Tom Nixon | March 12, 2006 05:16 PM

As a tremendous aside, long ago I was involved in a murder trial (thankfully as only a witness). Some couple of years after the trial, there appeared a new trial because there had been a problem with the jury in the first one. The ADA gave me a transcript of me from the first trial. I could not believe how poorly I spoke (because they write down *everything*). I don't know how well my testimony went the second time around, but I can assure you I placed more emphasis on word choice.

And, yes, he was found guilty once again.

Cassie | March 13, 2006 01:04 AM

I listened. Hey, you're cool.

Jacob | March 13, 2006 02:21 AM

John, I believe it's written The Ghost Brigades

KenL | March 13, 2006 11:55 AM

That was fun, John. But I can never get over how nasally and distinctively California you sound.

Yeah, yeah, I know. No big surprise.

Liviu Suciu | March 13, 2006 02:13 PM

Hi,

Just listened to the podcast and it was great. Richard Morgan did one with NPR not long ago and yours touched on many of the same themes, the questions were pretty good and I thought your commentary very pertinent. The one thing I personally would have added when talking about the current state of space explorations is that we humans are pretty bad in dealing with nonlinear extrapolations (e.g. the pc or the internet exploded exponentially so it is not surprising they were not predicted, and barring political/religious pressure I see biotech doing so now, and conversely all those silly 70's predictions about global famine and the like and similar ones circulated now about this and that - all based on extrapolating linear trends when it is not the case) so space exploration may be far closer than we expect.

On another note I finally finished TGB on 2 late night reading bouts after a quick rereading of OMW (I happen to be a "work at home dad" like yourself except that my son goes to preschool not to school, so during the day I can do things in short bursts like this post, but reading a novel is for nights...). I thought TGB was a "really good" book. I enjoyed quite a lot OMW and it lends easier to rereading than TGB but it is in many ways a "popcorn" book while TGB is a "mature" book which lends itself to thinking about. I hope that TGB has at least the success of OMW since while again I tremendously enjoyed OMW there were many other writers/series that started great like OMW and then failed to keep my interest by producing sillier clones of that first book.

Liviu

Michael G. Richard | March 13, 2006 09:30 PM

Nice interview, John. I enjoyed it.

Michael G. Richard | March 13, 2006 09:32 PM

Liviu, do you have a URL for the Richard Morgan interview? I can't seem to find it on NPR's website. Thanks.

Liviu Suciu | March 14, 2006 08:43 AM

Hi,

For various podcasts try:

http://trashotron.com/agony/indexes/audio_interview_index.htm

Liviu Suciu | March 14, 2006 09:27 AM

Hi,

I posted earlier the link with audio interviews but just in case it is confused with spam, you go to Rick Kleffel's Agony column which is trashotron.com/agony and then under audio interviews there are lots of them. The one with Richard Morgan was done in 11/05 for a local NPR where Mr. Kleffel is a contributor.
Incidentally there is a great column about Mr. Scalzi's OMW under Prizing the Derivatives link.

Liviu Suciu

Michael G. Richard | March 14, 2006 11:40 AM

Thank you, I'll check it out right now.