Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/12/the-big-idea-tim-chawaga/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56796

Life should be a party. Author Tim Chawaga is here today to expand upon this idea, showing us that parties can come in many forms. Follow along in the Big Idea for his newest novel, Salvagia, to see just how much can be worth celebrating.

TIM CHAWAGA:

When I was in college I was briefly obsessed with something called the Emergency Party Button.

It’s exactly what it sounds like:  a metal box with a big red button on a coffee table in a sparse living room not too different from the sort of white-walled, “IKEA-showroom-post-hurricane” spaces that I would occupy for most of my 20s. When the button is pressed, there is a brief hesitation, and then the blinds close, the lamps dim and change colors, What is Love blasts at a voice-drowning volume. Laser lights, strobe lights and fog machine all activate in succession. You can imagine a party being there but of course there isn’t one… just a lone genius standing behind his phone, panning the camera around the empty room for three whole minutes. I was dumbstruck by their ingenuity. I also wondered how many party emergencies such a person could possibly have.

I was a theater major, and this was exactly the kind of theater that I loved—immersive, experimental, unexpected, delightful. I was also in college, and decided that the EPB was essential for the two-bedroom apartment I shared with five other people. 

So I tried to build one myself. Despite a technical page with detail approaching the Unabomber journal, I failed. Today, after decades of technological advancement, personal technical experience and a net worth consistently above zero, I feel I am no closer. If anything, my time in tech (particularly in IT) has taught me that anything so bespoke, with so many moving parts (especially IoT parts from different brands with different, proprietary operating systems), will simply create more problems than they could ever hope to solve. The internet is now awash with EPBs, but I have lost faith that behind these social media blips of seamless button/party bliss is anything other than days of labor, thousands of dollars in materials and installment, and the same three minutes of solitary camera panning. A Potemkin party.

The Big Idea at the root of my novel, Salvagia, (and, now that I think about it, much of my writing in general) is this: the power of the individual to build a true Emergency Party Button is a basic human right that we (read: I) have been denied, and will continue to be denied for at least another century, until our anger ossifies, and we pursue drastic action.

On the surface, Salvagia is a sci-fi mystery with all the trappings of both genres: dead bodies, mechanical alligators, a drag race to space (just to name a few).

My protagonist, Triss Mackey, was raised by a class of nomads descended from today’s “right-to-repair” movement, who roam the country “liberating” tech and IP from feds and corporations. She’s currently stuck in a dead-end government job pulling up air conditioners from a part of the flooded South Florida coast known as the “yoreshore”, the area between where the shore used to be and where it is now. 

The feds are about to abandon Florida and deregulate the coast. The yoreshore is on the cusp of a real estate boom, and all sorts of groups are about to come in and build it up again. Most of them are the familiar types, the ones responsible for ruining the coast in the first place—developers and corporate mafias, with shady crypto cults funding it all. 

But there are a couple of people who don’t work for anybody, who are just looking for a quiet little spot to dream up a new, sustainable way of living.

Building in the yoreshore, in other words, is their Emergency Party Button.

Because the power to build a true Emergency Party Button, to walk through the world and instantly partify the air around them, is the same as the power to build a filter to clean water from any source, or to generate enough energy to sustain oneself with a surplus for the community. It’s self-sufficiency, created from a subjective place of joy, in service of that all-American pursuit of happiness.

And we should be creating more examples of joyful technology in science fiction. We should depict the ways in which technology can expand our freedoms, bring us closer together and enhance what makes us human, like any good party does. 

In the world of Salvagia, just like today, technology is largely controlled by the distant and powerful, to exploit and control. Those who want to build a better way are willing to hide, fight, and steal the means to do so. 

A true Emergency Party Button is the radical future we deserve, the future we were promised. It is essential to believe this now, to envision the kinds of parties we could be having, to build the fighting spirit required to seize them.

Salvagia: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s

Author socials: Website|Instagram|Bluesky|Goodreads

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/12/the-big-idea-tim-chawaga/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56796

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/11/poking-the-discourse-bear-re-classic-science-fiction/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56787

Over on Bluesky I got a lot of guff about the above post, but you know what? I 100% stand by it. I’m 56 now, and if you’re recommending the same science fiction books to a ten-year-old today that would have been recommended to me when I was a ten-year-old — and were old and kinda dated even then — I think you should seriously reconsider recommending science fiction books to young readers.

Why? Well, for just two things, either you are so far behind in your science fiction reading that you can’t think of a science fiction work from the two-and-half-decades of this millennium (not to mention possibly the three decades immediately preceding that time frame in the previous millennium) that you could recommend to a young reader, which is not great, or you have kept up with the last twenty-five years of science fiction writing and think none of it is worthy of recommendation to the youth of today. In which case, on behalf of every science fiction writer who first started publishing in this century (and all the ones who debuted before then, but have kept on writing): Rude. There’s been a lot of fantastic work in the last twenty-five years that stands at least equal to what was written before, that you could recommend to new and/or young readers of the genre. If you can’t acknowledge that, this is a you problem.

“But the kids should read the classics!” Well, one, as I wrote almost exactly five years ago, “the science fiction canon” is dead, so this is an arguable statement, especially for a casual reader; and two, even if one were to stipulate that there is an essential canon of classic works every science fiction fan should read, it does not necessarily follow that every young reader needs to read them to start off. Start young readers with interesting accessible contemporary work that brings them through the door and gets them curious as to what else is out there, at which point they may well wander back into the “classics” arm of the genre and delight in what they find there. But if that’s the only door you can show them into the genre, you’re doing them and the genre we all mutually love a disservice.

And anyway, it’s kind of ridiculous. As I said in a different Bluesky post:

To be clear, it’s not that the Kim Sisters aren’t cool, or unimportant to the overall history of K-Pop. They are cool, and important! But the hard swing from “Golden” to this is rough, to say the least.

And then there’s the Suck Fairy to consider, and my own complementary twist on that idea, the Sixteen Candles Problem, in which you show something you loved as a young person to a young person today, and you’re both horrified at all the problematic bullshit in the thing that your brain just plain forgot was there (seriously, don’t show Sixteen Candles to anyone born in the 21st Century without watching it first. You have forgotten how awful it actually is). So if you’re out here blithely suggesting sixty-year-old science fiction books to the youth of today, let me ask: When was the last time you read the thing you’re suggesting? Is it more than a decade? Maybe read it again? Because you may find the casual sexism/racism/other -isms are there a lot more than you remember, or the prose more wooden, or the dialogue rather more stiff, or the plots more iffy, or some combination of above.

(And if you read it and you don’t find any of those things, ask yourself: Am I a white dude who doesn’t actually have to think about racism/sexism/etc on a regular basis? Because that will maybe be a filter you need to consider. I know it’s fashionable in the current era, seeing as we now have mask-off bigots running the government, to have white dudes consider having to acknowledge that filter to be deeply unfair, but, you know. Try anyway.)

It’s all right if you love something that hasn’t aged well! Everything ages, and much of it not especially gracefully. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t important to you or that it doesn’t have value. It’s also okay to have that give you pause with regard to recommending it to someone of another, younger, generation.

But when someone asks about recommendations for their kids, you want to be helpful! Cool, here’s my suggestion: read more new stuff. And when you read it, think about from whom (and at what age) you would recommend that work. You don’t even have to buy it, just head off to the library and look through the new releases (or suggest an upcoming release for the library to acquire. Librarians like when you do that. So do authors). Then, when the question comes up, you’ll be prepared with something from this century.

If you can’t or won’t do that, then here’s another useful tip: Tell the person asking to ask a librarian for recommendations. That’s literally what librarians do! They’re really good at connecting people (and particularly kids) with books. They would be happy to do it here as well. They know what’s new, and what’s good, and what’s in the library. That kid will go home with something great (you can do this in bookstores, too, if you want to be purchasing that day).

And if you really really really really really want to recommend a decades-old book? Then reread it, have an idea of how that text and story sits right now, and when you recommend it, acknowledge and disclose it’s from another era, with all the things that come from being of that era — and then be able to articulate why you think it still has value to a young person today, beyond “well, I liked it when I was that age,” or “it’s a classic.”

Then go read some more new stuff! You deserve it.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/11/poking-the-discourse-bear-re-classic-science-fiction/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56787

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/08/new-books-and-arcs-8-8-255/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56773

Here we are, well into August, and here is a stack of new books and ARCs to consider for the dog days ahead. What here looks good to you? Share in the comments?

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/08/new-books-and-arcs-8-8-255/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56773

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/08/a-friday-snack-haul/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56767

Today, I got the urge to get some snacks from the local Asian grocery store, and so I did and I thought I’d share what I got! It’s not much, as I tried not to go overboard, but it’s a good assortment of snackies.

Here’s the small haul:

Normally I wouldn’t buy a big tub of miso, but I decided to make Half Baked Harvest’s Miso Chicken Thighs and Coconut Rice for dinner tonight, so I had a reason to buy it. Had to get some MSG, of course, that stuff rocks (can’t believe I used to think it was bad for you!). Picked out a chicken curry bun and two onigiri, one salmon and one salted plum. Definitely had to pick up some daifuku mochi with red bean paste, y’all know I love red bean filled mochi. I’ve never seen the banana shaped snack before, but I thought it was cute and figured it was worth trying. Thankfully, they had my most favorite milk tea so I bought a can of that, and also opted for their creamy coconut bun. They also had a giant package of rice crackers for cheap, so I snagged that, too. I just love how insanely crunchy and umami flavored they are.

So, yeah! Some nice snacks to start my weekend off right. I’m so excited to use the miso in my cooking tonight, I think it’ll really add some great flavor.

Like I said, I really wanted to buy more, but now I just have reasons to go back. What looks good to you? Do you like red bean paste? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/08/a-friday-snack-haul/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56767

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/07/the-big-idea-morgan-richter/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56762

Sometimes, you try your best, and it simply isn’t enough. Author Morgan Richter explores the question of “should the main character always be triumphant, even when under-skilled compared to the enemy?” Follow along in the Big Idea for her newest novel, The Understudy to see which nostalgic 1980’s underdog film inspired this idea in the first place.

MORGAN RICHTER:

I was born in 1974, so obviously I think The Karate Kid is a perfect film. This is just logic: Nothing in life ever comes close to the shimmering brilliance of the pop culture one consumes at the age of ten. This also explains why I think Duran Duran is a perfect band, and why I think Miami Vice is a perfect TV series, and why I am, even now, willing to challenge anyone who suggests otherwise to pistols at dawn. 

But there’s an idea at the core of The Karate Kid that has tugged at my brain for the past four decades, an idea I ended up revisiting and remixing in my thriller The Understudy, which revolves around the malevolent backstage shenanigans that take place during the production of an avant-garde opera based on the 1968 cult film Barbarella. In my book, Yolanda, the magnetic, gorgeous, and utterly bonkers understudy for the titular role, tries her best to undermine, sabotage, and flat-out murder Kit, her drab professional rival, to snag the lead. 

(The Understudy is a novel about contemporary opera, and here I’m yammering on about The Karate Kid and Gen-X nostalgia, and you might be beginning to worry that I’m getting us hopelessly lost. Fear not: I’m heading towards my point, but I’m doing it at a skewed angle. Sit back, blast Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best” to hop onto my wavelength, and trust that I’ll get us to our destination soon.)

It takes around five years of training, give or take, to become a black belt in karate, right? Early on in The Karate Kid, our protagonist Daniel mentions that his karate background consists of “a few nights” of lessons at the Newark YMCA. After he gets clobbered by ruthless jerkass Johnny Lawrence and his vicious but well-coiffed gaggle of Cobra Kai blackbelts at his school’s Halloween dance, Daniel begs Mr. Miyagi for karate lessons so he can face off against Johnny at the All Valley Karate Championship, which, per a poster that we see multiple times in the film, takes place on…

December 19th. 

So, y’know, that’s seven weeks from Halloween. At the All Valley Karate Tournament, Daniel—who now has a grand total of maybe eight or nine weeks of general karate know-how under his belt, which, just FYI, is a black belt that Mr. Miyagi outright steals from another competitor to enable Daniel to scam his way into a tournament berth—systematically kicks and chops his way through multiple brackets of highly-trained challengers and, despite sustaining a debilitating injury, triumphs over Johnny in the final match. It’s an awesome ending: Daniel holds his trophy aloft while Johnny assures him he deserves it. Freeze frame on Mr. Miyagi’s beaming face. Roll credits. Perfection.

Damn, I love that film. I’m not alone; it’s hard to resist a tale in which a charismatic underdog goes toe-to-toe with a highly skilled yet less sympathetic antagonist and emerges the victor. But sometimes you just have to think: Maybe sometimes the underdog shouldn’t win?

That was my launching point for writing The Understudy, the Big Idea underpinning everything else that happens in the book. I chose to set it in the world of New York City opera for a couple of reasons: 1) opera is a ton of juicy, pulpy, lurid fun, and 2) performing opera on a professional stage—like dancing with a world-class ballet company, or like playing an instrument in a symphony orchestra, or like, I don’t know, defeating a horde of black belts at a karate tournament—requires years of training and hard-earned skills that can’t be fudged. Pluck and star power are awfully appealing character traits, but in many fields, skill is a necessity. Despite what some of my favorite eighties films have tried to teach me, a plucky amateur shouldn’t stand a chance against a skilled pro.

My homicidal understudy Yolanda is a plucky amateur. Physically, Yolanda is any director’s dream Barbarella: She’s gorgeous. She’s overflowing with sex appeal, star power, magnetism. She has a magical laugh and a captivating smile; she’s also got phenomenal knockers. She’s a mesmerizing performer onstage. Her singing voice? Yeah, it’s fine, whatever. She’s pretty good, but she’s undertrained. She misses her high notes. Her technique is sloppy.

By contrast, Kit, the opera’s primary Barbarella, is a consummate pro. As a performer, Kit is a killer cyborg: She’s skilled, precise, meticulous, and kinda robotic. While Yolanda is beautiful, Kit is plain. Kit should be the lead just based on skill and technique, but Barbarella’s artistic director, desperate to attract fresh patrons to a fading art form, looks at Yolanda and, despite her vocal weaknesses, sees a star. Kit, with a mounting sense of incredulity, comes to realize she’s very much in danger of losing the role of her dreams to a charismatic underdog.

The Understudy is a thriller, remember, and this means that Kit is also very much in danger of losing her life to a charismatic underdog. Yolanda is willing to do whatever it takes to snatch the role of Barbarella away from Kit, up to and very much including murder. So if we push this already-strained Karate Kid analogy past the point of no return, it’s as though in the weeks leading up to the All Valley Karate Championship, Daniel poisons Johnny’s tea, crane-kicks him in front of an oncoming train, and threatens to smother him with a pillow. (I would totally watch that film.)

As someone who has a sharp brain and a strong work ethic yet has never been mistaken for a blazing ball of charisma (I used to produce the E! series Talk Soup in the late nineties, and our interns once admitted that they had dubbed me “Daria” behind my back, if that gives you some idea of my general level of pep and vibrancy), I feel a special kinship with the Kits of the world. But I realized a potential difficulty in executing my Big Idea would lie in making sure readers didn’t find Yolanda—beautiful, tricky, lethal Yolanda—more compelling or, god help us all, more sympathetic than Kit.

The key to this lay in making Kit and Yolanda more alike than different. Both Kit and Yolanda are underdogs in a sense, in that both women struggled through violently troubled pasts and have emerged more or less triumphant, albeit in radically different ways. The title of the book refers to both Yolanda and Kit: Kit, whose career progress has been hindered by her lack of star power (see that “killer cyborg” comparison earlier), was initially cast as the understudy herself, and then the production’s original Barbarella dropped out, resulting in Kit’s promotion to the lead. Kit sees this as her best and possibly last chance to move into the spotlight. To hold onto her role, though, she’s going to have to unlock new and more magnetic sides of herself. She’ll need to embrace her inner Yolanda, in fact. 

May I dip back into my increasingly ill-advised Karate Kid analogy one more time? This is sort of what happens in the wildly entertaining Karate Kid spin-off series Cobra Kai, in which a present-day Johnny Lawrence, no longer the spoiled, self-assured bully of the 1984 film, flips the narrative and exposes himself as a messy, endearing failure struggling to get his life on track. The highly-trained pro becomes the charismatic underdog. One could say he, too, embraces his inner Yolanda… minus all the attempted murders.

The Understudy: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s

Author Socials: Website|Bluesky|Twitter|YouTube

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/08/07/the-big-idea-morgan-richter/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56762