For example, Starter Villain came about because taking over the world is fun but running the world is drudgery. Redshirts was inspired by his rage over inaccurate science in a Star Trek movie.

He also talked about how he invents alien names.  He sees a word like a name on a flyer or a water bottle.  He covers up a few letters with his fingers.  Presto – there’s a name for an alien race in the letters still exposed. 

There was a lot of talk about how horrible dolphins are. He wanted to accurately portray that in a book.  They are not cute and cuddly in Starter Villain.  He knows that the dolphins may come for him someday. 

There was also a lot of talk about the business side of science fiction.  It is growing both in fan base and in the breadth and diversity of writers.  Nerds are becoming more mainstream and that helps the whole genre.  He talked about his writing process.  It takes about 3 months to write a book and then he is done.  No revisions after that.  He writes one book a year.  He talked about series that he had contracted but never happened either because other authors came out with similar books right as he was pitching his idea or the economy crashed and his publisher couldn’t pay for them anymore.

Wil Wheaton narrates a lot of his books.  They had met before they worked together.  They had a mutual friend.  When Wil wanted to do an audiobook audition he used a Scalzi short story because he knew him and could just ask for permission.  When Scalzi’s backlist got picked up by Audible and they asked if he had a narrator preference, he suggested Wil for 3 reasons.  

1. Give his friend a job
2. Their cadence is similar when they talk
3. Oh yeah, Wil had 2 million Twitter followers who he’d mention the book to….

We had a good time. This is part of my evil plan to make The Husband come to more geek/book stuff with me. Let’s not tell him. He did ask me as we were leaving what my review of Starter Villain was like. I said I didn’t remember specifically but that it was positive. He said that was good because he didn’t want me to be mean to John Scalzi. Like I have so much power in the book world. It’s sweet that he thinks that. I actually just went back to look to link up the review to prove that I wasn’t mean and guess what? I never reviewed Starter Villain. What!? Must remedy even if it is one year later.

Starter Villain

I loved this book so much! I read it while on vacation last year and knew immediately that the husband would love it. I downloaded the audiobook and forced him to listen. He also loved it.

It is their perfect combination of smart and snarky for us.  It takes every supervillain trope and exposes them for how ridiculous they are.  Do you really want a volcano lair?  If you die, is everyone you know going to show up to your funeral and attack your corpse just to make 100% you aren’t faking your death again? Do you really want an army of dolphins if you have to enter into labor negotiations with them?

That doesn’t even start to discuss the cats.  Obviously, cats are a huge part of this story based on the cover.  As they should be in all stories, of course.  I love the cats.  I don’t want to spoil their storylines but you’ll be watching your own cats a bit more closely for a while after reading this book.

This is a standalone book so if you are new to John Scalzi this is a perfect place to start.  Expect a fast moving plot with lots of humor and insight.  The audiobook was very well done by Wil Wheaton.  He plays Charlie’s exasperation with his new situation perfectly.  I think audio is a great medium for this story.