Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor Books is pleased to announce a significant deal with award-winning and bestselling author John Scalzi. Thirteen books – 10 adult and three young adult titles – will be published over the next 10 years, with world English language rights acquired by Tor. The deal was set via Ethan Ellenberg of Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency.
The first book will launch a new far-future space opera series. Scalzi will also return to the Old Man’s War universe. Other titles will include sequels to 2014’s bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In.
Says Nielsen Hayden, “It’s an unusually large deal, but it makes tons of sense. As far as we can tell, one of the commonest responses to reading a John Scalzi novel is to go out and inhale all the other John Scalzi novels. We see this reflected in his backlist sales, thousands of copies month after month.”
“One of the biggest challenges faced by science fiction and fantasy storytellers is how to get the reader into a story about an imagined world not our own without resorting to ‘let-me-explain-everything’ exposition. Scalzi’s ability to do this is equaled, in my view, only by J. K. Rowling’s. So while his current sales are very healthy indeed, we think he’s got the potential to grow by orders of magnitude, well beyond the bounds of the traditional SF&F category.”
“Well, now I know what I’m doing for the next decade,” says Scalzi. “And that’s a good thing. In an era when publishing is in flux, this contract with Tor will let me spend more of my time doing what readers want me to do: writing books and making new stories for them to enjoy. It also gives both me and Tor a stable, long-term base to grow our audience, not only among established science fiction and fantasy fans, but among readers of all sorts. Science fiction is mainstream culture now, and there are so many people discovering just how much there is to enjoy in these stories of ours. We have much more to share. That’s what we’re going to do.”
John Scalzi is one of the most acclaimed SF authors to emerge in the last decade. His debut Old Man’s War won him science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, his most recent novel Lock In, and also Redshirts, which won 2013’s Hugo Award for Best Novel. Material from his widely read blog The Whatever has earned him two other Hugo Awards as well. Currently three of Scalzi’s novels are in development for television: Redshirts (FX), Old Man’s War (SyFy), and Lock In (Legendary TV).
Spontaneous Puppy Combustion
wow! and just after I went through my 3rd re-read of the entire Old Man’s War Universe.
It’s a “major deal,” according to someone should know. Unless there’s a higher level than major?
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/09/08/the-real-world-book-deal-descriptions/
I’m sure certain people will be positively rabid when they learn of this news.
No sequels please! Stand alones! Stand alones to die for!
A reaction to this development: http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=20968
I enjoyed the Melville House headline:
“Scalzi signs 13 $261K deals at once“
Still waiting for that epic fantasy novel John promised us on April 1st, 2011… When does that one come out?
Agree with David Greybeard!
Just as we bitch at Hollywood running out of ideas, constantly remaking, rebooting old series, it’s tiring for me, hard for me to get interested in anything of longer length than a trilogy,
It’s SF reading. It’s shouldn’t be a 20 year slog.
If your book is good, a trilogy is okay. After that it looks like a chore and I become resentful.
this might be an unpopular opinion, but I somehow feel Scalzi is a one-trick pony. I must admit I love his old man’s war series, or at least the first three volumes. But I am not so sure that he has done much really good work since.
think about it, while hailed by geeks and nerds, from a literary perspective neither redshirts nor android’s dream were new nor brilliant by any means, but instead clever regurgitation.
instead, Scalzi is one of the new league of writers who are very good at making themselves relevant in all sorts of discussions, publish their witty thoughts all over the digital landscape, cleverly use digital paradigms when coming up with new projects and fraternise with others like them and reader-groupies on conventions.
that may make Scalzi and others like him a good marketeer but not necessarily a great writer
now I am not saying that Scalzi shouldn’t be read, but that I feel that the fuss that is made about him is out of proportion
Dear Isabellatrue:
Prepare to be pilloried, hung, drawn, and quartered. Noticing the fall off in Scalsi’s quality is not the way to win friends and influence fluffy bunnies.
Isabella, you’re coming into the middle of production. Do you have an opinion on Agent to the Stars? Android’s Dream was written concurrent with the OMW trilogy. I don’t think not liking a writer’s recent novel means that all their writing is overhyped (he’s written more since Redshirts, and I’d like to hear your thoughts on, for example, The Human Division). I’m not interested in pillorying, hanging, drawing or quartering anyone, but I’m not convinced that it’s all purely clever repackaging and marketing.
Yeah, not sure where the “one trick pony” label is coming from. I was late to Scalzi. I did enjoy Redshirts enough to want to read the rest of his work, and its very diverse. Not to mention all the non-fiction he writes. And he was previously a professional writer on finance and technology for almost a decade.
“One trick pony” usually means someone can only do one thing, and that one thing is really just slight of hand, and the “trick” doesn’t require much, or any, talent.
How does this apply to John Scalzi? He’s a legitimately good, professional writer who chose to write mostly military space operas because, gasp, they make the most money. He could probably write any genre with a little bit of study. That’s kind of the opposite of a one trick pony.
I’ll start by saying I’m a huge fan of Scalzi, but in one sense you can say “one trick pony” and make it stick, it’s just that if that trick is to your taste, you like it all: Scalzi writes witty, snarkastic, fast paced dialogue between characters experienced in snark to snark combat.
If you like it (and I do) that very definite authorial voice is quite enjoyable. If it’s not your cup of tea, hey great. Move right along. (I like Joss Whedon, his penchant for finding someone to kill in every screenplay notwithstanding, for much the same reason.)
But it is “one trick” in the sense that every protagonist can come to sound a little similar. I, personally, wouldn’t say that he’s “one trick” in that he never grows. While Harry Wilson of the Androids Dream sounds a LOT like John Perry of Old Man’s War, there’s been a lot of growth and I certainly wouldn’t confuse either with Chris Shane of Lock In, despite the fact that you could pick up almost any Scalzi MS and be certain who you were reading. But if that isn’t your cup of tea, I’m certainly not going to pillory, hang, draw OR quarter you. JonO’s paranoia to that effect being pretty clearly not shown THUS far in the comments.