Tag: john scalzi

Scenes from the e-book wars: McArdle/Scalzi, not that they’re really arguing *with* each other.

[UPDATE: One of my readers made an observation that made me think of a question: if John Scalzi doesn’t like getting paid for fanfic, why did he write Redshirts? – Great book, by the way.]

Situation:

Get ready for Kindle Worlds, a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games. With Kindle Worlds, you can write new stories based on featured Worlds, engage an audience of readers, and earn royalties. Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries, with licenses for more Worlds on the way.

Point (Megan McArdle):

It’s a brilliant and even fair solution.  Some writers are better world-builders than others; why not let them profit off of their imaginations, while also compensating the folks who can do interesting things within that world?  Of course, some fan fiction purists may be disappointed in the control that this will give the world-builders over what is done with their work.  Amazon will not, for example, publish pornographic or highly explicit fiction.  Under those rules, 50 Shades of Grey would never have been published; it started out as slash fiction set in the Twilight universe.

Still, as a writer I’m always glad to see more ways to compensate writers.  And as a business writer, I’m excited to see how much innovation is taking place in this new market.

Counter-point (John Scalzi):

…I suspect this is yet another attempt in a series of long-term attempts to fundamentally change the landscape for purchasing and controlling the work of writers in such a manner that ultimately limits how writers are compensated for their work, which ultimately is not to the benefit of the writer. This will have far-reaching consequences that none of us really understand yet.

The thing that can be said for it is that it’s a better deal than you would otherwise get for writing fan fiction, i.e., no deal at all and possibly having to deal with a cranky rightsholder angry that you kids are playing in their yard. Is that enough for you? That’s on you to decide.

Continue reading Scenes from the e-book wars: McArdle/Scalzi, not that they’re really arguing *with* each other.

Book of the Week: Redshirts.

I was able to pick up Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas – all hail scrounged change jars, not to mention change counting machines that will issue you full-credit slips for Amazon – on the Kindle, and let me tell you: damn, that was a good read.  Intensely meta, and maybe the codas were the best part – but Scalzi hit this one out of the park.  Pick it up.

And that will replace Tigana. Which is also a great book, of course.

Moe Lane

John Scalzi, Penn State University, and the false choice of Omelas.

John comes close to enlightenment here wit “Omelas State University” – so heartbreakingly close – but in the end he accepts Ursula K Le Guin’s brilliantly malignant and endlessly corrupting false choice when it comes to The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas: when confronted with evil as the bargain for perfection, the answer is neither to accept the bargain, nor walk away from the bargain.

The answer is to SMITE THE EVIL.

It’s sad: I expected just a shade better from John Scalzi. Just a shade.

Moe Lane

A quick look at my afternoon clicking.

In order:

  • Over at Instapundit, noted brag.
  • Over at Genreville, noted source of brag (in comments of post about book-blogging): sneering, non-cognitive slam by religious fanatic of Instapundit’s contribution to John Scalzi’s publishing success refuted by… John Scalzi.
  • Over at Whatever (John Scalzi’s site), read short-short about intelligent yogurt taking over the world, admittedly to our benefit.  Laughed, because John Scalzi is a good writer.
  • While still at Whatever, read damning-with-faint-praise review of Atlas Shrugged.  Laughed some more, because personal opinion is that it’s political pornography for the Right (like the way Nineteen Eighty-Four is political pornography for the Left).
  • Over to Moe Lane, where will prepare for at least one comment informing the world that Atlas Shrugged is the Best Book EVAR.

Not that many people probably care.  Still, the yogurt story was pretty good.

Terminator 2 was cool.

To answer John Scalzi (also via Instapundit), Terminator 2 was exceptionally cool by both the SF contingent’s, and mainstream society’s, standards.  Particularly since it was widely expected to crash, burn, explode, and possibly irradiate the landscape.  In 1991, ‘hundred-million dollar budget’ was a synonym  for ‘train wreck in progress.’

I’d also say The Lord of the Rings, except that it probably doesn’t count because it’s fantasy, not science fiction.

Moe Lane

As promised, Scalzi goes after Star Trek’s design failures.

For a given value of ‘little.’ A taste:

V’Ger
In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a Voyager space probe gets sucked into a black hole and survives (GAAAAH), and is discovered by denizens of a machine planet who think the logical thing to do is to take a bus-size machine with the processing power of a couple of Speak and Spells and upgrade it to a spaceship the size of small moon, wrap that in an energy field the size of a solar system, and then send it merrily on its way. This is like you assisting a brain-damaged raccoon trapped on a suburban traffic island by giving him Ecuador.

(Via Fark Geek) They get better. No discussion of modified tachyon bursts, but the Star Trek holodeck gets its nod.

I actually look forward to Scalzi’s Star Trek rant.

I wonder if it’ll hit the same ones that I would have; particularly, how every major problem in the Star Trek universe can be solved by a modified tachyon burst emitted through the main deflector grid.

Anyway, via Instapundit comes “John Scalzi’s Guide to the Most Epic FAILs in Star Wars Design.” I like this one the best, because it’s one that I didn’t think of ahead of time, but was bloody obvious once it was pointed out to me:

Lightsabers
Yes, I know, I want one too. But I tell you what: I want one with a hand guard. Otherwise every lightsaber battle would consist of sabers clashing and then their owners sliding as quickly as possible down the shaft to lop off their opponent’s fingers. You say: Lightsabers can slice through anything but another lightsaber, so what are you going to make a hand guard out of? I say: Dude, if you have the technology to make a lightsaber, you have the technology to make a light hand guard.

Well, that’s why he’s John Scalzi, and I’m not.

Moe Lane

John Scalzi interviews a stick of butter.

I’d say that John Scalzi* clearly does not feel like blogging anything substantial on a lazy Friday afternoon, except that he wrote this last Friday at 7:23 AM.  So I guess that I’m just the one feeling unsubstantial right now.

Via Glenn Reynolds, who apparently is suffering from the same condition.

Moe Lane

PS: Ha!  I’ve already been outside today.  Took the boy to the park.  There were ducks.  They went ‘quack.’  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Lecture-The-Blogger-About-Fresh-Air.

*Old Man’s War? Good stuff. Read it.