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John Scalzi

Goodreads Author


Born
in The United States
Website

Genre

Influences
Robert Heinlein, Dorothy Parker, HL Mencken, Coke Zero

Member Since
December 2007


John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent.

(If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.)

John Scalzi is currently not accepting new questions.

Popular Answered Questions

John Scalzi My mortgage. Which sounds like I'm trying to be a smartass, but which is actually true. Writing is my job; I don't do anything else. If I don't write,…moreMy mortgage. Which sounds like I'm trying to be a smartass, but which is actually true. Writing is my job; I don't do anything else. If I don't write, I don't get paid, and like everyone else, I have to make money to get along. I like my house; I want to keep it. So I am inspired to write. (less)
John Scalzi Basement insulation.

(More seriously, I'll give them to friends)…more
Basement insulation.

(More seriously, I'll give them to friends)(less)
Average rating: 4.05 · 1,396,515 ratings · 122,776 reviews · 189 distinct worksSimilar authors
Old Man's War (Old Man's Wa...

4.23 avg rating — 232,393 ratings — published 2005 — 111 editions
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Redshirts

3.87 avg rating — 120,816 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions
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Starter Villain

4.11 avg rating — 106,957 ratings — published 2023 — 2 editions
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The Ghost Brigades (Old Man...

4.12 avg rating — 99,871 ratings — published 2006 — 75 editions
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The Last Colony (Old Man's ...

4.11 avg rating — 75,390 ratings — published 2007 — 67 editions
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The Kaiju Preservation Society

3.97 avg rating — 75,399 ratings — published 2022 — 41 editions
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Lock In (Lock In, #1)

3.92 avg rating — 73,280 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions
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The Collapsing Empire (The ...

4.13 avg rating — 61,317 ratings — published 2017 — 42 editions
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The Consuming Fire (The Int...

4.22 avg rating — 38,375 ratings — published 2018 — 3 editions
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The Human Division (Old Man...

4.09 avg rating — 39,252 ratings — published 2013 — 6 editions
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More books by John Scalzi…

New Front Porch Furniture and a Scalzi Compound Outdoor Area Overview

Hey wanna see our new front porch furniture?

As you’ll know, we recently redid a lot of our outdoor environs here at the Scalzi Compound — the front porch because a wind storm knocked out a substantial part of the railing, which meant redoing it, and as long as we were doing that, redoing the back deck, adding an additional seating area attached to the second garage we also built, and then gett

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Published on July 29, 2026 15:03
Old Man's War The Ghost Brigades The Last Colony Zoe's Tale The Human Division The End of All Things The Shattering Peace
(7 books)
by
4.12 avg rating — 595,712 ratings

The Collapsing Empire The Consuming Fire The Last Emperox
(3 books)
by
4.16 avg rating — 134,468 ratings

Lock In Head On
(2 books)
by
3.94 avg rating — 110,331 ratings

The B-Team Walk the Plank We Only Need the Heads A Voice in the Wilderness Tales From the Clarke The Back Channel The Dog King
(13 books)
by
4.10 avg rating — 85,798 ratings

The Dispatcher Murder by Other Means Travel by Bullet
(3 books)
by
3.99 avg rating — 64,863 ratings

More series by John Scalzi…

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The Shattering Peace
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John’s Recent Updates

John Scalzi wrote a new blog post

New Front Porch Furniture and a Scalzi Compound Outdoor Area Overview


Hey wanna see our new front porch furniture?
As you’ll know, we recently redid a lot of our outdoor environs here at the Scalzi Compound — the front p Read more of this blog post »
Sisters in Science by Olivia Campbell
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When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
"This is one of those books that should absolutely not work. It does. I laughed in an airport lounge loudly enough that people turned to look at me. I also cried MORE THAN ONCE over a book about a MOON MADE OF CHEESE. Fuck you, John Scalzi. How dare."
More of John's books…
Quotes by John Scalzi  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Here's a quick rule of thumb: Don't annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you.”
John Scalzi

“1. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the things they read (or watch, or listen to, or taste, or whatever). They’re also entitled to express them online.

2. Sometimes those opinions will be ones you don’t like.

3. Sometimes those opinions won’t be very nice.

4. The people expressing those may be (but are not always) assholes.

5. However, if your solution to this “problem” is to vex, annoy, threaten or harrass them, you are almost certainly a bigger asshole.

6. You may also be twelve.

7. You are not responsible for anyone else’s actions or karma, but you are responsible for your own.

8. So leave them alone and go about your own life."

[Bad Reviews: I Can Handle Them, and So Should You (Blog post, July 17, 2012)]”
John Scalzi

“If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas.”
John Scalzi, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008

Polls

August book time!
BEFORE YOU VOTE: Will you return to discuss the book you voted on? I'm serious, think about it. It's unfair to select a book for others then not participate, so make sure you intend to return before you vote. Now... what book would you like to discuss in August? (Read in July.) Happy voting!
*As always I recommend if any look good to you, go ahead and put them on hold at the library if available.*

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
2014, 518 pages, 4.15 stars
$7.99 Kindle, $7.13 and up used, at library

"Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space-and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe-in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe."


 
  4 votes, 26.7%

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2015, 600 pages, 4.29 stars
$9.99 Kindle, $9.17 and up used, at library

"A race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?

WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?"


 
  3 votes, 20.0%

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi
2017, 336 pages, 4.11 stars
$9.99 Kindle, cheap used, at library

"The first novel of a new space-opera sequence set in an all-new universe by the Hugo Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Redshirts and Old Man's War.

Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible -- until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars.

Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse. "


 
  3 votes, 20.0%

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
1992, 613 pages, 4.14 stars
$9.99 Kindle, cheap used, at library

"A Fire upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.

Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization. "


 
  2 votes, 13.3%

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
1985, 324 pages, 4.3 stars
$7.99 Kindle, cheap used, at library

"Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails."


 
  2 votes, 13.3%


The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
2018, 431 pages, 4.02 stars
$9.99 Kindle, $8.16 and up used, at library

"On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.

Elma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon, as a calculator. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too.

Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her."


 
  1 vote, 6.7%

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1881 The Webb Schools Book Club — 83 members — last activity Jan 13, 2014 09:48AM
Did you know that Goodreads was started by a Webb alumnus? Otis Chandler '96 is the founder of Goodreads. Alumni, faculty, students, parents and frie ...more
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Shanereads Thanks for accepting my invite!


message 4: by Eric (last edited Jan 16, 2013 11:44PM)

Eric Birk Thanks for becoming my Goodreads friend.You are a huge influence.
Eric


message 3: by Dmack

Dmack love what i've read so far; my son really really loved the ending and the whole philisophical side; i liked the action but i'm a simpleton


message 2: by Fran

Fran Friel Many thanks, John!

Happy Thursday,
Fran


message 1: by Wes

Wes Your books are responsible for my brother getting into Science Fiction.
I sent him Old Man's War when he was in Iraq. He loved it, and it soon got passed around to the guys in his unit, who loved it as well.
You can't go wrong sending Military Sci-Fi to a bunch of ground-pounders :)

Now he has started reading Asimov, Clarke, and many more of the classics. Mwuhahaha, I had the last laugh. He used to razz me when we were teenagers for being a science fiction nerd :)


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