Thursday, August 20, 2009

Nerd Alert: John Scalzi is Writing for AMC

John Scalzi is an award-winning "genre" writer--in that he writes science fiction that neatly deconstructs military culture. He's also a hilarious, intelligent, profane blogger (which appeals to me). While a lot of people find his Being Poor post his most "important" post, I happen to love his trip to the Creationist Museum.

Apparently, he's been writing columns for the AMC website for a few months now. No one fucking told me that. I've got weeks and weeks of columns to go through. And so do you if you know what's good for you.

Whether he's grading sci-fi movies by their explosions, looking for the Hugo Nominee book most likely to be made into a movie, or deciding which computers were evil and which were simply misunderstood, he's a fun read--it's like having your smart buddy come up with ridiculous topics and trick you into being interested in them.

His most recent column, which apparently has some nerds all up in arms, is an inventory of the design failures in Star Wars. It is awesome. I'll quote one, and note that when a character notes the design flaw, it is pretty hard to argue that it isn't a design flaw:

Stormtrooper Uniforms
They stand out like a sore thumb in every environment but snow, the helmets restrict view ("I can't see a thing in this helmet!" -- Luke Skywalker), and the armor is penetrable by single shots from blasters. Add it all up and you have to wonder why stormtroopers don't just walk around naked, save for blinders and flip-flops.

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