Underwire

John Scalzi’s new sci-fi novel Redshirts ventures into the world of humor. Photo courtesy Tor Books

John Scalzi has always been a humorist at heart, but you’d never know it from the covers of his books. “There was a concern that if they were marketed as humor, that they just wouldn’t sell,” he says.

Now he aims to change that. His new book Redshirts, about disposable underlings in a Star Trek-style universe, is clearly packaged as humor.

“It took me eight books to finally be at a point in my career where I could come out with a book and say, ‘This is meant to be a funny book,’ and we didn’t have to make any bones about it,” says Scalzi in this week’s installment of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

He blames the bias against funny science fiction on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the wake of that book’s success, he says, subpar imitators flooded the market, and when those books failed to sell, publishers became leery of humorous science fiction. But now he thinks that’s starting to change.

“One of the nice things about Redshirts getting onto the actual best-seller list,” says Scalzi, “and doing as well as it has been doing, is that it’s kind of a wake-up call that the science fiction audience — regardless of the long-held superstitions or beliefs of those who publish the stuff — is more than happy to entertain the idea of humorous science fiction.”

Read our complete interview with John Scalzi below, in which he gives advice to aspiring humorists, recounts his tenure as creative consultant on Stargate Universe, and berates himself for losing his laptop yet again. Or listen to the interview in Episode 64 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast, which also features a discussion between hosts John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley and guest geek E.C. Myers about the Star Trek franchise.

Continue Reading “John Scalzi’s Redshirts Goes Boldly Into Sci-Fi’s Forbidden Zone” »

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