Author: scott

Radio Interview

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I did an interview with Public Radio International late last year, and the results have finally appeared online in an episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge, called “Apocalyptic Fictions.” I’m one of three authors (and one editor) interviewed. The whole thing is pretty interesting, featuring tales of zombies, warnings of mass extinctions, and ponderings of epidemics. What’s not to love?

I’m a bit out of place, actually, talking about the post-apocalyptic world of Uglies and Extras. All the other books are set during an apocalypse, which is a different sort of thing. Still, I’m always happy to be included.

Here’s radio KUAR’s page about the episode.

And here’s the MP3 if you want to listen to the show.

If you’re in a hurry and want to skip the other authors, I’m the last interview, about 75% of the way in. But they’re all good, really.

Warning: If you saw me on tour, the stories may sound a bit familiar. But I’ve only got so many jokes in me, okay?

Photo Request

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Justine and I are going through our (hopefully) final interview with US Immigration next week, and one of the things we need is photos of us with other people from across the years. This will help prove that our marriage is a genuine and continuing relationship.

So here’s a request for friends and fans: Do any of you have pictures from book events, parties, or whatever that show Justine and me with a few other folks around. Remember, these don’t have to be great pictures. In fact, they can be like quite crappy, like this one:

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Us with sf writer Sean Williams.

See? Crappy. If you have any such photos, just send them to me or send a flicker link to:

scott (at) scottwesterfeld.com (Change the “at” to a @, okay?)

It would also be great if you can say when and where they were taken. The more the merrier! (Bureaucrats love repetition.)

We thank you in advance.

Favorite Quotations

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We might have a Favorite Quotations section in Tally’s World: The Ultimate Guide to the Uglies Universe. So I thought I’d ask you guys what your fave quotes are.

Here are mine:

“What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.” -David, Uglies

“I can’t imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.” -Shay, Uglies

“Of course, a hoverboard. What is it about those things and miscreants?” -Dr. Cable, Uglies

“So wait. You have jewels in your eyes? And they tell time? And they go backwards? Isn’t that maybe one thing too many, Shay?” -Tally, Pretties

“I thought that food of the gods would be . . . better, somehow.”
“Hey, this is dehydrated food of the gods, okay?” -Andrew and Tally, Pretties

“Freedom has a way of destroying things.” -Tally, Specials

“It doesn’t take much convincing to make someone believe they’re better than everyone else.” -Tally, Specials

“I’m not trying to be mysterious. It’s just working out that way.” -Aya, Extras

“I know what it’s like to be manipulated, Aya-la. And I know what it’s like to be in danger. While your city was building you mansions to live in, my friends and I have been protecting this planet. We’ve spilled more blood than you have flowing in your veins. So don’t try to make me feel guilty!” -Tally, Extras

Feel free fill this comment thread with your own suggestions. I’d prefer to stick to things that the characters actually say, rather than my own spare prose. But we’ll see.

Let the quoting begin!

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Warning! Nanos!

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Those of you who’ve read Specials may remember a certain scene involving extremely dangerous nano-scale weapons (also known as “nanos”). Although weaponized nanos don’t exist yet, nanotech is real, and the potential for dangerous nanos abounds.

In this context, “nanotechnology” means any widget that’s between 1 to 100 nanometers across. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, so we’re talking down at the level of molecules and even atoms. At present, most nanos are used in fairly boring ways: sunscreen, paint, varnish. But in the near future, nanotech will no doubt be used in computing, mechanical design, and (because it’s what we upright monkeys are best at) killing each other.

Luckily, the good people at Etc Group have started a competition for a Nano Warning symbol, like the biohazard trefoil or other hazard symbols. So when anyone stumble across a defunct nano weapon like Shay and Tally did in Specials, they’ll know not to mess with it.

Here are my three faves so far:

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I like the spider-y one, because it plays on atavistic fears of small crawly things. The broken hexagon refers to the carbon structures that most nanos use. The magnifying glass with a ! will probably look quaint 300 hundred years from now, but it amuses me.

Click here to see the rest and vote for your favorites. The molecular structure you save may be your own.

(Via BoingBoing)

Con Schedule

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Thanks for all your great suggestions for the Uglies Guide. Keep them coming, and I’ll be doing more posts about the Guide in the near future.

But in the meantime: On Thursday, Justine and I are headed to Confusion in Detroit. For any of you attending, here’s our schedule. Justine and I are on all the same panels—so I give you Justine’s interpretation from her blog:

FRIDAY 18 JANUARY:

1900 Den 1 Interview: Author GoHs by John Scalzi
Tee hee! Mr Scalzi will ask us questions and we will plead the fifth and get away with it because we know where he buried the bodies. I suspect zombies will be mentioned.

2000 Salon FGH Opening Ceremonies
We will say a few words but there won’t be an actual speech speech. Some of my words will be “quokka”, “zombie”, and “oscillate”, or maybe not. Depends.

2100 Salon FGH Dessert Reception
Where we eat dessert and natter with folks what want to natter.

2200 Den 1 Originality is Overrated
There’s this idea that writers work entirely alone and create their work out of whole cloth. That’s rubbish. If a work were wholly original no one would be able to read it. All writers are influenced by those who came before them. Most writers talk to other writers. Many are in writers’ groups and even those that aren’t frequently read and comment on each other’s work. Let’s talk about the influence and community that writers share. Even when they don’t know each other. Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld (M), Patrick Nielsen Hayden, John Scalzi, Patrick Rothfuss and Doselle Young.

I confess that I wrote this description on account of it’s something that drives me crazy and I’m looking forward to talking about it with such esteemed and smart companions. Especially Doselle. Everything is better if Doselle is involved.

SATURDAY 19 JANUARY:

1100 Den 1 Fantastic Sports
Organized sports are a vital part almost every culture on the globe. But sf and fantasy novels tend to overlook this key aspect of world-building. We examine what sports are and what they tell us about a culture, and dig up some good examples in sf and fantasy. Justine Larbalestier (M), Scott Westerfeld, Steve Ainsworth, Dave Klecha and Catherine Shaffer.

Mmmm . . . sport. If I weren’t moderator I would just spend the session teaching USians cricket.

1300 Salon G Juvenilia
Writers dust off the storage trunks, turn off the shame meter, and read from their 5th- through 12th-grade works of unalloyed proto-genius. A great way for young writers in the audience to feel much better about their own efforts. Justine Larbalestier (M), Scott Westerfeld, Merrie Haskell, K. Tempest Bradford and Marcy Italiano.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that Scalzi is not on this panel. Laughing at his early writing efforts was the whole reason I agreed to go to ConFusion!

1400 Den 1 SF Is Not Dead
More sf is written and consumed these days than every before, in the form of manga, video games, rpgs, and YA lit. Yet our beloved field constantly bemoans its own demise, while ignoring those 100,000 crazy kids down the road at Comicon. How do we connect these two worlds of sf? Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld (M), Anne Harris, Jim Frenkel and Peter Halasz.

Because me and Scott are sick to death of hearing the folks in the old sf people’s home whingeing about the death of sf. It ain’t dead! It’s doing just fine, thanks.

1500 Den 1 Golden Age of Young Adult Lit
Some argue that the YA books being published now are some of the best the field has ever seen. There are more of them, the quality is better, and the authors are being paid more. Is now the Golden Age of Young Adult Literature? And if so what does that mean for the next generation of readers? Justine Larbalestier (M), Scott Westerfeld, Steve Climer, Suzanne Church and Peter Halasz.

I think it is. I also think it’s just going to get better and better and better.

1700 All-Author Autographing Session
If you have books you want strange author types to scribble on here’s your chance.

2100 Concierge Literary Beer
The only thing we’re doing that you have to sign up for. It’ll be me and Scott sitting around with a smallish group of interested folks and answering their questions while we all drink beer (or water or whatever you wish to drink. I wish to drink Krug—I hope the ConCom is on top of that!).

SUNDAY 20 JANUARY:

1100 Salon H Gluten-Free Fantasy
Most medieval cultures didn’t have chainmail, swords, horses, or wheat. Yet the overwhelming majority of medieval cultures in fantasy do. What do we stand to gain by breaking the bonds of Europe on our collective imagination? And what’s so scary about bolas, sled-dogs, and rice? Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, Jim Frenkel.

This panel is also something me and Scott came up with. It has a backstory. Way back in the dark ages we were on a panel together about fantasy where we panelists suggested that there were other settings for high fantasy other than mediaeval Europe. Scott went as far as to say that wheat is not essential to high fantasy.

The audience turned on him. “We LOVE wheat!” they proclaimed. “We hate fantasy that isn’t set in mediaevel Europe. We hate wanky literary fantasy. In fact, we hate you writers on the panel who are trying to take away our wheat!”

Scalzi was in the audience along with the wonderful Karen Meisner and they both say it was one of the most extraordinary things they have ever seen. Karen even sent Scott a Canadian license plate wth a beautiful picture of wheat on it. Scott still contends that we were caught in the wave of an Atkin’s diet backlash.

Here’s the con’s full schedule.

Hope to see some of you there! I mean if this wussy Aussie girl can brave the dead of winter in Detroit, so can you!

Uglies Guide

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So there’s some mutterings around these parts of doing a sort of Guide to the Uglies Universe. You know what I mean: one of those books full of background data about the people, places, and gadgets of Tally’s world, maybe containing a few diagrams, glossaries, and maps for your fannish perusal.

Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi’s Spiderwick Chronicles has the wonderful and richly illustrated Field Guide. Erin Hunter’s Warriors books have a similar companion work, though with more text than pictures.

So what would you guys want in a guide to the Uglyverse? What questions remain unanswered? What background info do you demand?

Here is your chance to ask questions and to list obscure gadgets, slang, places, and characters that you want to know more about.

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Warning: Lame cover mocked up by me. Not in any way real (yet).

MBW Formation

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Those of you who’ve read my book So Yesterday may remember the following scene in chapter 2. A focus group of cool-hunters has just been shown a new sneaker advertisement, and they all seem to agree that it’s awesome.

That is, until Jen speaks up . . .

“I was kind of bugged by the missing-black-woman formation.”

Mandy blinked. “The what?”

Jen shrugged uncomfortably, feeling the eyes on her.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said, even though I didn’t.

Jen took a slow breath, collecting her thoughts. “You know, the guy on the motorcycle was black. The guy on the bike was white. The woman was white. That’s the usual bunch, you know? Like everybody’s accounted for? Except not really. I call that the missing-black-woman formation. It kind of happens a lot.”

It was quiet for another moment. But gears were spinning. Tina Catalina let out a long sigh of recognition.

“Like the Mod Squad!” she said.

“Yeah,” Hiro chimed in, “or the three main characters in . . . ” He named a certain trilogy of movies about cyber-reality and frozen kung-fu, whose title ends in an X, counts as a brand, and therefore will not grace these pages.

The floodgates broke. More comic books, movies, and TV shows tumbled off everyone’s lips, a dozen stuffed-full pop-cultural memory banks rifled for examples of missing-black-woman formations, until Mandy looked ready to cry.

She smacked the clipboard down.

“Is this something I should have KNOWN ABOUT?” she said sharply, sweeping her eyes around the table.

An unhappy silence fell over the conference room. I felt like an evil genius’s henchman when something goes wrong in a certain series of secret agent films—as if Mandy might push a button on the control panel and we would be ejected, chairs and all, out the roof and into some lake in Central Park.

I noticed only yesterday that we’re living through a nation-changing MBW formation right now. (Gloria Steinem may have jogged my brain on this point.) So let’s all take a moment to appreciate the predictive, productive, and representative powers of pop culture.

We have a way of becoming the stories we tell ourselves.

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Just to be clear: I’m not mocking what’s going on here in the US. Having a woman and an African-American man as serious contenders for president is momentous. It’s great to see.

Still, I didn’t want to let a missing-black-woman formation as epic as this one pass by unnoticed.

And for you younger folks, here’s the scoop on the late-1960s TV show The Mod Squad.

Update: To comply with Federal Election Commission equal time rules, I am also required to display a picture of the Republican candidates . . .

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New Midnighters Covers

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Almost forgot to say that the new Midnighters covers are IN STORES NOW!

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And for you online shoppers, here are multi-store links for The Secret Hour, Touching Darkness, and Blue Noon. (Check to make sure the store you choose is showing the new cover!)

Thanks to everyone at HarperCollins for re-launching this trilogy in such beautiful form.

I also forgot to mention that I’m appearing at the Park Slope Barnes and Noble next week. Details:

Monday, January 7
6:30 PM
Barnes and Noble
267 7th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718-832-9066
Here’s a map.

Hope to see you there!

Number 12 Looks Suspiciously Familiar

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Most of you may already know that a Twilight Zone episode from 1964 is an early example of the dystopia presented in Uglies. It’s called “Number 12 Looks Just Like Me,” and is based on a short story by Charles Beaumont called “The Beautiful People.” Some enterprising soul has posted the entire thing to YouTube.

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The poster has set the video to not embed, but click below to watch the three parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Until last night, I hadn’t seen this gem since I was a little kid, so I’d forgotten all the details. Especially the phrase “pure perfection of pigmentation” (appearing 15 seconds into part 2), which is particularly creepy given how white everyone in the episode is. (Despite what the US covers for Uglies suggest, in Tally’s world everyone is racially averaged, or at least pushed toward the middle of the bell curve.) Note also the disturbing moment when the protag’s mother says to her braindeadmaid, “I don’t understand why you people have so much trouble with first names.” Hmm.

I’d also forgotten that in “Number 12” people look so much alike that they need name tags (obviously not the case in Tally’s world—my future is bell curvy, not cookie cutter). Here the facial choices are so limited that all fourteen characters are played by four actors. And what is it about the extreme minimalism of sf sets? Get some frickin’ posters for your walls, future people!

And some, um, better clothes.

Of course, compulsory plastic surgery is a venerable theme in sf. Not surprising, given that the first elective nose job occurred about a century ago, about the same time as H.G. Wells was writing War of the Worlds. (Fun fact: the earliest known skin grafts were performed in India 2800 years ago!) Other early fictional examples of compulsory cosmetic/brain surgery include L.P. Hartley’s 1960 story Facial Justice, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” (1961), and of course Ira Levin’s Stepford Wives (book: 1972; films: 1975, 2004).

But it’s great to see this classic again. Thank you, anonymous copyright-flouting YouTube user!

(And look! The episode’s Wikipedia page mentions Uglies!)

Graded for Fame

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My librarian pal Dawn Rutherford pointed me toward this Time Magazine article about a class in internet fame.

Basically, the students in this Parson’s School of Design course compete to see who has the most Google hits on their name by the end of the term. They post YouTube videos and LOLcats, engage in hoaxes, start petitions, and make friends on social networking sites, whatever it takes to increase their face ranks. (In the class, they call it “famo.”) The winner gets the best grade.

Spookily familiar, isn’t it?

Click here for the syllabus. And here’s the class logo:

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An internet fame course sounds to me like a great cross between fanciful and smart—part instruction and part academic research. Students at Parson’s are planning to be artists, after all, so they should get experience with self-promotion. (Though we authors never do that. NEVER.*)

Anyway, it was just so Extras that I had to pass it on. Thanks Dawn!

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*New Midnighters covers come out in four days!