John Scalzi was born in 1969 and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but he currently makes his home in Bradford, Ohio. Before becoming a novelist, he worked as a movie critic, a writer/editor for America Online, a freelance writer/journalist and a nonfiction book writer. His novels include Agent to the Stars (2005); Old Man's War (2005); its sequel, The Ghost Brigades (2006); and the forthcoming The Android's Dream (2006). He maintains a popular blog called The Whatever.

Science Fiction Weekly interviewed Scalzi via e-mail in January 2006. In Old Man's War, elderly people, like the protagonist, John Perry, volunteer for the Colonial Defense Force and have their consciousnesses transferred into a new, genetically engineered superhuman body, so that the military can take advantage of their years of life experience. Why did you decide to make an "old man" the protagonist of a military SF novel?

Scalzi: For two reasons. The first is, simply, I thought it would be interesting: Nearly all soldiers in our armed forces are young—there's that famous fact, popularized in a horrible 1980s song, that the average age of a soldier in Vietnam was 19—and there have been endless stories, SF and otherwise, of young soldiers coming of age in the crucible of war. I thought it would be interesting to see older people thrown into that same crucible with their life experience—positive and negative—informing what they did and how they reacted to events. Science fiction was the natural place to do this, since the fictionalized future can give the elderly another take on life that we can't yet give. It was fun figuring out how to make the old new enough to fight, and I think the fun of figuring it out shows up in the writing.

The second reason is rather more coldly pragmatic: I had decided to write a military SF book because that's what I saw most on the SF shelves of my local bookstores, and I wanted to be published. But I suspected that writing Yet Another Military SF Book would not, in and of itself, be sufficient—it had to have a relatively novel twist to make it stand out. As it happens, there aren't actually all that many novel or stories about old people being made into soldiers, so I figured that might be a good thing to try. And as it turns out (at least for the purposes of being published) it was a smart decision.

The second of these reasons, incidentally, is something that occasionally gets me in trouble. In interviews and discussions I've had about Old Man's War, I've never made a secret that I intentionally set out to write a book that was publishable in the SF market I saw reflected in the bookstore shelves, and that naked "I wanna be published" admission rubs some folks the wrong way. Be that as it may, I can't—and shouldn't—deny it was a very real factor in the creation of this particular book, because, among other things, I don't think there's anything wrong with that being part of the creation story of this book and this particular universe ... so long as the novel itself is written with actual readers in mind, as Old Man's War was (and had to be—the most cynical publishing market research will fail miserably if you don't give people a story they'll have fun reading).

You're not a scientist, and you've never been in the military. How did you manage to make both the science and your futuristic military seem so authentic?

Scalzi: The one-word answer: Research.

The longer answer: A lot of research. When I set out to write military fiction I wanted to make sure my writing had some relation to reality, so I went looking for books that discussed the day-to-day life of being a grunt. One book that was extremely helpful for OMW, for example, was Boot, a nonfiction account of Marine Corps boot camps by Daniel Da Cruz. Now, as it happens, the boot camp I have in OMW is nothing like Da Cruz's depiction of a Marine boot camp (and the boot in The Ghost Brigades even less so), but it was extremely important to know what the real thing was like in order to create an alternate version that would be believable. It also helps that my brother Robert was in the Army (he was in the first Gulf War), and I can bounce stuff off of him to see if it has the ring of truth.

As for the science, well, I'm not a scientist, but I've written about science quite a lot in my nonfiction career; I've even written a book on astronomy (The Rough Guide to the Universe). So keeping up with the science and extrapolating from there was a natural extension of my own personal and professional interest in the field.

I do think that it's important to stress that the important phrase in your question is "seems to be authentic," with the emphasis on seems. Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades should not be seen as accurate portrayals of current military and science; I take the "fiction" part of science fiction pretty seriously. But if I've done my job the science and military aspects should feel reasonable—i.e., similar enough to what the science and military idioms in the real world that they add to the story rather than throw you out of it. While on the subject of science, let's talk about consciousness transfers. When the consciousness is transferred from one body to another, is that really you, or just a copy of you? You'll seem the same to your friends and family, but did the real you die and only a copy live on?

Scalzi: It depends on which of my books you're reading! [Note: the following answer has minor spoiler qualities to it, so if you've not read Old Man's War, this will give away a very small plot point.]

In Old Man's War, "you" (i.e., the conscious, continuous entity which is one's "self") definitely makes the transfer over—in one of the scenes in the book, one of the characters has the sensation of being in two places at the same time because his consciousness briefly inhabits two brains. The Ghost Brigades opens the door to the possibility that a copy could exist, and the difference between how this works in theory and in practice makes for a significant plot point in the story. And in yet another book I have coming out, The Android's Dream, it's definitely a copy rather than the "real" person.

Now, perhaps this makes me sound wishy-washy on the nature of consciousness, but, you know: We're making stuff up here. I certainly don't have a problem with taking one speculative idea (in this case consciousness transfer) and trying several different versions of it to see what happens when you change the variables. That's what making writing science fiction fun, after all—you get to mess with things to see what happens next.

Here in the real world, I would strongly suspect that "transferring" consciousness (or downloading your consciousness into a computer or whatever) would create a copy rather carry over one's current consciousness. But that's based on what I know now of recording and transferring data via the only comparable metaphor I know about: data transfer in computers. So I'm perfectly willing to believe I'll be 100 percent wrong should consciousness transfer ever come to pass. Say you're an old man, like John Perry—you're 75, you're in relatively good health, you could have quite a few years left in you. Would you go for the consciousness transfer, or would you rather live out your natural life? For the sake of argument, let's assume family and friends are not a factor in your decision.

Scalzi: Heh. Well, in that case I'd definitely do it, because in this life I had no family or friends, and I'd want to try again.

I honestly don't know what I would do. In Old Man's War, the transfer of consciousness comes at a price—you have to be a soldier, and as we learn in the book, it's quite a hostile universe, and the time you live as a soldier is very likely to be even shorter than what your natural lifespan would have been otherwise.

I suspect that if I lived in the same time as the characters in Old Man's War, I would be unlikely to take up the offer, because the Colonial Defense Forces (the military into which the recruits are inducted) is to my mind maddeningly vague on details, and we all know the details are where the devil resides. On the other hand, I'm 36, not 75. Ask me again in 39 years and I might have an entirely different answer for you. Your new novel, The Ghost Brigades, was selected as a SCI FI Essential Book. What was your reaction to hearing about that?

Scalzi: Naturally I'm very pleased—the opportunity to be highlighted from one of the most highly-trafficked sites in the online SF universe for an entire month is not one any sane author would take lightly. Publicity is a huge issue for most authors—we can't all be J.K. Rowling—and for someone who is a relatively new author, as I am, every bit helps. Whether it translates into sales is another matter entirely, but one can be hopeful.

Is either Old Man's War or The Ghost Brigades genuinely essential? That's a judgment call I'm not disinterested enough to make. But as a writer, I try not to worry about whether what I'm writing is "essential"—I just try to make it a good and entertaining read. The Ghost Brigades is set in the same world as Old Man's War, but only one of the characters from Old Man's War has any major role, and the protagonist is nowhere to be seen. It's being marketed as a sequel, but it's not a true sequel in any sense. Why did you decide to tell a story with basically all new characters?

Scalzi: Primarily because at the end of Old Man's War I was really intrigued by the "special forces" characters I had created for the book; in many ways they were opposites of the regular infantry. Tor wanted another book in the Old Man's War universe, and I wanted to write it, but neither Tor nor I felt that the follow-up book had to be the continuing adventures of John Perry, who was the protagonist of OMW. So I decided to explore the world of the special forces further.

This also dovetailed into a pet peeve of mine, which is that as a reader I hate picking up an interesting-looking book in a bookstore and discovering that I have to have read another book in order to catch up. Bookstores being what they are, if they stock a "book two" in a series, there's no assurance "book one" is going to be around anywhere. So lots of books I pick up I end up putting back down. I'm not anywhere successful enough at this point to give people an excuse to put down a book of mine.

So The Ghost Brigades—in addition to largely following a new set of characters—is also a stand-alone book. If you've read OMW you'll see some characters and be aware of the fuller implications of some of the references, but if you haven't you'll still be able to get right into the book and then later (if you want) check out OMW as well. I think this is a good way of both making OMW fans happy and still reaching out to new readers. Will John Perry show up in future books or stories set in this milieu?

Scalzi: Yes. Perry will return in The Last Colony, the third book in the OMW series (which I will start writing very soon now); he's also to be seen in a limited-edition chapbook from Subterranean Press called "Questions for a Soldier." In The Ghost Brigades, troops are engineered from the DNA of the dead, then genetically enhanced to make them supersoldiers. Why use the DNA of the dead? Since they're so genetically modified, why not just use the DNA of whoever happens to be nearby?

Scalzi: Because people who are alive have a right to control their DNA—at least in the universe I created—whereas people who are dead have no proprietary interest in their genes. The moral and ethical ramifications of creating a soldier from the genes of a living person is actually a plot point in The Ghost Brigades, and the Colonial Union also is showed having a time in its history when its unauthorized genetic meddling almost brought about its collapse.

So it's actually a serious issue in the book.

Which is as it should be—issues surrounding genetics and life are serious issues now, when we are literally at the beginning of genetic engineering. In my opinion it would be folly to assume there would be fewer issues in the future regarding these techniques. The Ghost Brigades isn't even out yet, but tell us a bit about The Last Colony.

Scalzi: Well, the first two books in the series focused on the military people who were defending the human colonies—I thought it was about time to take a look at the people they spend their time defending. Like The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony is going to be written as a stand-alone, because again, I want people to be able to read the book without having to pick up the others first. Also like Ghost Brigades, characters from previous books will play important roles. John Perry will be back, as will Jane Sagan (who appeared in both OMW and Ghost Brigades), and other characters to whom readers of the series will have (hopefully) become connected. And of course there will be action, adventure and the fate of the universe hanging in the balance, because what fun would there be otherwise? Aside from the books set in the Old Man's War setting, you also have several other books available and forthcoming, including one due in October called The Android's Dream. What can you tell us about that?

Scalzi: When Tor bought Old Man's War, they asked if I had anything else they could look at. Well, I didn't, so naturally I said, "Why, of course I do," and I pitched them a story of a human diplomat who solved intergalactic crises through the use of action scenes and snappy dialogue. They bought it, the fools, and then I was obliged to actually write the thing. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it, and without going into the plot too much I will say this much: First, it involves sheep as a major plot point; second, the opening chapter has a human trade representative using his digestive tract to foment a major diplomatic crisis. Needless to say, this is not going to be an entirely serious book, and I'm very excited to get it out there and see what people think of it.

You've written three Rough Guide reference books: The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, The Rough Guide to the Universe and The Rough Guide to Money Online. How does compiling books like those compare to writing a novel? Is one more satisfying than the other?

Scalzi: Putting those books together is nothing at all like writing a novel, and that's one of the reasons why I enjoy doing them—they exercise different writing muscles. Writing nonfiction allows me to explore and explain the real world, which is after all a fascinating place, and writing fiction allows me to make stuff up and tell people about it. Asking which I find more satisfying is like asking me whether I like ice cream or steak more satisfying—they're satisfying in entirely different ways, and in a perfect world you'd get to have both. So far I get to have both my steak and my ice cream, and that makes me a happy boy. Subterranean Press is going to publish two collections of entries from your blog, The Whatever: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: Selected Writings 1998-2005 and You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing. What can readers expect from those?

Scalzi: Mostly, me ranting, although in different and (hopefully) interesting ways. The first book is more of a general overview of seven years' worth of writing online. Before I wrote online I was a syndicated newspaper columnist, and when I originally started The Whatever, some of the intent behind doing it was to keep in practice with the column style. As it happens, over the years I've come to think that while newspaper column writing and blog writing have a number of points of similarity, in some fundamental ways they are very different, and we'll be exploring some of that in the book.

Hate Mail is also a book we're going to try hard to get into the hands of people who don't already read blogs or online writing. There is still a vast number of people out there who are only vaguely aware of what a blog is, and many of those people are of the opinion that blogs are written by folks who are either tin-foil-hatted political extremists or people who are unnaturally obsessed with their cats. Now, I have a cat, and at least a couple of my political opinions fall outside the mainstream. But that's not nearly the whole of the site—I cover topics ranging from parenthood to science to just plain silly stuff. The style of writing on the site is generally approachable for folks who are not already committed blog readers, and I think that the book could be a useful bridge for people who might think that blogs and other online writing is not something that would speak to them. We'll see how that works.

You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing is a spinoff of Hate Mail. I write a lot about writing on The Whatever, because that's what I do and because a fair number of my readers are interested in the topic. Many of these readers told me they hoped there would be a lot of writing material in Hate Mail, but it's just not that interesting for the general public—writers writing about writing can be a bit of a drag if you don't actually care about the writing process. So I talked with Subterranean Press and we decided to compile the writing pieces in their own book. Our release plans for the books mirror the audiences: Hate Mail is planned for an open-ended print run (i.e., we'll print as many people want to buy), while You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing will be a limited-edition book.

What You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing won't be is the usual "how to write" book. There will be some of that, but it's more focused on my observations on living the writing life as well some commentary on writers and writing trends. Basically it's about the experience of the writing life, both as a participant and as an observer of one's peers. Besides those two books, you also sold two other books because of your blog: your first novel, Agent to the Stars, and Old Man's War. Talk about how your blog facilitated the publication of those two novels.

Scalzi: Well, after I finished writing Old Man's War I knew I had to start the process of selling it. The problem was that even though I wrote OMW to sell, the actual submission process drives me batty, and eventually I decided that I'd simply much rather just post the book on my site and let people read it there. I had already done that with Agent to the Stars, which I had written as "practice novel"—i.e., to see if I could write a novel—and had been pleased with the results. Now, in both cases, in putting the books online I assumed that was going to be it for their publishing lives; I had no expectations of selling them further.

I serialized OMW in December of 2002, and after it was done I received an e-mail from Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who made an offer for the book. I was happy to say yes. In January 2005, after the book was published (yes, it took two years—welcome to book publishing!), Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press came by the site and read Agent, which I still had up (I had taken down OMW after I sold it). He suggested that he'd like to publish a limited-edition hardcover of the book, and I said that would be fine, as long as I could keep the novel up on the site—I consider it a "free taste" for people to see if they like my style. He liked the idea (his opinion—which turned out to be correct—is that people who really liked the story would want it in book form), and we went forward.

With Hate Mail and You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing, four out of 11 books I'll have had published through the end of 2006 have come directly off my site, so naturally I think having a site is a very useful thing. But I also want to make clear that in all four cases, I approached publishing on my site as the end stop of the material. The number of people who have sold novels after they've been published on their personal sites is extremely small (still less than 10), both relative to the number of novels floating about on the Web and relative to the number of people trying to get published.

Also, let's remember that editors have people submit work because it's easier for the editors—you can't and shouldn't expect that editors are trolling the Web on their off time looking for books to buy. I'm totally aware of how absurdly lucky I've been in this respect.

When people ask me if they should put their novels online to try to sell them, I tell them that they should first try to sell them in the ways that editors have set up because 99.9+ percent of books get sold that way. Putting books online to sell them is like hanging around the soda shop waiting to get discovered as a movie star. It has happened, so it can happen. But most of the time, it doesn't happen. You're better off at least trying the other way first.