A delightful collection of essays from science fiction author John Scalzi's blog Whatever, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded covers topics ranging from politics, writing and everything in between and it is a fascinating, well-written collection that makes you think and makes you laugh and honestly makes you want to read more of Mr. Scalzi's books as well as making his blog, Whatever appointment viewing on your daily travails through the internet.
Some standout moments: 'The Lie of Star Wars As Entertainment' with it's money quote of: "Star Wars is not entertainment. Star Wars is George Lucas masturbating to a picture of Joseph Campbell and conning billions of people into watching the money shot."
'When Stupid People Do Stupid Things, And Then Do Even Stupider Things' (this was Scalzi's thoughts on a Florida State Legislator who was caught soliciting sex in a public bathroom and then tried to blame it on his supposed fear of African Americans.) The money quote in this particular piece: "Which leads me to ask: What, is this like a Florida thing? For generations, have the white men of Florida pulled aside their sons and passed along the secret knowledge that the best way to avoid racial conflict with a black man is to offer him pizza money and a hummer?"
The titular piece is to found on page 29, 'How To Send Me Hate Mail' in which Scalzi expounds his basic rules for sending him hate mail, exhorting his detractors to use their creativity when sending him hate mail. I could honestly fill whole blog posts with quotes like this- the brilliance of Scalzi is that he is an engaging, intelligent writer who refuses to write down to his readers. He is by turns intelligent, witty, thought provoking and laugh out loud funny all of which makes him probably one of the more worthwhile commentators on the interwebs today. The punchline of this piece is that, at the very end of the book, he includes three of his favorite pieces of hate mail- all follow his rules and are worthy of the title, however this one stood out as a fine example of pith and wit: "You suck. Postscript- since the winner will be published in your book, I thought the email should be kept in line with the average attention span and intellectual capacity of your reader base." I literally laughed out loud.
Overall: This is a decade of the greatest hits of one of the best internet commentators out there- not to mention a guy who's written such extremely worthwhile books as Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades- a must read for any science fiction out there. Here's a link to his blog. Whatever. Put it in your favorites and go read it everyday- you won't regret it.
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