There are books which claim to teach you how to write. This book is about the writing The business of writing. The day-to-day existence of a professional writer. The ways writers interact with other writers. The things writers do to help themselves out -- and the things they do to trip themselves up. Which is to This book is about what it's like to be a writer, right now. And what's it like to be a writer, right now? Well, it's fun. But it's also work. Coffee Shop shows the writing life as it is, from the perspective of novelist and writer John Scalzi, who in 15 years as a professional writer has written just about critically acclaimed novels, best-selling humor books, nationally syndicated newspaper columns, magazine cover stories...and ad copy, corporate brochures and Web site headlines, too. His wide range of experience informs this collection of essays on writing and the writing life, taken from his popular personal Web site, The Whatever. Whether providing practical advice, discussing writing and writers or observing the state of the writing world, Scalzi lays it out in a sharp, no-nonsense way that assumes you want the lay of the land, without all the huggy-squeezy hand-holding. Notes on the writing life, unvarnished views of writers and books and (yes) even some practical It's all here. Take this to the coffee shop instead of your laptop. You'll get more out of it -- and if you spill coffee on it, it'll be cheaper to replace. See? Practical.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Download a FREE sneak peek today!

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a standup, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world... be a cat.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Fans of John Scalzi's "Old Man" universe, prepare yourselves: there's a long new story in that universe, told from the point of view of one of the series' most intriguing characters. And for the first time, fans can become part of the universe themselves. Subterranean Press is proud to announce The Sagan Diary, a long novelette that for the first time looks at the worlds of the Hugo-nominated Old Man's War and its sequel The Ghost Brigades from the point of view of Lieutenant Jane Sagan, who in a series of diary entries gives her views on some of the events included in the series... and sheds new light into some previously unexplored corners. If you thought you knew Jane Sagan before, prepare to be surprised.

The sixteen stories and two screenplays that make up Volume One of the Emmy(R) award-winning Netflix Original series Love, Death & Robots.Featuring best-selling authors and screenwriters from all over the globe, curated by filmmakers Tim Miller and David Fincher.Stories and screenplays byAlastair Reynolds, Alberto Mielgo, Claudine Griggs, David W. Amendola, Joe Lansdale, John Scalzi, Ken Liu, Kirsten Cross, Marko Kloos, Michael Swanwick, Peter F. Hamilton, Steven Lewis, and Vitaliy Shushko

The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first standalone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times bestselling Interdependency trilogy.
When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization.” Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on.
What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble.
It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society who have found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.
Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.
John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

One day, not long from now, it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone - 999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. How? We don't know. But it changes everything: war, crime, daily life.
Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher - a licensed, bonded professional whose job is to humanely dispatch those whose circumstances put them in death's crosshairs, so they can have a second chance to avoid the reaper. But when a fellow Dispatcher and former friend is apparently kidnapped, Tony learns that there are some things that are worse than death and that some people are ready to do almost anything to avenge a supposed wrong.
It's a race against time for Valdez to find his friend before it's too late...before not even a Dispatcher can save him.
___
Zachary Quinto - best known for his role as the Nimoy-approved Spock in the recent Star Trek reboot and the menacing, power-stealing serial killer, Sylar, in Heroes - brings his well-earned sci-fi credentials and simmering intensity to this audio-exclusive novella from master storyteller John Scalzi.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.
Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.
Is it an accident or murder? FBI Agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth―and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.

一場改變人生、星際冒險的《垂暮戰爭》！
你曾經想過，在垂暮之年時做些不一樣的事，過一個不一樣的人生嗎？如果需要離開家人、改頭換面才得以延長生命，並獲得一個很不一樣的人生，你會賭一下嗎？對小編來說，這是一個很難抉擇的問題，但對約翰‧派瑞來說，他的答案是「Yes」！
約翰‧派瑞在他七十五歲生日時做了兩件事：先去拜訪妻子的墓，接著他去從軍。你可能會說：「一把年紀去從軍誰要啊！」但殖民防?軍（Colonial Defense Forces，簡稱CDF）需要這群老人，而且男女不限。
加入CDF的工作是成為一名軍人，然後不停的戰鬥。地球資源有限，星際間適宜生存的星球十分稀有，所以CDF改造了一批垂暮之年者，他們用老人們的DNA製造高科技新軀體，並將個人意識移植到DNA原有者二十歲左右的新軀體裡，然後讓他們去各星球間攻城略地，殘暴、血腥是免不了的。如果有幸在各戰役間倖存下來，那麼將得到自己的家園──在其中一個贏來不易的行星上生活，總之，永遠不得返回地球。
話說回來，這不是強制性的從軍，在七十五歲之前是可以選擇的，戰鬥是如此的危險，難道他們是為了追求軍事冒險而加入CDF嗎？當然不是。有些人加入是因為他們還沒準備好死去，而且也不想當老人；有些人是因為地球上的生活過了某個年紀就不有趣了；還有些人想看看其他地方是什麼模樣……大家的理由不一，但顯然都不服老且充滿好奇心，擁有這樣個性的人，多半也充滿冒險精神，套句九把刀說的：「人生就是不停的戰鬥」，這群人會想加入CDF、開創人生新格局，也不足為奇了。
《垂暮戰爭》場景好比「星際爭霸戰」這類科奇幻電影，太空電梯、星際巡洋艦、殖民太空站、鳳凰星系、普來西斯β星、珊瑚星、外星人傑赫人和康蘇人……這些場景和人物不時出現，其中小編覺得最酷的是大腦夥伴和聰明血。大腦夥伴是經過改造後的身體腦內所擁有的人工智慧電腦系統，人與人之間不需言語，亦可藉此通話、傳送訊息、收發e-mail；而聰明血是灰色的，在受傷時會急速止血，瀕臨死亡時，更可讓患者獲得十五分鐘的待援時間。此外，改造過的身體只要未傷及性命，在醫療照護下，幾乎都可慢慢長回來。小編不禁要說：「這真是太神奇了！」這些大大突破科技與醫學、現實與幻想的天馬行空，就是看科幻小說最大的樂趣啊！
書中還安排了另一種「人類」──鬼影戰旅，他們和高科技改造人不同的是，他們的意識和身體不是同一個人的，這樣的「人」在定義上還是「人」嗎？他們所產生的自我認同，成為書中另一個值得討論的議題。
戰爭的本質是殘酷的，而充滿科技詞彙的敘述對許多人來說或許不易閱讀，但作者約翰．史卡奇（John Scalzi）筆法幽默，閱讀起來頗為順暢，而且改變生命這個議題也很吸引小編，所以連平常不太看科幻小說的小編，都忍不住一口氣追完全書，並期待著作者下一本作品呢！

The Interdependency, humanity’s interstellar empire, is on the verge of collapse. The Flow, the extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible, is disappearing, leaving entire star systems stranded. When it goes, human civilization may go with it―unless desperate measures can be taken.
Emperox Grayland II, the leader of the Interdependency, is ready to take those measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But nothing is ever that easy. Arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth―or at the very least, an opportunity that can allow them to ascend to power.
While Grayland prepares for disaster, others are preparing for a civil war, a war that will take place in the halls of power, the markets of business and the altars of worship as much as it will take place between spaceships and battlefields. The Emperox and her allies are smart and resourceful, but then so are her enemies. Nothing about this power struggle will be simple or easy... and all of humanity will be caught in its widening gyre.

在线阅读本书
Synopsis The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies is a comprehensive guide to the 'final frontier' of film. It explores our fascination with space exploration, time travel, fantastical worlds and alternative futures. This guide explains how everything from the philosophy of Plato to classic Victorian tales and cult comic books have helped to create one of cinema's most engaging genres. Discover the classics from Mexico, Russia and Japan, not forgetting the Anime science fiction tradition, along with everything else you need to know from Metropolis to Star Wars, via Blade Runner, 2001 and Alien. The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies is your essential guide to a galaxy of film unbounded by time or space.

I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old.
Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes.
It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.

Scalzi is at heart a humorist — his novel The Android's Dream opens with a chapter-long fart joke — though the difficulties of marketing humorous science fiction have often caused publishers to downplay that. But Redshirts, which is being advertised as a Star Trek parody, may signal that Scalzi has achieved a profile sufficient enough to be beyond such worries. Redshirts concerns low-ranking crew members aboard an interstellar starship who start to notice a disturbing pattern — folks like themselves never seem to make it home safe from alien worlds, whereas high-ranking officers always seem strangely untouched by the danger.

How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history?I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old.Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes.It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.

A human diplomat kills his alien counterpart. Earth is on the verge of war with a vastly superior alien race. A lone man races against time and a host of enemies to find the one object that can save our planet and our people from alien enslavement...

A sheep.

That's right, a sheep. And if you think that's the most surprising thing about this book, wait until you read Chapter One. Welcome to The Android's Dream.

For Harry Creek, it's quickly becoming a nightmare. All he wants is to do his uncomplicated mid-level diplomatic job with Earth's State Department. But his past training and skills get him tapped to save the planet--and to protect pet store owner Robin Baker, whose own past holds the key to the whereabouts of that lost sheep. Doing both will take him from lava-strewn battlefields to alien halls of power. All in a day's work. Maybe it's time for a raise.

Throw in two-timing freelance mercenaries, political lobbyists with megalomaniac tendencies, aliens on a religious quest, and an artificial intelligence with unusual backstory, and you've got more than just your usual science fiction adventure story. You've got The Android's Dream.

A human diplomat creates an interstellar incident when he kills an alien diplomat in a most unusual way. To avoid war, Earth's government must find an equally unusual object: A type of sheep ("The Android's Dream"), used in the alien race's coronation ceremony.
To find the sheep, the government turns to Harry Creek, ex-cop, war hero and hacker extraordinaire, who with the help of Brian Javna, a childhood friend turned artificial intelligence, scours the earth looking for the rare creature. And they find it, in the unknowing form of Robin Baker, pet store owner, whose genes contain traces of the sheep DNA.
But there are others with plans for the sheep as well: Mercenaries employed by the military. Adherents of a secret religion based on the writings of a 21st century science fiction author. And alien races, eager to start a revolution on their home world and a war on Earth.
To keep our planet from being enslaved, Harry will have to pull off the greatest diplomatic coup in history, a grand gambit that will take him from the halls of power to the lava-strewn battlefields of alien worlds. There's only one chance to get it right, to save the life of Robin Baker -- and to protect the future of humanity.

Jack Holloway works alone. Hundreds of miles from ZaraCorp's headquarters on planet, 178 light-years from the corporation's headquarters on Earth, Jack is content as an independent contractor. As for his past, that's not up for discussion. Then, in the wake of an accidental cliff collapse, Jack discovers a seam of unimaginably valuable jewels, to which he manages to lay legal claim just as ZaraCorp is cancelling their contract with him for his part in causing the collapse. Briefly in the catbird seat, legally speaking, Jack pressures ZaraCorp into recognizing his claim, and cuts them in as partners to help extract the wealth. But there's another wrinkle to ZaraCorp's relationship with the planet Zarathustra. Their entire legal right to exploit the verdant Earth-like planet is based on being able to certify to the authorities on Earth that Zarathustra is home to no sentient species. Then a small furry biped - trusting, appealing, and ridiculously cute - shows up at Jack's outback home. Followed by its family. As it dawns on Jack that despite their stature, these are people, he begins to suspect that ZaraCorp's claim to a planet's worth of wealth is very flimsy indeed...and that ZaraCorp may stop at nothing to eliminate the "fuzzys" before their existence becomes more widely known.