Mallet of Loving Correction
“In a very real sense, Whatever is my life’s work; it’s fifteen years (so far) of me thinking about what’s going on in my life and in my world.” - John Scalzi
What sort of idiot spends fifteen years writing a blog? New York Times Bestselling author John Scalzi is that sort of idiot. And in those fifteen years the blog he’s written, called Whatever, has won awards, had its entries republished in newspapers, magazines and books, and has seen millions of readers each year come by to read Scalzi’s observations on life, the world, and just about everything that happens in both. It’s one of the most popular personal blogs on the planet.
The Mallet of Loving Correction (named for Scalzi’s method of moderating the comment sections of his site) is the second collection of entries from Whatever. It spans two elections, a civil rights revolution, the fall of MySpace and the rise of Twitter and Facebook, and a whole era on the Internet and on the planet Earth.
Nothing is sacred (“Taunting the Tauntable” is the motto of Whatever): Scalzi takes on politicians, bigots, vengeful nerds and major corporations with righteous sarcasm — and also takes time to muse on love, marriage, children and faith. Everything and anything is up for discussion, examination and explanation.
The Mallet of Loving Correction, in short, is the whole range of one human’s experience, in one easy-to-carry package.
John Scalzi
John Michael Scalzi II (born 1969) is an American science fiction author and online writer, and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Old Man's War series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog Whatever, at which he has written daily on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fanwriter in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several prominent charity drives. His novel Redshirts won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, and writing, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe.