John Scalzi is a household name for most contemporary sci-fi fans.
The latest entry in the series,The End of All Things, is out today from Tor Books.
He is as comfortable with exposition, dialogue, and description as he is with high-octane action sequences.
His conversations are witty and his space battles are epic.
And then he really gets you with some gross-out weird science that might remind you of David Cronenberg.
The End of All Thingsis actually made up of four novellas that tell a larger tale.
Several protagonists fight to maintain the galactic peace between three factions that are constantly at each others throats.
Did you write it with novellas in mind or did you approach the book as a whole?
Do you find one easier over the other?
But then there was the whole larger who was trying to sabotage the Colonial Union and the Conclave.
We knew there would have to be a second book to address that.
SoHuman Divisioncame out and the episodic thing was pretty successful for us.
They wanted to try it in a slightly different kind of format.
We decided to do it as novellas and see how people responded to that.
Would people be more interested or less interested in buying novellas as opposed to short stories?
So when Tor said Can you do novellas?
My answer was Why, yes.
In fact thats what I was kind of hoping you would say.
Did they start as novellas and then you just added the connective tissue?
So there is not much in the way of connective tissue.
Each of them plays off the others as well, so they are connected definitely.
I have to ask you about the brain transplant in the first novella.
How much research goes into writing the science of the books?
So I didnt worry about that too much.
They would be like Huh, I guess maybe that could work?
How would that work?
And then they go off and think about it in their own brains.
I want them to think, Thats a really cool idea!
Like in the originalOld Mans War, I talk about artificial blood and how its done.
In fact, I didnt get it right.
I just said, Artificial blood in the future!
For example, Rafe is more colloquial than Councilor Hafte and Harry Wilson.
Do you have a process for getting into these characters voices?
You do ask yourself before you begin, Who are these characters?
And it helps that with Hafte and Wilson, they were characters I had worked with before.
Wilson obviously the most.
What sort of voice would someone like that have?
And I didnt get the sense that he was a particularly formal person.
Rafe is someone literally trapped in his own brain.
So I wanted him to feel like somebody that you could sit down and have a conversation with.
That has an informality with it as well.
I wanted the four novellas to be distinct.
You dont have to stick with the same characters.
You have the opportunity to do different things.
The analogy I use isThe X-Files.
Half theX-Filesepisodes were about the mythology ofThe X-Files.
And the other half were monster-of-the-week episodes.
you’re able to sort of ship them off.
Instead of just telling the story of one crew of people, you tell the story of the universe.
[AGAIN, SPOILERS AHEAD.]
You spend a lot of time teasing the Generals death.
Why did you ultimately decide to have him die by his own hand?
And if you felt that martyrdom would ultimately save the Conclave?
Its all in the story.
Will he be allowed to walk away gracefully?
Do you feel that you have more stories to tell in theOld Mans Waruniverse?
Can you tease anything?
At the moment, this book will come out and it completes the narrative I started inThe Human Division.
The first four books [in the series] are one narrative arc.
These two books [The Human DivisionandThe End of All Things] have their own narrative arc.
How does the universe change?
The short answer is, I dont know.
And if I dont know, then its hard for me to write it.
It might be another five years or six years before I come back to theOld Mans Waruniverse again.
I will come back to it.
You mentionedThe X-Filesand how the episodes were broken up and the influence that has on these projects.
Are there any other television shows that you look towards when you are writing this kind of form?
Pertaining toThe Human Division, we had 13 episodes.
Each of our episodes were meant to be sort of stand-alone, self-contained entertainment.
So not any one thing in particular.
To some extent the novella thing inThe End of All Thingsis something more likeSherlock, right?
You still get a very satisfying experience, even though you only get three episodes.
But you get three long episodes.
Theres a lot of meat in them and you get a lot of time with the characters.
But in some ways, this isnt about TV.
You have the opportunity to do novellas.
To make novellas work.
You have the opportunity to do a series of short stories that are all connected in a narrative arc.
And these are things that you literally had no ability to do before.
Or if they were able to be done would have been very difficult.
Back in the 90s Stephen King didThe Green Milein serialization.
But the reason he was able to do that was because he is Stephen King.
They knew that Stephen Kings audience would put up with it.
I think he wrote one of the first eBooks, too.
Hes always been an experimenter and innovator in form, and thats really cool.
But the thing is, part of that is because hes Stephen King.
He was able to impose that because he had the juice.
Writers dont have to do that anymore.
You have a lot more flexibility.
You dont have to make something novel length so that sell it anymore.
Each of these things that we are doing, there is an opportunity to fail.
Maybe the people dont want novellas?
Maybe the people want novellas, but they dont want to pay more than a particular price point?
We are finding that out right now with all the data that is coming in.
Can you give me any updates on theOld Mans WarTV series thats being developed at SyFy?
Its still in process.
I always have people ask what going on with that orRedshirtsorLock In,which are also in development.
Basically, what I can tell people is in fact they are still under option and still being developed.
It took them 30 years to getDuneonto the screen.
Took them 40 years to getStarship Trooperson the screen.
And some people would argue that, in both of those cases, they should have taken more time.
Would you rather have it up on screen now or would you rather have it up on screen right?
And some of these things take time.
Redshirts has often been considered a play on theStar Trekuniverse.
Would you ever consider doing the same with Star Wars?
The Red Shirt dies anyway.
Actually, a few years ago, I was approached by LucasArts to write a Stormtrooper book.
It would be interesting to do that.
Its just not something I had a particular interest in.
I really didnt want to spend time in theStar Warsuniverse when I could be spending time in my own.
So I passed on that.
You always take a stab at do something new.
So I am not interested in doing Redshirts 2 orRedshirtsin aStar Wars-like universe.
If there was something like a space operaStar Warsy-like universe, then I might consider it.
I definitely want to do more stuff with humor.
I definitely want to come back and do that, but well see what form that takes.
Youre doing a novella for Audible right now.
Can you tell me more about that?
Its something they asked me to do.
Audible is my audiobook publisher, and Ive been extraordinarily happy with the way theyve been doing stuff.
Would you be willing to do this with us?
And I said, Yeah, absolutely!
So I am writing something that is meant to be audio rather than read directly.
I am a big fan of dialogue tags.
Its writing to a format.
I will actually be reading the first chapter of this novella when I am on tour.
Its a thing that I do with each of my tours.
So Im bribing people.
[GO HERE FOR TOUR DATES.]
You have a well-known internet presence thanks to your blog, do you find that blogging helps your writing?
I write the blog because its something I enjoy doing.
Thats simply the reason I do it.
There are other aspects, of course.
I was doing the blog long before I was a novelist.
I started writing the blog in 98, my first novel came out in 2005.
I would be doing it regardless of whether I was writing novels.
Its in and of itself its one reward.
[GO HERE FOR JOHN SCALZIS BLOG.]
The epic space opera thing will be the novel I write next presumably.
I am still thinking about how I want to do it.
Basically, its going to have a different structure thanOld Mans War.
Which will be kind of fun.
The YAs dont necessarily have to be science fiction or fantasy.
So I am really excited about that.
You were creative consultant on Stargate Universe.
Would you like to work on another TV series in the future?
Or have you ever considered developing your own show?
We do have the three things that are in progress right now.
I am executive producer on each of those.
I will be actively involved, and have been actively involved in the development of each of them.
Some more than others.
Again, we will see what happens.
I had a fantastic time onStargate Universe.
Brad Wright and Joseph Mallozzi were wonderful people to work with.
The scripts were all very smart.
The actors were great.
Everything about it was just a genuinely positive experience for me.
I have nothing but positive associations with television and with Hollywood.
In many of your novels, they tend to deal with paranoia over an impending doom of some kind.
Why do you keep returning to that theme in your work?
You like to have the stakes be important for somebody.
For the reader, they need to feel that the things going on matter.
So in some ways, its to let people know you are not wasting your time reading the story.
Heavy stuff is really going on here!
If everything goes completely wrong, were all doomed!
Lets hope that not everything goes wrong here!
John Saavedra is an assistant editor at Den of Geek US.
Chat with himon Twitter!
Or check out all his work athis website.
