John Scalzi

John Michael Scalzi II (born May 10, 1969 in California , USA ) is an American author and online writer. He became known for his science fiction novel War of the Clones, which was nominated for the Hugo Award . He has also written a number of non-fiction books, one of which Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: Selected Writing, 1998–2008 received a Hugo Award in 2009.

biography

John Scalzi was born in California, where he spent his childhood - mostly in suburbs of Los Angeles , e.g. B. Covina, Glendora and Claremont. In 1987, he went to high school with blogger Josh Marshall . After a stint at the Webb Schools of California , he attended the University of Chicago . There he went to the same class as the playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner David Auburn and had Saul Bellow as academic tutor for a short time .

After graduating in 1991, Scalzi worked as a film critic for the Fresno Bee newspaper , whereupon he eventually became a humor columnist. From 1996 he was a copywriter and editor at AOL , for which he moved to Sterling , Virginia . He has been a freelance writer and author since 1998. Scalzi now lives in Bradford , Ohio with his wife and daughter . In 2009 he announced that he would be working as a consultant for the new TV series Stargate Universe .

In August 2006, John Scalzi received the John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award for best new science fiction writer.

In May 2010, Scalzi was elected President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America .

John Scalzi is distantly related to John Wilkes Booth .

Career

War of the Clones was Scalzi's first novel to be published (January 2005, Tor Books). 75-year-old inhabitants of the earth are recruited for the defense of the space colonies. The book was only published after an online debut; Scalzi had published parts of the book periodically in December 2002, which was followed by an offer from Tor Books to publish it as a book. The hardcover edition of the book was published in January 2005. War of the Clones was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in March 2006 , as were the novels set in the same universe The Last Colony in March 2008 and Between the Stars in March 2009. Im In September 2013 he won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for his novel Redshirts .

Scalzi is openly committed to his role models: Scalzi confirms the similarities between War of the Clones and Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers in the appendix to the English edition. In the foreword to the novel The Wilde Planet , he emphasizes that the book is a "retelling" of the 1962 Hugo- nominated The Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper .

Awards

• 2006: John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award for best new science fiction writer
• 2007: Geffen Award , Best SF Book Category: Old Man's War
• 2008: Hugo Award for best fan writer
• 2009: Hugo Award, Best Novel category (nominated): Zoe's Tale
• 2009: Hugo Award, Category Best Related Book: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: Selected Writing
• 2010: Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis , Category Best Foreign Work: Android Dreams
• 2013: Locus Award , Category Science Fiction Best Novel: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas
• 2013: Hugo Award, Best Novel category: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas
• 2013: Seiun Award , Category: Best Foreign Book: The Android's Dream
• 2016: Geffen Award, Best SF Book Category: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas
• 2018: Locus Award, Category Best Science Fiction Novel: The Collapsing Empire

bibliography

Novels by John Scalzi published in Germany until 2012

War of the clones

• 2005: War of the Clones ( Old Man's War . May 2007, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-52267-1 )
• 2006: Ghost Brigades ( The Ghost Brigades December 2007, Heyne. ISBN 978-3-453-52268-8 )
• 2007: The Last Colony ( The Last Colony . June 2008, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-52442-2 )
• 2008: Between the Stars ( Zoe's Tale . May 2009, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-52561-0 )
• 2013: The Last Unit ( The Human Division . December 2013, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-31516-7 )
• 2015: Galactic Mission ( The End of All Things . August 2016, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-45-331757-4 )

In 2008, Scalzi published the short story After the Coup in English on the Tor Books publisher's official website , which is included in the book The Human Division .

At the beginning of August 2016, the first three novels in the series appeared as an anthology under the title War of the Clones - The Trilogy by Heyne Verlag.

• War of the Clones - The Trilogy. August 2016, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-4533-1776-5 .

Shadow War of the Night Dragons

• 2012: The Dead City (no German translation yet)

The Empire of the Rivers

• 2017: Kollaps - Das Imperium der Strom ( The Collapsing Empire . October 2017, Fischer Tor, ISBN 978-3-596-29966-9 )
• 2018: Treason - The Empire of the Streams 2 ( The Consuming Fire . August 2019, Fischer Tor, ISBN 978-3-596-29980-5 )

Lock in

• 2015: The Syndrome ( Lock In . July 2015, Heyne, ISBN 978-345-331660-7 )
• 2018: Frontal ( Head On . April 2018, Fischer Tor, ISBN 978-359-629979-9 )

More novels

• 2005: Agent der Sterne ( Agent to the Stars . January 2010, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-52625-9 )
• 2006: Android Dreams ( The Android's Dream . January 2009, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-52504-7 )
• 2009: The God Engines, Subterranean Pr., ISBN 978-1-596-06299-3 (no German translation yet)
• 2011: The wild planet ( Fuzzy Nation . September 2011, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-53399-8 )
• 2012: Redshirts ( Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas . November 2012, Heyne, ISBN 978-3-453-52995-3 )

Story collection

• Metatropolis. ( Metatropolis . October 2010, Heyne ISBN 3-453-52684-8 , with Elizabeth Bear , Tobias S. Buckell , Jay Lake and Karl Schroeder )

Non-fiction books (selection)

• 2000: The Rough Guide to Money Online
• 2003: The Rough Guide to the Universe
• 2003: The Book of the Dumb
• 2004: The Book of the Dumb 2
• 2005: The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies
• 2007: You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing
• 2008: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: Selected Writing, 1998–2008

literature

• Uwe Kramm: “Personally, I wouldn't mind being completely overhauled at 75.” A conversation with John Scalzi. In: Sascha Mamczak , Wolfgang Jeschke (Hrsg.): The Science Fiction Year 2009. Heyne, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-453-52554-2 . Pp. 637-652.
• Karsten Kruschel : Between the stars. In: Sascha Mamczak, Wolfgang Jeschke (Hrsg.): The Science Fiction Year 2010. Heyne, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-453-52681-5 . Pp. 945-947.

criticism

• Karsten Kruschel about Android dreams: “John Scalzi was already noticed in his 'War of the Clones' books not only with a very peculiar (willing) version of the military hard SF, but also with a pronounced sense of humor that is wonderfully little sacred seems. In his new novel 'Android Dreams' the last inhibitions fall, and Scalzi burns off a firework of gags. It starts with the title, which refers to the famous novel by Philip K. Dick, but means something completely different. ”[…]“ The technoid and completely inappropriate cover illustrations of the other Scalzi books are also used in the 'Android dreams 'continued: The attacking spaceship on the cover of this book is just plain annoying once you know the book. An innocent photo of a friendly-looking sheep would have been far more appropriate. Reading the book to find out why is a good idea. Entertaining, in places really funny, and in the action scenes there is the obligatory battle description food for military SF fans. Everyone else fast forward to get back to the biting dialogues. But you shouldn't expect any sharply defined characters or three-dimensional figures. Weird ideas and fun, yes. "

Individual evidence

1. ^ "The Family Assassin" , post on Scalzi's blog "Whatever", May 17, 2005
2. ↑ The Hugo Award winners 2013
3. ↑ See the author's preliminary note in: J. Scalzi: Krieg der Klone, Heyne Verlag, Munich 2011, p. 7.
4. ↑ After the Coup (English)
5. ↑ See Sascha Mamczak and Wolfgang Jeschke (eds.): Das Science Fiction Jahr 2009. München 2009, pp. 1398–1400. ISBN 978-3-453-52554-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about John Scalzi in the catalog of the German National Library
• John Scalzi in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• John Scalzi in the Science Fiction Awards + Database (English)
• Homepage John Scalzis (English)