John Scalzi

John Scalzi (born May 10, 1969, in Fairfield, California) is an American science fiction author and blogger, best known for the Old Man's War series. He attended the University of Chicago, where he studied philosophy, and later worked as a film critic and corporate communications writer before transitioning to full-time fiction writing. He served as president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) from 2010 to 2013. Scalzi's debut novel Old Man's War (2005) was a critical and commercial success, drawing comparisons to Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The series now spans six novels. His novel Redshirts (2012) won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Other popular works include the Lock In duology, The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022), and the Interdependency trilogy, whose conclusion The Last Emperox (2020) won the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Starter Villain (2023) won the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2024 and was a major commercial hit, telling the satirical story of a man who inherits his uncle's supervillainy operation. Scalzi's fiction is known for its wit, accessibility, and pop-culture awareness, and he maintains one of the most-read author blogs on the internet, Whatever. He lives in Bradford, Ohio with his family.