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Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/17/view-from-a-hotel-window-9-17-25-spokane-wa/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57326

My hotel room in Spokane is in fact really nice. The view? Maybe less so.

Tonight! Spokane! I’ll be at Auntie’s Bookstore at 7pm. I’ll read stuff and answer questions and sign books, mostly in that order!

Tomorrow! I’m at Bookshop Santa Cruz, also at 7pm! More reading! And answers! And signing! Fun!

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/17/view-from-a-hotel-window-9-17-25-spokane-wa/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57326

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/15/attending-a-mystery-skulls-concert-at-skullys-music-diner/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57283

For about five years now, I have absolutely loved the music of Mystery Skulls. It was only recently that I learned Mystery Skulls is actually just one guy named Luis Dubuc, and he’s the singer, songwriter, and producer behind it all. While I would largely describe the music as EDM, it honestly has such a unique sound to it that’s very unlike a lot of other electronic music I’ve heard before.

To me, Mystery Skulls’ music is more approachable than a lot of electronic music. With plenty of awesome lyrics and vocals, it is something I would show to someone who isn’t super into EDM already.

Back in May, I learned that Mystery Skulls was going on tour, and would be performing in Columbus in September. I immediately bought two VIP tickets, one for me and one for the friend that introduced me to Mystery Skulls in the first place.

I know I’ve mentioned it a ton of times before, but I am really not a concert person. I hate loud noises, don’t really like live music all that much, and I’m not fond of crowds. I’d rather just jam to my music by myself at the volume I prefer and not pay a ton of money for it.

All that being said, I had the most amazing time at the Mystery Skulls concert, and it was pretty much the best concert I’ve ever been to. My friend and I had so much fun!

The concert was held at Skully’s Music Diner in the Short North area of Columbus. I’d never heard of the venue before, but that makes sense considering I literally just said I don’t like live music (generally).

I loved this venue. It’s a bit of a smaller place, with two bars, a standing room area in front of the stage, and a balcony area. It’s got a dive bar vibe but with a stage. The bathroom really sealed the deal for me, with one of the two stalls having a broken lock, and the other one having a shower curtain instead of a door. At least the floor wasn’t sticky! I was very impressed by that.

So, I’m sure you’re all wondering what the VIP tickets included. At $85 dollars a piece, you got early entry for a meet-and-greet, where you got to talk to Luis and get a photo with him. I declined a photo and he asked if I was in witness protection program, which I found very amusing. After that, everyone got in line for a turn to play a round of Street Fighter with him in a one-on-one battle. I also declined this opportunity, as I suck at those type of fighting games and didn’t want to embarrass myself.

Plus, we got merch bags! A reusable bag with a cool lanyard and a VIP card that Luis signed when we met him, and a RFID card that unlocks early access to an album he’s planning to release in 2026.

So, how was the show? Well, there was an opener, and I don’t know about y’all, but I have never liked an opener at any concert I’ve attended. That was NOT the case here. The opener of the evening was NITE, two twin brothers from Texas with some of the coolest, dark-synth dance music. Like a gothic electronic vibe. It reminded me of if you were having a Stranger Things themed dance party.

I seriously loved every song they played, and they were so fun to watch perform. They really got the crowd hype for the main event. I highly recommend checking out some of their music, and I’ll leave two here for you that I particularly enjoyed:

Aside from NITE being a banger opener, Mystery Skulls kept the energy up the whole time, never slowing down or letting the vibes slip away for even a second. It was amazing to hear all my favorites, plus some new stuff that was special to the tour, and everything was seamlessly remixed together into an awesome blend of never-ending dance. Not to mention the light show was killer.

I know you’re probably at the edge of your seat waiting for me to share some of my favorite songs, so I shan’t keep you waiting any longer.

First up, we have my all-time favorite of his: “Ghost.” This is the first song I ever heard from Mystery Skulls, so it’s nearest and dearest to my heart.

A very close second place song would be “Hellbent.”

For a more funky fresh vibe, I recommend “Freaking Out.”

And for a more clubby, EDM vibe, I recommend “Losing My Mind.”

There’s so many songs of his that are great but I won’t spam you with all of the ones I like.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the very interesting and surprisingly in-depth animations that feature Mystery Skulls’ songs, and are the very thing that my friend sent me to begin with.

While these animations don’t actually have anything to do with the music or Luis himself, the series features several of his songs and is inspired by the music.

The series, called Mystery Skulls Animated, starts with “Ghost,” and introduces us to a Scooby-Doo-esque crew who come across a haunted mansion. But things aren’t quite as they first appear.

There were tons of people at the concert in Columbus wearing merch of this animated series, and pretty much everyone I talked to at the concert had seen the animations, too. So while they’re not canon in any capacity, they are huge in the Mystery Skulls fandom itself.

I won’t link all the videos in this post since I’m mainly just here to tell you about the concert, Mystery Skulls, and NITE, but if you want to see the rest of them, here’s an in-order playlist for you.

These animations are absolutely wild and it’s so cool to see the skill and talent progress over the several years they’ve been released. Honestly I loved revisiting these for this post.

So, there you have it! My adventure to Columbus for the Mystery Skulls concert was a huge success, and I’m so happy my friend and I got to see a musician we love perform. I think I’m starting to realize I don’t hate concerts as much as I thought I did, and am mainly not a big fan of huge arena type concerts with 50,000 people and mega-screens you watch the performers on because you’re so far back that they look like a speck on the stage.

What’d you think of the songs? Are you an avid concert-goer? Let me know in the comments, be sure to follow Mystery Skulls and NITE on Instagram, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/15/attending-a-mystery-skulls-concert-at-skullys-music-diner/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57283

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/15/the-big-idea-ian-randal-strock/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57274

To Oxford comma, or to not Oxford comma? That is the question. Thankfully, author Ian Randal Strock is here with some answers. Or, at the very least, plenty of research about punctuation throughout history that he’s organized into his new book, Punctilious Punctuation.

IAN RANDAL STROCK:

As all the best arguments do, it started with something very, very small. In this case, it was a comma.

Specifically, I wrote an article for the Mensa Bulletin marking the centennial of Isaac Asimov’s birth. [Footnote 1] My first job in science fiction was as the editorial assistant at Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine (and also Analog), so I met Isaac my second day on the job. Of the day we met, I wrote an amusing anecdote, and noted that “We laughed, and were friends for three years” (that is, the last three years of his life).

The editor removed the comma, and when I questioned that decision, he said, “Two dependent clauses/compound predicate so no comma is needed.” I disagreed… emphatically. To my mind, the use of the comma means: “we laughed briefly, and after that incident, we were friends for the next three years.” Without the comma, to me, it means: “we laughed for three years and we were friends for three years.” We did not laugh for three years.

The editor, however, was operating under the strict interpretation of the Associated Press Stylebook, which seems to be waging its battle against punctuation (a carry-over, perhaps, from its use for newspapers, in which saving typographical space is of paramount importance). That, too, is why the serial (or Oxford) comma has all but disappeared from news reporting.

The article in question, however, was not a newspaper report in which saving column inches was a desperate need. And I still feel the loss of that comma (but he’s the editor, so what he says goes [just wait until he writes something that I publish <insert evil grin here>]).

That interaction got me thinking about punctuation in general, and about the need for punctuation, and the wonderful things writers can do with punctuation when using it properly, and the horrible things e e cummings did to us with his minimal use of punctuation and majuscules. Punctuation, in written language, serves the same purpose as vocal inflection and body language in spoken language. Without it, we’re communicating on a flat plane. With it, we’re communicating in three dimensions.

As a science fiction writer, it may be ironic to note that I’m not an early adopter of every new thing that comes along: I still listen to CDs in my car; I maintain my unshakeable faith in the primacy of WordPerfect; and I won’t eat red or blue M&Ms. With a similar tenacity, I couldn’t let that comma go.

I researched the history of commas, and punctuation in general, and found Florence Hazrat (a Fellow at the University of Sheffield), and her article “A History of Punctuation” [Footnote 2], in which she writes, “In the broad sense, punctuation is any glyph or sign in a text that isn’t an alphabet letter. This includes spaces, whose inclusion wasn’t always a given: in classical times stone inscriptions as well as handwritten texts WOULDLOOKLIKETHIS—written on scrolls, potentially unrolling forever.” Continuous script seems to arise from the use of writing merely as record of speech, rather than a practice in itself. And since we’re hardly aware of the infinitesimal pauses we make between words when speaking—other than William Shatner [Footnote 3] and certain other enunciators—it isn’t obvious to register something we do and perceive unconsciously with a designated sign that is a non-sign: blank space.

Perhaps the main use of writing in Ancient Greece and Rome was for people giving lectures and political speeches, not publishing books. Before making their speeches, orators would work on their texts, using whatever symbols and marks would remind them which were long and short syllables, where to pause for rhetorical effect and breathing, and so on. There was as yet no such thing as reading at first sight.

This personal writing without punctuation lasted for hundreds of years, before writing slowly became standardized as a form of communication unto itself. And with that growth came the need to punctuate.

And as many science fiction writers do, I quickly fell down that research rabbit hole. Before I knew it, I had enough information to give an hour-long lecture on the subject, tinged with my own brand of humor. And then, because I’d put so much effort into it, I did even more research, theorizing, and writing, and turned it into a book. So yes, this entire book exists because I had an argument over a comma.

And by the way: serial commas rule!

***

Footnotes:

Footnote 1: “Isaac Asimov: Remembering the Literary Icon I Worked With” by Ian Randal Strock. Published in the November/December 2019 issue of the Mensa Bulletin. Available at https://www.us.mensa.org/read/bulletin/features/isaac-asimov-writer-polymath-chemist-mensan/

Footnote 2: “A History of Punctuation,” by Florence Hazrat, Aeon, Septmber 3, 2020. https://aeon.co/essays/beside-the-point-punctuation-is-dead-long-live-punctuation

Footnote 3: See, for example, “Is William Shatner’s Signature Speech Style Fake?” by Robin Zabiegalski, published February 1, 2021, on Heavy.com. In the article, Shatner is quoted as saying that “each person’s speech style [is] their own personal ‘music’.” https://heavy.com/entertainment/star-trek/william-shatner-signature-speech-style-fake/

—-

Punctilious Punctuation: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Powell’s

Author socials: Website|Facebook|Instagram|Bluesky

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/15/the-big-idea-ian-randal-strock/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57274

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/14/got-myself-a-covid-shot-today/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57268

Why? Well, one, my book tour starts tomorrow and that’s two weeks straight out on the road, and after that I have events basically every other weekend through November, so better to prepare than not (I got a flu shot a couple months back, so I’m good there, too), and two, our dimwit-not-even-qualified-enough-to-call-himself-a-quack Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., may be about to try to make it more difficult for everyone under the age of 75 to get a COVID vaccine, based on absolute bullshit that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, so fuck him, I got mine. I booked my appointment at CVS, went in, got shot up and was on my merry way in less than ten minutes. Simple! Easy! Smart!

Naturally, I strongly encourage all y’all to get your own shots in as soon as you can (allowing for previous vaccine schedules and/or previous infections). Take care of yourself out there, because at this particular moment, the US federal government isn’t gonna do you much good.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/14/got-myself-a-covid-shot-today/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57268

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/13/catching-up-with-saja/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57251

Our newest addition to the Scamperbeast clan continues to be friggin’ adorable, and also his personality is beginning to show more. He is rambunctious, which is to be expected in a kitten, and also a bit of menace, since he discovered that he enjoys both the stairs and being underfoot, which is a dangerous combination with one is trying to navigate the stairs at night and suddenly there is a kitten. There are reasons why, when I turned forty, I trained myself to start reaching for the railing on the stairs, and this kitten is definitely one of those reasons.

In terms of the other cats, Saja continues to be an annoyance to Sugar and Spice, the former of whom still wants nothing to do with him, and the latter of which has come to grudgingly accept that he might be on the bed at the same time she is. Smudge is more congenial to him and the two of them tussle on a regular basis now:

This is lovely for us, as it reminds us of when Smudge was the kitten a Zeus was the one tusslin’ with him. It’s nice to know the tussle reaches over generations. Charlie and Saja also continue to get along famously. It’s as good an integration at this point that one could hope for.

The one real annoying thing Saja will do is try to eat my face, which he does every night between three and five am. He’s probably not actually trying to eat my face, he’s probably trying to nurse, which will not avail him of anything, alas for him. This will continue until I grab him, take him downstairs and then plop him in front of a cat food bowl, at which point he goes, oh, right, that’s where the food is. I’m hoping he grows out of this; I would really prefer to sleep through the night. We’ll see.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/13/catching-up-with-saja/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57251

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/11/the-big-idea-ren-hutchings-2/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57238

The word “sonder” refers to the realization that every other person is living their own, whole life outside of what you see. For author Ren Hutchings, she has experienced this with side characters in media, wondering about their lives outside of the story. Expanding on this idea, she ended up writing An Unbreakable World. Follow along in her Big Idea to see how this companion novel focuses on characters who are outside of the spotlight.

REN HUTCHINGS:

I’ve always had an interest in the relationship between history and folklore, a theme which has influenced so much of my speculative writing. I’m most intrigued by a close, individual perspective, viewing the past as a moving tapestry of small lives and stories, rather than a series of big, significant events. 

Ever since I was a child, I’ve often found myself invested in a seemingly insignificant side character in a book or movie, that person who only pops up for a brief encounter and says three lines of dialogue. I’d be wondering about where they went next, or if they had a family, or what the rest of their life was like. Because of course they must have had a whole life that existed outside of that one time when they happened to cross paths with the heroes!

And so, when I set out to write a new novel set in the same universe as my debut, Under Fortunate Stars, I found myself pulled toward the stories at the outer edges. The result is a standalone novel that’s in many ways a companion piece to my first book, but in other ways its opposite. Because while Under Fortunate Stars was about a group of unexpected heroes who famously stopped an interstellar war and saved humanity, An Unbreakable World is very much about those folks on the periphery. In a vast galaxy fraught with intrigue and turmoil, this story asks what was going on with the people who didn’t become historical heroes.

The protagonists in this book are people whose names and deeds won’t be remembered in songs or poems. They’re people whose most important choices will never be known to history, whose motivations will never be examined by future biographers. The point-of-view characters are each struggling to find a meaning in their own lives, and looking in all the wrong places for an ever-elusive sense of purpose.

Almost everybody you meet in An Unbreakable World is experiencing deep isolation. Page is a petty thief who woke up from stasis without most of her memories, and while she searches desperately for any shards of her missing past, she closes her mind to the possibilities that the present is offering her. Meanwhile, Maelle has dedicated years of her life to plotting a long-game revenge scheme, and she’s likewise been ignoring every opportunity to take a new path.

On a distant world, Dalya of House Edamaun is an anxious young heiress growing up in a restrictive, sheltered society, on a planet that has intentionally cut itself off from the United Worlds of Humanity. She’s struggling with spiritual and existential questions, crushed by the weight of a responsibility she doesn’t feel ready for… until she comes to realize that she actually has more choices than she thinks. In forging small, intimate connections with others, each character finds the shape of their own story becoming clearer.

Both of the Union Quadrant books touch on themes about storytelling, memory, and the historical record. But the thing I really wanted to explore in An Unbreakable World is the way our search for a bigger meaning often begins with our most personal choices.

Most people will never do any epic deeds, or perform incredible galaxy-changing feats. And some people whose actions do have far-reaching effects won’t even realize it. Indeed, most of us will never know exactly how our lives will affect the fabric of history, or how far the ripples of our decisions travelled. But we can make choices about what’s important to us, about what we want to stand for and believe in. We can choose which things we find meaning in when our future isn’t clear and everything seems hopeless.

Sometimes, the journey to save yourself – and to accept that you’re somebody worth saving – can be just as monumental as a heroic quest to save the galaxy. 

An Unbreakable World: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Kobo|Powell’s

Author socials: Website|Instagram|Bluesky

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/11/the-big-idea-ren-hutchings-2/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57238