I have been a fan of Hugo award winner John Scalzi for a while now. In fact he is one of my favorite authors. I am vastly entertained by both his blog and his fiction. Both of which he writes with a great deal of wit and humor. Upon discovering that he was going to be the Guest of Honor (GOH) at this year’s Armadillocon I signed up immediately.
I certainly got my money’s worth this year. John is much the same in person as the writing on his blog would suggest, fiercely bright, funny and quite affable.
Point in case. At the hour long Q&A session on Saturday he was self addmittedly a bit manic after his previous night’s 12 hours of sleep. Answering questions with a great deal of humor and the legendary Scalzi Snark the Q&A was entertaining and fun as hell.
Answering a question about which books he found the most challenging to write. He said that his latest novel Zoe’s Tale was up near the top of that particular list. Mostly because it was written from the point of view of a 16 year old girl. I am sitting in the front row not five feet from John so I get full benefit of the self-deprecating visual that went along with the next comment.
John grabs his man-boobs and quips, “‘A’ cups not withstanding I am not a woman.”
Fortunately he wasn’t hit by any of the soda spraying out of my nose. It would have been unfortunate to get that Journey MP3 player wet.
Skipping ahead to Sunday afternoon I am again in the front row for John’s reading from his (as yet completed [ahem…]) next novel and sequel to Android’s Dream, The High Castle.
John Scalzi Reading The High Castle
Without giving too much away The High Castle features an alien judge living in the DC area. The judge has an infamously bad temper, a golf obsession and absolutely no skill at the game. John’s reading had the room in stitches for 45 minutes. His reading was inspired and as entertaining as the words he was reading.
During the Q&A after the reading he said that since The Android’s Dream had already started with a chapter-long fart joke he felt that going back to that well for The High Castle would not be a good idea. He chose a golf theme instead. The golf idea was inspired by his hatred for the game and desire to give a poke to his friends in DC who were always trying to get him to go play golf with them.
So if you have the opportunity to go to a con with John in attendance and participating on the panels I can unequivocally say yes you should go. Thank you John for signing my first edition Agent To The Stars and filling up Armadillocon 30 with awesome!
So what are you waiting for? Do you need an engraved invitation? Go read his blog or better yet pick up one of his books.
When I sent a note to John with a link to this post asking if it was OK to post the pics of him his (affirmative) reply email included an amusing signature that I got a kick out of. Now so can you:
—
John Scalzi, Freelance Troublemaker
www.scalzi.com
“Part of the reason you’re successful is that you don’t really have to deal with reality.”
— Kristine Blauser Scalzi