Here’s an interview I did with John Scalzi at the world science fiction convention in Toronto back in 2003. Back before any of his novels came out. At this time he was just kind of getting into the whole science fiction convention thing.

I remember we had quite a pleasant chat, and I came away thinking what a nice fellow. I figured his book would come out, quietly disappear, and I’d never hear about him again (I did not think this mean-spiritedly; just, with so many books published each year, what were the odds of success?) Since then, of course, Scalzi has become quite the science fiction phenomenon (and I couldn’t be happier for him, especially considering he appears to be every bit the same well-grounded, pleasant fellow I met in ’03).

I remember thinking exactly the same thing about a fellow by the name of Rob Sawyer about twenty years ago when we worked on a CBC Ideas radio show together (on SF, of course), and he told me he had a book coming out… so much for my powers of prognostication.

The common denominator appears to be having met me shortly before publication of their first novels — clearly I am some sort of good luck charm.

Either that or they’re just talented workhorses… nah… :-)

The interview runs nine minutes, twenty-six seconds.

An interesting footnote to this interview… John talks a little about how he came to publish his first novel Old Man’s War. In the last Worldcon in Montreal, I attended a panel on publishing that included writer Mike Resnick. The subject of how Scalzi had published his first novel came up, and Resnick remarked that Scalzi had done emerging writers a great disservice by setting such an example. My response to Resnick would be perhaps, but ultimately we are all responsible for our own actions, and in any case it certainly worked out well for Scalzi.

Yes, it’s time I collected some new tape. Actually, I still have tons I haven’t edited or posted. I’ll see if I can’t get to that shortly after the kids are grown.

In the meantime, plenty of old tape to repost…