That's me in dark blue on the right (Scalzis pic), at the book signing in the back of "The Poison Pen" in old town Scottsdale; which by the way is a great independent book store that y'all should check out if you get the chance.
I started reading Scalzi in 2000, and became a commenter on his blog in 2001; then I was one of his "beta testers" for "The Book of The Dumb" (blog readers he asked to reader review parts of the manuscript) in 2002.
So, in internet relationship terms, we're lifelong friends.
Anyway, I'm a regular reader, and semi-regular commenter on his blog, "The Whatever". I'm also a regular reader of Scalzis dead tree based work, thus far consisting of:
Fiction:
Agent to the Stars (which was actually published online first)
Old Mans War
The Ghost Brigades
The Last Colony
The Androids Dream
Non-Fiction:
Rough Guide to Money Online (it's not Johns fault; it came out just before the .bomb)
Rough Guide to the Universe
Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies
Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader Series (various)
The Book of the Dumb
The Book of the Dumb 2
You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing
He's been nominated for Hugos twice now (with more most likely coming), and won the John W. Campbell award for best new writer (new as in his first published novel; he'd been writing professionally for 10 years before that).
Let me just recommend all his fiction work to you. If you like Heinlein, Harry Harrison, Keith Laumer, and the rest of the best of American classic Science Fiction, I think you'll like Johns work.
Oh and, fart jokes (you'll get it when you read).
Non fiction.. well I like it, but its a bit subject focuses so to speak. I think most of my readers would like him, but with non-fiction it's hard to tell.
Anyway, biopic over.
I've been to a couple book signings before, but I've not had as much fun at any of them. Lots of audience participation and Scalzis standup like patter. Most of us there were regular readers of "The Whatever" ; which means of course that it was more like a conversation between friends than anything else.
Anyway, I brought my relatively new (this past Christmas) Nikon D80 for John to drool over (he bought the D70 a few months before the D80 came out); and we took some pics that I thought I'd share.
Here's Johns little arms length self portrait... BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE CHIN!!!
And here's a group of the regular blog commenters with Scalzi behind the camera:
And finally, me and John... I swear to god I wasn't thinking of homicide in this picture... I actually LIKE Scalzi after all:
Is he that little, or am I that big?Yes.
Anyway, a great time was had by all; and the invitation has again been extended to the fine gentleman to have dinner with Mel and I if he gets more than a few hours in town (which is entirely possible because Scalzi is a con circuit regular).
