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Scalzi, John

Entry updated 10 March 2025. Tagged: Author.

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(1969-    ) US author and journalist. Born in California, he studied at the University of Chicago (briefly under SaulBellow) before taking on a career in journalism. He began publishing work of genre interest with "Alien Animal Encounters" inStrange Horizons for 15 October 2001, and soon published his first novel, theMilitary SFOld Man's War (2005), which had initially been noticed in its 2002 online iteration byTor Books editor PatrickNielsen Hayden.

Old Man's War, the first volume in what would become theOld Man's War orGreen Soldier Universe sequence, is very consciously an updating of some of the most distinctive traits of Robert AHeinlein's work, most obviouslyStarship Troopers (October-November 1959F&SF as "Starship Soldier";1959). The premise of Scalzi's novel is again a recruitment drive for soldiers in an interplanetaryFuture War; but in Scalzi, the old are enabled by aTechnology ofIdentity Transfer to serve in new, greatly improved (and green) bodies. The novel is immensely readable: Scalzi shares with Heinlein a bewitching certainty about the universe and the ability ofGenre SF properly told to convey that certainty, as well as an enormously fluent ability to construct narratives. Also as with Heinlein, the author's tone of voice tends to permeate all the utterances of the book, so that characters can seem less free and individual than they should.Old Man's War made a significant impact in the field, and Scalzi won theJohn W Campbell Award Award in 2006. Subsequent novels set in theOld Man's War universe –The Ghost Brigades (2006),The Last Colony (2007),Zoe's Tale (2008),The Human Division (first appeared January-April 2013Tor.com;2013) andThe End of All Things (2015) – were similarly successful.The Sagan Diary (2007) is a novella with the same background.

Scalzi has also published several standalone novels, beginning withAgent to the Stars (2005) andThe Android's Dream (2006), plus a novella,The God Engines (2010).Agent to the Stars, in fact his first completed novel, allows the author's sense of humour to come to the fore more than elsewhere: it is aFirst Contact tale set in Los Angeles (seeCalifornia) where approachingAliens, repugnant to human sight and smell, seek a Hollywood agent to give them an image makeover.The Android's Dream, set further in the future, is a story of diplomatic double-crosses evoking both Philip KDick andHeinlein'sDouble Star (February-April 1956Astounding;1956). Readers will soon determine whether it is a work whose tone suits them, as the first chapter is an extended fart joke.Fuzzy Nation (2011), a tale of theTerro-Human Future History: Fuzzies universe created by H BeamPiper, is not so much aSequel by Other Hands as an alternative version, reworked in slightly tougher terms, of Piper'sLittle Fuzzy (1962).Redshirts (2012), aSpace Opera, begins as an overtParody ofStar Trek as filtered through the lens ofGalaxy Quest (1999) and the viewpoints of haplessRed Shirts characters, but segues into a quest for the nature of reality and/or reincarnation and/or reruns (and if there areSecret Masters who control what may be deemed to be real) that comes close to genuine metafiction (seeFabulation).Redshirts won a 2013Locus Award and theHugo for best novel, Scalzi's first Hugo win for fiction.

Technically a series, theLock In texts –Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome (2014 ebook) andLock In (2014) – comprise a single story, with the first tale serving as an explanatory prelude to the novel itself, which describes the initial consequences of a viralPandemic (see alsoDisaster;Medicine) known as Haden's Syndrome, whose victims are totally disabled; the policier plot, set twenty-five years after the onset of the Syndrome, concerns those "Hadens" able to use the bodies of others via a kind ofIdentity Transfer. The action is fast; the emotions conveyed, despite the speed of the tale, are intense. TheCollapsing Empire sequence, beginning withThe Collapsing Empire (2017), though told in Scalzi's usual straightforward style, is aWidescreen BaroqueSpace Opera featuring aGalactic Empire on an interstellar scale, where a young "emperox" must deal with decay in theWormholes that, in the absence ofFaster Than LightStarships, knit the various subject worlds together. Though lightweight, the first volume won aLocus Award for best sf novel.

The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022), which also delves into theSF Megatext for content, re-imaginesGodzilla as aMonster from anotherDimension whose fellow-Kaiju of enormous girth must be kept from our planet; this won aLocus Award as best sf novel.Starter Villain (2023) is a comedy whose hapless protagonist inherits the family business of being the kind of large-scale internationalVillain (withIsland volcano lair) so often taken down by IanFleming'sJames Bond.When the Moon Hits Your Eye (2025) is an sf spoof (seeAbsurdist SF) in which the earworm title is taken literally.

In addition to his fiction-writing Scalzi has contributed to theRough Guides nonfiction series: of sf interest isThe Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies (2005).24 Frames into the Future: Scalzi on Science Fiction Films (coll2012) assembles short columns from 2008-2011 forAMC.com andFilmCritic.com; none of his early film reviews, dating from as early as 1991, are included. He maintains a blog, Whatever, which began in 1998 and stands as perhaps the most influential presentation of a public face possessed by any current science fiction writer. On this basis he won his firstHugo as best fan writer in 2008; a collection of Whatever posts,Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008 (coll2008), won anotherHugo as best related book. Scalzi himself served as the President ofScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 2010 to 2013. This is appropriate, for if anyone stands at the core of the American science fiction tradition at the moment, it is Scalzi. [GS/DRL]

see also:Great and Small;Identity;Robert A Heinlein Award;Seiun Award;Skylark Award;Space Elevator;Uplift.

John Michael Scalzi

born Fairfield, California: 10 May 1969

works

series

Old Man's War

Lock In

The Collapsing Empire

The Dispatcher

individual titles

collections and stories

nonfiction (selected)

works as editor

  • METAtropolis (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press,2009) [anth: first appeared as an audio book in 2008 from Audible Frontiers: hb/LesEdwards as Edward Miller]

about the author

links

previous versions of this entry



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