New Cover: “Fall At Your Feet”
Posted on February 21, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 6 Comments
Yes, I’ve been on a bit of a tear recently as far as covers go, but let’s just say I had a bit of a backlog from when I was writing the novel. Now that it’s been cleared off the table I have a little time to do this sort of thing. This is currently how I do my “me” time. It’s this or setting fire to things.
This song is one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands, and I had been meaning to get to it for a bit. Also for this one I had a technical project of trying to nail the vocal balance, which is for me the trickiest part of doing any of this. I think I did pretty decent job sitting it into the mix this time around. It’s fun to still be learning things.
Enjoy!
— JS
25 Years in Ohio
Posted on February 20, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 26 Comments
February marks an anniversary for us: in this month in 2001, Krissy and Athena and I moved to this house in Bradford, Ohio, so now we have been citizens of this village and state for 25 years. On the 20th anniversary, I wrote a long piece about moving here and what that meant to us, and that’s still largely accurate, so I’m not going to replicate here. I will note that in the last five years, we’ve become even more entrenched here in Bradford, as we went on a bit of a real estate spree, purchasing a church, a campground, and a few other properties, and started a business and foundation here in town as well. We’ve become basically (if not technically precisely) the 21st century equivalent of landed gentry.
It’s possibly fitting that after a quarter century here in rural Ohio, I finally wrote a novel that takes place in it, which will be out, as timing would have it, on election day this year. The town in the novel is fictional but the county is real, as it my own, and it’s been interesting writing something about this place, now — that also, you know, has monsters in it. I certainly hope people around here are going to be okay with that, rather than, say, “you wrote what now about us?” There is a reason I made a fictional town, mind you.
I continue to be a bit of an odd duck for the area, which I don’t see changing, and despite the fact the number of full-time writers in Bradford has doubled thanks to Athena. On the other hand, as I’ve noted before, my output is such that Bradford is the undisputed literary capital of Darke County, and I think that’s something both Bradford and Darke County can be proud of.
Anyway, Ohio, and Darke County, and Bradford, have been good to me in the last quarter century. I hope I have been likewise to them. We’re likely to stay.
— JS
The Big Idea: Gideon Marcus
Posted on February 19, 2026 Posted by Athena Scalzi 3 Comments
On occasion, you know the ending of your story before you start writing. Most other times, you find the path as you go, each twisting turn appearing before you as you continue on your merry way. The latter seems to be the case for author Gideon Marcus, who says in his Big Idea that he wasn’t always sure how to wrap up his newest novel, Majera.
GIDEON MARCUS:
What’s the big idea with Majera? That’s a hard one, because there are lots of threads: the unstated, obvious, valued diversity of the future, which helps define the setting as the future. That’s a familiar technique—Tom Purdom pioneered it, and Star Trek popularized it. There’s a focus on relationships: found family, love in myriad combinations. There’s the foundation of science, a real universe underpinning everything.
But I guess what I associate with Majera most strongly is conclusion.
Starting an exciting adventure is easy. Finishing stories is hard. George R. R. Martin, Pat Rothfuss. Hideaki Anno all have famously struggled with it. When Kitra and her friends first got catapulted ten light years from home in Kitra, I started them on a journey whose ending I only had the vaguest outline of. I had adventure seeds: the failing colony sleeper ship in Sirena, the insurrection in Hyvilma, and the dead planet in Majera, but the personal journeys of the characters I left up to them.
I know a lot of people don’t write the way I do. I think writers mirror the opposing schools of acting: on one end, the Method of sliding deep into character; on the other, George C. Scott’s completely external creation of an alternate personality. In the Scott school of writing, characters are puppets acting out an intricate dance created by the author. In the Method school of writing, of which I am a member, the characters have independent lives. I know that seems contradictory—how can fictional agglomerations of words achieve sentience?
And yet, they do! I didn’t plan Kitra and Marta’s rekindling of their relationship. Pinky’s jokes come out of the ether. Heck, I didn’t even come up with the solution that saved the ship in Kitra—Fareedh and Pinky did (people often congratulate me on how well I set up that solution from the beginning; news to me! I just write what the characters tell me to…)
All this is to say, I didn’t know how this arc of The Kitra Saga was going to end. But I knew it had to end well, it had to end satisfyingly, for the reader and for the characters. There had to be a reason the Majera crew would stop and take a breather from their string of increasingly exotic adventures. The worldbuilding! All of the little tidbits I’d developed had to be kept consistent: historical, scientific, character-related. There had to be a plausible resolution to the love pentangle that the Majera crew found themselves in, one that was respectful to all the characters and, more importantly, the reader’s sensitivies and credulity.
That’s why this book took longer to put to bed than all the others. It’s not the longest, but it was the hardest. Frankly, I don’t think I could even have written this book five years ago. I needed the life experience to fundamentally grok everyone’s internal workings, from Pinky’s wrestling with being an alien in a human world, to Peter’s coming to grips with his fears, to Kitra’s understanding of her role vis. a vis. her friends, her crew, her partners. In other words, I had to be 51 to authentically write a gaggle of 20-year-olds!
Beyond that, I had to, even in the conclusion, lay seeds for the rest of the saga, for there is a central mystery to the galaxy that has only been hinted at (not to mention a lot more tropes to subvert…)
Conclusions are hard. I think I’ve succeeded. I hope I’ve succeeded. I guess it’s for you to judge!
Majera: Amazon|Amazon (eBook)|Audible|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Kobo
Cover Reveal: Monsters of Ohio
Posted on February 19, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 35 Comments
Just look at this cover for Monsters of Ohio. Look at it! It is amazing. I am so happy with it. It’s the work of artist Michael Koelsch (whose art has graced my work before, notably the Subterranean Press editions of the Dispatcher sequels Murder by Other Means and Travel by Bullet) , and he’s knocked it out of the park. I am, in a word, delighted.
And what is Monsters of Ohio about? Here’s the current jacket copy for it:
In many ways Richland, Ohio is the same tiny, sleepy rural village it has been for the last 150 years: The same families, the same farms, the same heartland beliefs and traditions that have sustained it for generations. But right now times are especially hard, as social and economic forces inside and outside the community roil the surface of the once-placid town.
Richland, in other words, is primed to explode… just not the way that anyone anywhere could ever have expected. And when things do explode, well, that’s when things start getting really weird.
Mike Boyd left Richland decades back, to find his own way in the world. But when he is called back to his hometown to tie up some loose ends, he finds more going on than he bargained for, and is caught up in a sequence of events that will bring this tiny farm village to the attention of the entire world… and, perhaps, spell its doom.
Ooooooooooh! Doooooom! Perhaaaaaaaps!
If that was too much text for you, here is the two-word version: Cozy Cronenberg.
Yeah, it’s gonna be fun.
When can you get it? November 3rd in North America and November 5 in the UK and most of the rest of the world. But of course you can pre-order this very minute at your favorite bookseller, whether that be your local indie, your nearby bookstore chain, or online retailer of your choice. Why wait! Put your money down! The book’s already written, after all. It’s guaranteed to ship!
Oh, and, for extra fun, here’s the author photo for the novel:
Yup, that pretty much sets the tone.
I hope you like Monsters of Ohio when you get a chance to read it. In November!
— JS
A Secret Project is Afoot at the Scalzi Compound!
Posted on February 18, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 15 Comments
What is it? I can’t tell you! When will you be able to know? I can’t say! But when I can tell you, will I? We’ll see!
What I can tell you is that Athena is working on it with me, she’s been great to work with so far, and my decision to hire her at Scalzi Enterprises was pretty smart. Clearly I know what I’m doing all the time.
Anyway, my kid’s awesome and we’re doing cool stuff. I hope we get to share it with you. Eventually.
— JS
RIP Scalzi DSL Line, 2004 – 2026
Posted on February 18, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 28 Comments
As most of you know, I live on a rural road where Internet options are limited. More than 20 years ago, DSL became available where I live, which meant that I could ditch the satellite internet of the early 2000s, which topped out at something like 1.5mbps and rarely achieved that, and which went out entirely if it rained, for a line that had a, for me, blisteringly fast 6mbps speed.
That was the speed it stayed at for most of the next twenty years, until my provider, rather grudgingly, increased the speed to 40mbps — not fast, but certainly faster — and there it stayed. Over time the DSL service stopped being as reliable, rarely actually got up to 40mbps, and, actually started going out when it rained, like the satellite internet of old, but without the excuse of being, you know, in space and blocked by clouds.
A few months back I went ahead and ordered 5G internet service from Verizon, because it was faster and doesn’t have usage caps, which had been a stumbling block for 5G service previously. It’s not top of the line, relative to other services that are available elsewhere — usually 120+mbps, where the church’s service is at 300+mbps, and Athena’s in town Internet is fiber and clocks in at 2gbps — but it’s fast enough for what I use the internet for, and to steam high-definition movies and TV. I held on to the DSL since then to make sure I was happy with the new service, because that seemed a sensible thing to do.
No more. The 5G wireless works flawlessly and has for months, and the time has come. After 20+ years, I have officially cancelled my DSL line. A big day in the technology life of the Scalzi Compound. I thank the DSL for its service, but its watch has now ended. We all most move on, ceaselessly, into the future, where I can download stuff faster.
I’m still keeping my landline, however, to which the DSL was attached. Call me old-fashioned.
— JS
The Big Idea: Darby McDevitt
Posted on February 17, 2026 Posted by Athena Scalzi 4 Comments
The intentions behind one’s actions speaks louder than words ever could. Author Darby McDevitt leads us on a journey through the exploration of intention, desires, and consequences in the Big Idea for his newest novel, The Halter. Take the path he has laid out for you, if you so desire.
DARBY MCDEVITT:
Many years ago I worked for a video game company in Seattle that shoveled out products at a rate of four to six games per year. Most of these were middling titles, commissioned by publishers to fill a narrow market gap and slapped together in six to nine months by teams of a dozen or two crunch-weary developers. We worked hard and fast, with passion and determination, but the end results never quite equaled the ambitions we had.
A common joke around the office, told at the end of every draining development cycle, went like this: “Sure, the game isn’t fun, but the design documents are amazing.” The idea of offering consumers our unrealized blueprints in lieu of a polished game was ridiculous, of course, but it came from a place of real desperation. We wanted our players to know that, despite the poor quality of the final product, we really tried.
The novelist Iris Murdoch has a saying that I repeat often as a mantra, always to guard against future disappointment: “Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.” Here again is the notion of a Platonic ideal at war with its hazy shadow. How familiar all this is. Experience tells us that people falling short of their ideals is the natural course of life. We never live up to the best of our intentions.
In my new novel, The Halter, I compare this process of “intension erosion” to the more upbeat phenomenon of Desire Lines – footpaths worn over grassy lawns out of an unconscious need for efficiency. Desire lines appear wherever the original constraints of an intentionally designed geographic space don’t conform with the immediate needs of the men and women walking through it. In video games we use a related term – Min-Maxing – the act of looking for ways to put in a minimum amount of effort for maximum benefit. In both cases, the original, ideal use of a space or system is superseded by a desire for efficiency.
In The Halter, these same principles take hold on a grand scale inside an idealized “surrogate reality” metaverse called The Forum, where artists, scientists, and thinkers from all disciplines are invited to probe the deepest and most difficult aspects of human behavior and society. One Forum designer creates a so-called theater to explore the tricky business of language acquisition by sequestering one-hundred virtual babies together with no adult interaction. Another theater offers visitors a perfect digital copy of themselves as a companion, as a therapeutic approach to self-discovery. A third lets visitors don the guise of any other individual on earth so they may literally fulfill the empathetic idiom of “walking a mile in another man’s shoes.”
Noble intentions, arguably – yet in every case, after repeated exposure to actual human users, each theater devolves into something less than the sum of its parts. A prurient playground, or an amusing distraction, or a mindless entertainment. Shortcuts are taken, efficiencies are found, novel-uses imposed. The empathy theater is transformed into a celebrity-fueled bacchanalia; the digital doppelganger becomes a personal punching bag. The baby creche, a zoo. Each and every time, execution falls short of intention. Each theater crumbles, becoming a wreck of its original, perfect idea … and audiences are riveted.
The phenomena described here are common enough that several terms encompass them, each one differentiated for the situation at hand. Desire paths were my first exposure to the concept. The CIA calls it Blowback, when the side effects of a covert operation lead to disastrous results. Unintended Consequences and Knock-On Effects are cozier names, both of which can yield positive or negative results. And a Perverse Incentive is the related idea that the design of a system may be such that it encourages behavior contrary to its intended purpose. Taken together we begin to see the shape of the iceberg that wrecks so many perfect ideas.
I wrote The Halter to explore the highs and lows of these effects, and to shed light from a safe distance on the invisible forces that push and pull constantly at our behavior, often without our knowledge or consent. At one point in the middle of the novel, a collection of idealistic designers, most of whom have given years of their lives to the Forum designing and testing theaters of varying utility, commiserate on what they feel has been a collective failure. Their beloved theaters, they fret, have been co-opted and corrupted by The Forum visitors who have no incentive to behave or play along – they simply show up and engage in the simplest and most efficient way possible. How sad. How crushing. If only these morose designers could share their original design documents….
Their folly, in my view, was to treat their original intentions as merely a point of inspiration and not a goal to be achieved. Their error was to abandon their work in the face of a careless, sleepwalking opposition. The heroic path forward requires vigilance, not surrender, and if an outcome is unexpected, unwarranted, or undesirable, it may be more productive to tweak the inputs than blame the user.
We mustn’t fret that our perfect idea is laying at the bottom of the sea, five fathoms deep. We mustn’t fetishize our design documents – be it a holy book, an artwork, a game, a manifesto, or the U.S. Constitution – because design documents are merely static pleas for unrealized future intentions. They can always be corrupted, upended, misinterpreted. Have faith and patience. The hopeful paths are yet unmade, lying in wait for a thousand shuffling feet to score the way forward.
The Halter: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
New Cover: “But Not Tonight”
Posted on February 16, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 7 Comments
I was not expecting to make another cover so soon, so, uh, surprise: A cover of Depeche Mode’s most cheerful song, done as if Erasure decided to crack at it. Why did I do this? Because I was trying to clean up a previous version of this song that I did (it was sonically a little smeary and I hadn’t learned how to edit out when I loudly took in breaths), which necessitated laying down a new vocal track, and once I did that, one thing led to another, and here we are.
I am actually really happy with this one. I did harmonies! Intentionally! Also, I do think it really does sound kinda like Erasure covering Depeche Mode (if such a thing is a possible considering the bands share a Vince Clarke in common). I mean, I don’t sing like Andy Bell, but then, who does, so, fine. Good enough for an afternoon! Enjoy.
— JS
A Lovely Valentine’s Day Dinner At Dozo
Posted on February 16, 2026 Posted by Athena Scalzi 13 Comments
If you caught my last two posts over Dozo, Dayton’s premier underground sushi dining experience, then you already know how much I love it. What better way to celebrate the day of love than with Dozo’s special Valentine’s Day 7-course omakase style chef’s menu that offers off-menu selections and limited, intimate seating at the bar so you can watch the chefs work their magic? And trust me, it is indeed magic.
Not only was I extremely excited about the curated sushi menu and brand new sake pairing to go alongside it, but Tender Mercy (the bar that houses Dozo) posted their Valentine’s Day cocktail line-up a few days ago, and it looked incredible, as well.
Long story short, I knew my tastebuds were in for a real treat.
I booked the 8:30pm slot on their first day of offering this menu, which was Tuesday. Getting a later start to dinner than usual only made me that much hungrier for what was to come.
I got to Tender Mercy about twenty minutes early, so I just had a seat at their bar and perused the special cocktail menu:
I love this dessert cocktail menu because whatever your poison is, they’ve got it. A gin drink, a vodka cocktail, even tequila and bourbon. And, of course, a mocktail. They all sounded so delicious but also very rich, and I didn’t want to spoil my appetite with something on the heavier side (like that cheesecake foam, YUM) so I actually opted for the Pillow Princess and asked the bartender to put his spirit of choice in it. He said he recommended Hennessey Cognac (I’m pretty sure it was Hennessy Very Special but I’m just guessing from the brief look I got at the bottle).
I can’t say I’ve had Cognac all that much, but the sweet, almost vanilla-like flavor of the Hennessy worked super well in it.
I’m glad I went with the bartender’s recommendation, he’s truly a pro and has never steered me wrong before so I trust his judgement a hundred percent.
After a few minutes, it was time to get seated in Dozo. There were only six of us total at the bar, a group of three on my right and a couple on my left. Our menu was tucked into our envelope shaped napkin and I briefly surveyed what was going to be served.
Truly the most eye-catching dish was the wasabi ice cream. Listen, I trust Dozo, but man, did that sound absolutely bonkers. I held strong in my faith, though.
Per usual, I went with the sake pairing, because when else do I get to try so many different expertly curated sakes? Plus, the chef said he tried each of the sake pairings and highly recommended it.
Up first was a spicy salmon onigiri:
I wasn’t sure how spicy the salmon would actually end up being, so I had my water on standby. After getting through the warm, soft, perfectly seasoned rice, I was met with a generously portioned salmon filling that wasn’t at all too spicy! This onigiri was hands down the best one I’ve ever had, though I will admit my experience is rather limited in that department. Of course, it’s not everyday I have an onigiri, but this one definitely takes the cake.
For the sake pairing I was served Amabuki’s “I Love Sushi” Junmai. Obviously, this is a fantastic name for a sake. It says all you need to know about it right in the name, plain and simple. Jokes aside, this was a perfectly fine sake. With a dry, crisp flavor, it didn’t really stand out to me much but paired well with the umami flavor of the onigiri.
Off to a great start (I expected no less), the second course was looking mighty fine:
From left to right, we have hamachi (yellowtail), hirame (flounder), and skipjack tuna. The hamachi’s wasabi sauce packed a ton of great wasabi flavor without painfully clearing my sinuses. It had just the right amount of strength, a very balanced piece. The flounder was exceptionally tender with a melt-in-your-mouth texture. The skipjack has always been a tried and true classic in my previous Dozo experiences, and today’s serving of it was no different. All around a total winner of a course, with tender, umami packed pieces.
To accompany this course, I was served Takatenjin “Soul of the Sensei,” which is a Junmai Daiginjo. This sake is made with Yamadanishiki, which is considered to be the king of sake rice. “Soul of the Sensei” was created as a tribute to revered sake brewer Hase Toji. Much like the first sake we were served, it was crisp with a slight dryness, pairing well with the fresh fish and savory flavors. It had just a touch of melon.
Up next was this smaller course with a piece of chu toro and a piece of smoked hotate:
Both pieces looked stunning and fresh. The chef explained that chu toro is the fatty belly meat of the tuna, which is a more prized and delicious cut, a real treat. Indeed, it was very buttery and had a rich mouthfeel. I didn’t know what hotate was, but it turns out it’s a scallop, and I think they mentioned something about hotate scallops come from a specific region in Japan, but I might be misremembering. Anyways, I love scallops, but I’ve definitely never had one that’s been smoked before. It was fun to watch the chef smoke all of the pieces before dishing them out.
Oh my goodness this piece was incredible. It had a luscious texture and complex, beautifully smokiness that didn’t detract from the flavor of the scallop. It was a masterfully smoked piece of high quality, fresh scallop. Remarkable piece! Great course all around.
Instead of sake for this course, we were served a shot of Suntory Whiskey. but I have no idea which type specifically. Maybe the Toki? But also very well could’ve been the Hibiki Harmony because the shot was definitely a dark, ambery color. I wish I had a palate for whiskey, especially premium Japanese whiskey that the kitchen so generously gifted upon each guest, but truthfully it was a tough couple of sips for me. Like fire in my throat, that shit put some damn hair on my chest. Super grateful for the lovely whiskey, but sheesh it definitely burned. The chefs actually took the shot with us, how fun!
Fear not, there was some lovely mushroom and yuzu ramen on the way to ease the pain:
This ramen is actually vegetarian, made with umami-packed mushrooms and bright yuzu citrus. The green onions and drops of chili oil drizzled on top added a fantastic balance of flavors for a well-rounded, hearty, warm bowl of delicious ramen that was good to the last drop. I wish they had ramen more often, it was so great to sip on some warm broth while it was below freezing outside. I absolutely loved the stoneware bowl it was served in, I would love to have something like that in my own kitchen.
For the sake, this one was truly special. Hana Makgeolli “MAQ8 Silkysonic.” Look how CUTE these cans are! These adorable single-serve cans contain a fun, slightly bubbly, just-a-touch-sweet sake that was a great addition to the night’s line-up. It’s a bit lower alcohol content than some other sakes at 8%, making it so you can enjoy more than one can of this bubbly goodness if you so desired.
I was definitely pretty full by this point, but I powered on for this next course consisting of some torched sake, unagi, and suzuki.
It was a little confusing with the first piece of fish in this lineup being called sake, since I assumed sake was just the drink we all know and love, but sake is actually also salmon. It was fun to watch the chefs use a blowtorch to torch the salmon, as any course involving fire is a great course. The salmon had a sauce on top that I hate to say I can’t remember what exactly it was. I know, I had one job! I should’ve taken better notes, but there was so much going on between being served the sake and explained the specifics of that plus the chefs explaining the whole course, plus the couple next to me conversing with me (we had lovely conversations). It was a lot, okay! Sauce aside, the salmon was excellent and beautifully torched.
For the unagi, I actually love eel, so I knew this piece was about to be bomb. With the sweet, thick glaze on top and fresh slice of jalapeno, this piece was loaded with deliciousness. I was worried the jalapeno slice would bring too much heat to the dish for me, but it was perfect and not hot at all, just had great flavor.
The final piece, suzuki, is Japanese sea bass. There is a small pickled red onion sliver on top, it is not a worm, to be clear. Apparently the Japanese sea bass is known by different names depending on how mature the fish is, suzuki being the most grown stage of the fish. This piece was very simply dressed and the tender fish spoke for itself.
The sake for this course was Tentaka’s “Hawk in the Heavens” Tokubetsu Junmai. Much like with the food of this course, I should have taken better notes, because I don’t remember this sake at all. I don’t remember what it tasted like, my thoughts on it, nothing. I didn’t even remember the name until I looked at the menu again. I am so sorry, it is truly only because it was the sixth course and I had just taken a shot and was busy talking! Forgive me and we shall move on.
For our last savory course, it was two pieces of the chef’s choice:
The chefs said in honor of it being Valentine’s Day, they wanted to give us a bit more of a lux piece, and opted for wagyu and torched toro. Sending off the savory courses with wagyu was truly a delight, it really provided the turf in “surf and turf.” Every time I’ve had wagyu from Dozo it’s been so tender and rich, the fat just melting in my mouth. It’s also a fun novelty since I don’t really have wagyu anywhere else.
Finally, it was time for dessert. I couldn’t wait to try the wasabi ice cream:
I would’ve never imagined that wasabi ice cream could be even remotely edible, let alone enjoyable, but oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. How was this so good?! The creaminess contrasting with the crunchy wasabi peas, the perfect amount of sweetness mixing with the distinct flavor of the wasabi, LORD! It was incredibly, bizarrely delicious. The wasabi didn’t have that sinus-clearing bite to it, yet retained its unmistakable palate. What a treat.
For the final sake, I was served Kiuchi Brewery’s “Awashizuki” Sparkling Sake. I was particularly excited for this one because I love sparkling sakes, they are undoubtedly my favorite category of sake. Anything with bubbles is just better! I will say that the Awashizuki seemed to be much more lowkey on the bubbles than some other sparkling sakes I’ve had before. The bubbles were a bit more sparse and toned down, but it was still lightly carbonated enough that you could tell it wasn’t still. It was sweeter and more refreshing than the others in the evening’s lineup, which makes sense since it was the dessert course pairing. I really liked this one!
All in all, I had yet another fantastic experience at Dozo, and I absolutely loved their Valentine’s Day lineup. The limited seating at the bar made it feel all the more exclusive and special, and every course was totally delish. I got to try lots of new sakes and have really nice chats with the people next to me, and really just had a great evening all around.
The ticket for this event was $95, after an added 18% gratuity and taxes, it was more like $125. The sake pairing was $50 and I also tipped the waitress that was pouring the pairings and telling me about them. It was definitely a bit of a splurge event but hey, it was for V-Day! Gotta treat yourself. And I’m so glad I did!
Which piece of fish looks the most enticing to you? Or perhaps the ramen is more your speed? Have you tried any of the sakes from the lineup? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
New Cover Song: “These Days”
Posted on February 15, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 6 Comments
I moved my home music studio up from the basement to Athena’s old bedroom in the last couple of weeks, so now it’s time to put it to use, and for my first bit of music in the new space, I decided to record an old tune: “These Days” by Jackson Browne, first released in 1973.
Having said that, this arrangement is rather more like the 1990 cover version by 10,000 Maniacs, which was the first version of the song I ever heard. I originally tried singing it in the key that Natalie Merchant sang it in, and — surprise! — I was having a rough time of it. Then I dropped it from G to C and suddenly it was in my range.
I’m not pretending my singing voice is a patch on either Ms. Merchant or Mr. Browne, but then, that’s not why I make these covers. Enjoy.
— JS
10 Thoughts On “AI,” February 2026 Edition
Posted on February 14, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 63 Comments
Because it feels like a good time to do it, some current thoughts on “AI” and where it, we and I are about the thing, midway through February 2026. These are thoughts in no particular order. Some of them I’ve noted before, but will note again here mostly for convenience. Here we go:
1. I don’t and won’t use “AI” in the text of any of my published work. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that “AI”-generated text is not copyrightable and I don’t want any issues of ownership clouding my work, and the simple fact that my book contracts oblige me to write everything in those books by myself, without farming it out to either ghostwriters or “AI.” But mostly, it’s because I write better than “AI” can or ever will, and I can do it with far less energy draw. I don’t need to destroy a watershed to write a novel. I can write a novel with Coke Zero and snacks. Using “AI” in my writing would create more work for me, not less, and I really have lived my life with the idea of doing the least amount of work possible.
If you’re reading a John Scalzi book, it all came out of my brain, plain and simple. Better for you! Easier for me!
2. I’m not worried about “AI” replacing me as a novelist. Sure, someone can now prompt a novel-length work out of “AI” faster than I or any other human can write a book, and yes, people are doing just that, pumping into Kindle Unlimited and other such places a vast substrate of “AI” text slop generated faster than anyone could read it. Nearly all of it will sit there, unread, until the heat death of the universe.
Now, you might say that’s because why would anyone read something that no one actually took any effort to write, and that will be maybe about 5% of the reason. The other 95% of the reason, however, will be discoverability. Are the people pumping out the wide sea of “AI” text slop planning to make the spend for anyone to find that work? What are their marketing plans other than “toss it out, see who locates it by chance”? And if there is a marketing budget, if you can generate dozens or hundreds of “AI” text slop tomes in a year, how do you choose which to highlight? And will the purveyors of such text slop acknowledge that the work they’re promoting was written by no one?
(Answer: No. No they won’t).
I am not worried about being replaced as a novelist because I already exist as a successful author, and my publishers are contractually obliged to market my novels every time they come out. This will be the case for a while, since I have a long damn contract. Readers will know when my new books are out, and they will be able to find them in bookstores, be they physical or virtual. This is a huge advantage over any “AI” text slop that might be churned out. And while I don’t want to overstate the amount of publicity/marketing traditional publishers will do for their debut or remaining mid-list authors, they will do at least some, and that visibility is an advantage that “AI” text slop won’t have. Even indie authors, who must rely on themselves instead of a publicity department to get the word out about their work, have something “AI” text slop will never have: They actually fucking care about their own work, and want other people to see it.
I do understand it’s more than mildly depressing to think that a major market difference between “AI” text slop and stuff actual people wrote is marketing, but: Welcome to capitalism! It’s not the only difference, obviously. But it is a big one. And one that is likely to persist, because:
3. People in general are burning out on “AI.” Not just in creative stuff: Microsoft recently finally admitted that no one likes its attempt to shove its “AI” Copilot into absolutely everything, whether it needs to be there or not, and is making adjustments to its businesses to reflect that. “AI” as a consumer-facing entity rarely does what it does, better than the programs and apps it is replacing (see: Google’s Gemini replacing Google Assistant), and sucks up far more energy and resources. Is your electric bill higher recently? Has the cost of a computer gone up because suddenly memory prices have doubled (or more)? You have “AI” to thank for that. It’s the solution to a problem that not only did no one actually have, but wasn’t a problem in the first place. There are other issues with “AI” larger than this — mostly that it’s a tool to capture capital at the expense of labor — but I’m going to leave those aside for now to focus on the public exhaustion and dissatisfaction with “AI” as a product category.
In this sort of environment, human-generated work has a competitive advantage, because people see it as more authentic and real (which it is, to the extent that “authentic” and “real” mean “a product of an actual human brain”), and more likely to have the ability to surprise and engage the people who encounter it. I don’t want to oversell this — humans are still as capable of creating lazy, uninspired junk as they ever were, and some people really do think of their entertainment as bulk purchases. Those vaguely sad people will be happy that “AI” gives them more, even if it’s of lesser quality. But I do think in general when people are given a choice, that they will generally prefer to give their time and money to the output of an actual human making an effort, than to the product of a belching drain on the planet’s resources whose use primarily benefits people who are already billionaires dozens of times over. Call me optimistic.
Certainly that’s the case with me:
4. I’m supporting human artists, including as they relate to my own work. I’ve noted before that I have it as a contractual point that my book covers, translations and copyediting have to be done by humans. This is again both a practical issue (re: copyrights, quality of work, etc) and a moral one, but also, look, I like that my work pays other humans, and I want that to continue. Also, in my personal life, I’m going to pay artists for stuff. When I buy art, I’m going to buy from people who created it, not generated it out of a prompt. I’m not going to knowingly post or promote anything that is not human-created. Just as I wish to be supported by others, I am going to support other artists. There is no downside to not promoting/paying for “AI” generated work, since there was no one who created it. There is an upside to promoting and paying humans. They need to eat and pay rent.
“But what if they use AI?” In the case of the people working on my own stuff, it’s understood that the final product, the stuff that goes into my book, is the result of their own efforts. As for everything else, well, I assume most artists are pretty much like me: using “AI” for their primary line of creativity is just introducing more work, not less. Also I’m going to trust other creators; if they tell me they’re not using “AI” in their finished work then I’m going to believe them in the absence of a compelling reason not to. I don’t particularly have the time or interest in being the “AI” police. Anyway, if they’re misrepresenting their work product, that eventually gets found out. Ask a plagiarist about that.
With all that said:
5. “AI” is Probably Sticking Around In Some Form. This is not an “‘AI’ Is Inevitable and Will Take Over the World” statement, since as noted above people are getting sick of it being aggressively shoved at them, and also there are indications that a) “this is the worst it will ever be” is not true of AI, as people actively note that recent versions of ChatGPT were worse to use than earlier versions, b) investors are getting to the point of wanting to see an actual return on their investments, which is the cue for the economic bubble around AI to pop. This going to be just great for the economy. “AI,” as the current economic and cultural phenomenon, is likely to be heading for a fall.
Once all that drama is done and we’ve sorted through the damage, the backend of “AI” and its various capabilities will still be around, either relabeled or as is, just demoted from being the center of the tech universe and people making such a big deal about it, scaled down and hopefully more efficient. I understand that the “AI will probably persist” position is not a popular one in the creative circles in which I exist, and that people hope it vaporizes entirely, like NFTs and blockchains. I do have to admit I wouldn’t mind being wrong about this. But as a matter of capital investment and corporate integration, NFTs, etc are a blip compared to what’s been invested in “AI” overall, and how deep its use has sunk into modern capitalism (more on that in a bit).
Another reason I think “AI” is likely to stick around in some form:
6. “AI” is a marketing term, not a technical one, and encompasses different technologies. The version that the creative class gets (rightly) worked up about is generative “AI,” the most well-known versions of which were trained on vast databases of work, much of which was and is copyrighted and not compensated for. This is, however, only one subset of a larger group of computational systems which are also called “AI,” because it’s a sexy term that even non-nerds have heard of before, and far less confusing than, say, “neural networks” or such. Not all “AI” is as ethically compromised as large-scale generative “AI,” and a lot of it existed and was being used non-controversially before generative “AI” blew up as the wide-scale rights disaster it turned out to be.
It’s possible that “AI” as a term is going to be forever tainted as a moral hazard, disliked by the public and seen as a promotions drag by marketing departments. If and when that happens, a lot of things currently hustled under the “AI” umbrella will be quietly removed from it, either returning to previous, non-controversial labels or given new labels entirely. Lots of “AI” will still be around, just no one will call it that, and outside of obvious generative “AI” that presents rights issues, fewer people will care.
On the matter of generative “AI,” here’s a thought:
7. There were and are ethical ways to have trained generative “AI” but because they weren’t done, the entire field is suspect. Generative “AI” could easily have been trained solely on material in the public domain and/or on appropriately-licensed Creative Commons material, and an opt-in licensing gateway to acquire and pay for copyrighted work used in training, built and used jointly by the companies needing training data, could have happened. This was all a solvable problem! But OpenAI, Anthropic, et al decided to train first, ask forgiveness later, on the idea that would be cheaper simply to do it first and to litigate later. I’m not entirely sure this will turn out to be true, but it is possible that at this late stage, some of the companies will go under before any settlements can be achieved, which will have the same effect.
There are companies who have chosen to train their generative models with compensation; I know of music software companies that make a point of showing how artists they worked were both paid for creating samples and other material, and get paid royalties when work generated from those samples, etc is made by people using the software. I think that’s fine! As long as everyone involved is happy with the arrangement, no harm, and no foul. But absent of that sort of clear and unambiguous declaration of provenance and compensation regarding training data, one has to assume that any generative “AI” has used stolen work. It’s so widely pervasive at this point that this has to be a foundational assumption.
And here is a complication:
8. The various processes lumped into “AI” are likely to be integrated into programs and applications that are in business and creative workflows. One, because they already were prior to “AI” being the widely-used rubric, and two, because these companies need to justify their investments somehow. Some of these systems and processes aren’t tainted by the issues of “generative AI” but many of them are, including some that weren’t previously. When I erase a blotch in an image with Photoshop, the process may or may not use Generative AI and when it does, it may or may not use Adobe’s Firefly model (which Adobe maintains, questionably, is trained only on material it has licensed).
Well, don’t use Photoshop, I hear you say. Which, okay, but I have some bad news for you: Nearly every photoediting suite at this point incorporates “AI” at some point in its workflow, so it’s six of one and half dozen of the other. And while I am a mere amateur when it comes to photos, lots of professional photographers use Adobe products in their workflow, either because they’ve been using it for years and don’t want to train on new software (which, again, probably has “AI” in its workflow), or they’re required to use it by their clients because it’s the “industry standard.” A program being the “industry standard” is one reason I use Microsoft Word, and now that program is riddled with “AI.” At a certain point, if you are using 21st century computer-based tools, you are using “AI” of some sort, whether you want to or not. Some of it you can turn off or opt out of. Some of it you can’t.
(Let’s not even talk about my Google Pixel Phone, which is now so entirely festooned with “AI” that it’s probably best to think of it as an “AI” computer with a phone app, than the other way around.)
This is why earlier in this piece, I talk about the “final product” being “AI”-free — because it’s almost impossible at this point to avoid “AI” in computer-based tools, even if one wants to. Also, given the fact that “AI” is a marketing rather than a technical term, what the definition of “AI” is, and what is an acceptable level of use, will change from one person to another. Is Word’s spellcheck “AI”? Is Photoshop’s Spot Healing brush tool? Is Logic Pro’s session drummer? At what point does a creative tool become inimical to creation?
(On a much larger industrial scale, this will be an extremely interesting question when it comes to animation, CGI and VFX. “AI” is already here in video games with DLSS, which upscales and adds frames to games; if similar tech isn’t already being used for inbetweening in animation, it’s probably not going to be long until it is.)
Again, I’m not interested in being, nor have the time to be, the “AI” police. I choose to focus on the final product and the human element in that, because that is honestly the only part of the process that I, and most people, can see. I’m certainly not going to penalize a creative person because Adobe or Microsoft or whomever incorporated “AI” into a tool they need to use in order to do their work. I would be living in a glass house if I threw that particular stone.
9. It’s all right to be informed about the state of the art when it comes to “AI.” Do I use “AI” in my text? No. Do I think it makes sense to have an understanding of where “AI” is at, to know how the companies who make it create a business case for it, and to keep tabs on how it’s actually being used in the real word? Yes. So I check out latest iterations of ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini/Copilot, etc (I typically steer clear of Grok if only because I’m not on the former Twitter anymore) and the various services and capabilities they offer.
The landscape of “AI” is still changing rapidly, and if you’re still at the “lol ‘AI’ can’t draw hands” level of thinking about the tech, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage, particularly if you’re a creative person. Know your enemy, or at least, know the tools your enemies are making. Again, I’m not worried about “AI” replacing me as a novelist. But it doesn’t have to be at that level of ability to wreak profound and even damaging changes to creative fields. We see that already.
One final, possibly heretical thought:
10. Some people are being made to use “AI” as a condition of their jobs. Maybe don’t give them too much shit for it. I know at least a couple of people who were recently hired for work, who were told they needed to be fluent in computer systems that had “AI” as part of their workflow. Did they want or need to use those systems to do the actual job they were hired for? Almost certainly not! Did that matter? Nope! Was it okay that their need to eat and pay rent outweighed their ethical annoyance/revulsion with “AI” and the fact it was adding more work, not less, onto their plate? I mean (waves at the world), you tell me. Personally speaking, I’m not the one to tell a friend that they and their kid and cat should live in a Toyota parked at a Wal-Mart rather than accept a corporate directive made by a mid-level manager with more jargon in their brain than good sense. I may be a softie.
Be that as it may, to the extent you can avoid “AI,” do so, especially if you have a creative job, where it’s almost always just going to get in your way. Your fans, the ones that exist and the ones you have yet to make, will appreciate that what they get from you is from you. That’s what people mostly want from art: Entertainment and connection. You will always be able to do that better than “AI.” There is no statistical model that can create what is uniquely you.
— JS
A Friday Mlem For You
Posted on February 13, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
Saja is turning into a handsome devil. Smudge is unimpressed nevertheless.
— JS
In Many Ways the Greatest Self-Portrait I’ve Ever Taken
Posted on February 11, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 28 Comments
I think this photo captures many things, about me, about my cat, and about the relationship between the two of us. I don’t know how much more can be said. This photo may, in fact, be perfect.
— JS
The Big Idea: Kristina W. Kelly
Posted on February 10, 2026 Posted by Athena Scalzi 5 Comments
Nothing beats away a dreary February day like curling up with a cozy fantasy novel. Even better when that novel is a sapphic love story with iguana, cat, and mushroom people! Grab a seat by the fire and a cup of hot chocolate (or tea) and listen to author Kristina W. Kelly’s Big Idea as she shows you the magical world of Tea Tale.
KRISTINA W. KELLY:
What happens when you second guess who you are? When you begin to rethink what really defines you? What happens when your faith betrays you, lies, and hides truths?
Everything begins to crumble. Like a sea cliff battered by eons of waves.
And if you’re Divine, your magic goes haywire and you start to wonder if you can hear animals talk. You change. You become. Maybe not something new, but someone different.
The idea for Tea Tale started simple: I wanted to feature my favorite beverage—tea—, pay homage to my favorite video games (as I did with the first book in the series, Tavern Tale), and set it all in winter. Of course, I needed to carry through the subplots and address some of the unanswered questions from that first book. What emerged was a quest to sprinkle religious betrayal over a sapphic pairing within the framework of Role Playing Games (RPGs).
Divine is a healer. Or was a healer. Her path used to be clear: serve the Goddess of Souls by caring for the living. She’d influence emotions, heal wounds, shield others from harm. The teachings of her temple always seemed contradictory to the way she lived, though.
Her temple, like all the temples in Trelvania, said that non-humans—races like the Iguions (iguana-like bipeds), the Kellas (feline humanoids), and Thospori (think mushroom warriors)—couldn’t receive the blessings from the deities. Simply because they were non-human. Oh, the temples said something about how non-humans don’t have magical power, of course, so that’s why they couldn’t be on the receiving end of magic. But Divine had healed a Kellas child. She had healed an Iguion adult. She had done what was supposed to be impossible. Forbidden.
When I was growing up, I was taught that I was born evil. A child tainted and only by a blood sacrifice could I be saved from these sins I hadn’t even committed. These same people told me that because I was a woman, despite my music education degree, I couldn’t lead the church orchestra. I could help in the nursery with the babies, though. All the other jobs were for men. I was led to believe that god thought I wasn’t equal or as capable because of my gender. Those same people decreed “love your neighbor”, but showed that only counted for some of the population. Even though the greatest command was love, people couldn’t love whomever they wanted.
Whether sudden or gradual, I eventually found myself changed. I had sought experts who studied the historical context and the translations that made sense in that period, not a modern view. I discovered that sentences I had etched into my brain weren’t even in the texts we had been reading and that books were left or added depending on the particular flavor of faith. I learned about the practices of different cultures and religions and the history of the one I’d known. I found people who were exploring their spiritually like I was and discussed their journeys. And I began to explore who I was without all of the baggage, shame, and fear I’d been taught.
When the community you trusted had it wrong, how do you replace that feeling of community? These questions I’ve been asking you, reader, is what I attempted to capture in Tea Tale. Yes, Tea Tale is cozy fantasy, but with a sip of religious oppression.
The faire in Tea Tale is inspired by holiday events in MMORPGs and one of my favorite RPGs ever, Chrono Cross. There’s special games, unique items, decorations, and event food like the Millennial Fair in Chrono Cross. Divine’s tasting tea by the fire and listening to musicians. When she helps prepare the Sultry Sapphire tavern for the Midwinter Nights Faire, the notes of RPG influences really come through. I love a good quest chain in video games, where my character runs around the city helping ten people just to get five mushrooms back to the first quest-giver. Divine’s tasks become more tasks—side quests—as she also tries to find a gift for her romantic interest.
But while Divine does all of that, she’s also struggling to understand her magic when it seems to be acting contrary to what her temple taught her.
Just like I sought experts, Divine seeks experts to understand how magic really works in her world and how she connects to it. She talks to the non-humans who are, quite frankly, oppressed by the temples of Trelvania and uncovers that the truths her temples spout might not be the whole story. She grapples with what it means to have lived so many years within an organization that didn’t respect her enough to tell her the truth. And if she’s not that person, she wants to discover who she is.
Divine tackles replacing her religious community with those around her who support her without expecting something in return. Like me, she befriends those who are questioning the same ideas she is, or find friends who have never followed the temples. Ordinary people who come together to make a difference. A community and a found family.
Tea Tale focuses on people coming together during their Midwinter Nights Faire to enjoy each other, get creative through poetry and music, and spread joy through gift giving, food, and hot drinks. From Divine’s love interest, Saph, donating food to those in need, to Divine advocating for change in the way non-humans are treated, the characters find small ways to collectively be impactful. “If no one is being a voice,” Divine thinks, “then I should. Someone must do something.”
At its heart, Tea Tale is full of magic, tea, and cozy moments. One of the things I love about modern RPGs is that the games give your character the option to pick any love interest they want. The world of Tea Tale is just like that—it’s a queer normative. But just like life, there are lies and injustices to chip away at to free who we want to be.
I’m still learning every day who I am. It’s ok to change. To become different as I grow. If we can surround ourselves with love, empathy, and patience we can find our true power. We can crack the deceit wide open and find warmth and friendship. Together, we lay those broken pieces, starting a foundation where others can feel safe to be who they want to be while sipping hot tea that smells of lavender and vanilla. When faced with lies and disparity…become someone different.
Tea Tale: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Space Wizards
When the Moon Hits Your Eye Out in Trade Paperback Today
Posted on February 10, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 10 Comments
Yes, that’s right, the USA Today and Indie Bestseller that was also one of Amazon’s 100 Best Books of 2025, is now out in convenient trade paperback form, with a new bonus chapter: An alternate Day One which I wrote but (previously) did not use. It’s good! And a bit different. And has a cat! Because cats are cool.
Anyway, get it four yourself and buy six more for your friends and family. Saja thanks you in advance for your contribution to his Kibble Fund. It’s available wherever you choose to buy your books, and is of course also still available in ebook and audio.
— JS
Housekeeping Note, re: Emails and Big Ideas, 2/9/26
Posted on February 9, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 2 Comments
Hey, I neglected email for a bit in order to finish my book(s), including Big Idea queries, but now that they’re both in, I’m going to going to catch up with everything in the next couple of days. If you have a Big Idea query into me and haven’t heard back from me by this Friday, go ahead and resend it. Thanks.
— JS
Oh, And
Posted on February 9, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 43 Comments
Would you believe that I also completed another book since yesterday? This one is Couch Cinema: Comfort Watches from The Godfather to K-Pop Demon Hunters, a non-fiction collection of essays. No, I didn’t use “AI” or anything, I would never do that, you deserve better as readers. It’s a collection of my December Comfort Watches essays from December of 2023 and 2025, collected up in a nice single volume. I put them all together, did a light edit, added an intro, and sent it off to my agent.
As it happens, this is the first book I’ve done in years that isn’t already spoken for contractually, so we’ll see if we get any nibbles for it. If not, hey, Scalzi Enterprises was designed for just this sort of project in mind, and I wouldn’t have a problem using it as a test case to see if boutique publishing is something we have the bandwidth for. I would have to come up with a name for the imprint. We’ll find out!
Anyway. Two books in, and it’s only February. I can take the rest of the year off, right? Right?!?
— JS
Monsters of Ohio: Done!
Posted on February 8, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 35 Comments
And what is Monsters of Ohio? Why, it’s my 20th(!) novel.
What’s it about? Well, if the title is to be trusted, it’s about monsters! In Ohio!
How would I describe it? Two words: “Cozy Cronenberg.”
When can you have it? November this year.
I like it. I hope you’ll like it too.
More to come about this. Stay tuned.
— JS
Trying Out A New Recipe: Nadia’s Healthy Kitchen “Healthy Brownie Batter Bark”
Posted on February 7, 2026 Posted by Athena Scalzi 11 Comments
Though I’ve followed Nadia’s Healthy Kitchen on Instagram for years, I’m not entirely certain I’ve ever actually made anything from her before. I am not vegan, gluten-free, or overly worried about sugar being in my baked goods, so I’m not entirely sure why I wanted to make these “healthy,” vegan, gluten-free, no-bake peanut butter and chocolate brownie batter bark bars, but I did! And now I’m here to tell you how difficult they were to make, and if they’re any good.
To start things off, let’s look at the video she posted that I saw:
You know, that didn’t look too hard! Here’s the recipe so you can follow along while we take a look at the ingredients list.
Despite having King Arthur’s measure-for-measure gluten-free flour in my pantry, this recipe did not call for 1-to-1 gluten-free flour, and instead calls for oat flour and ground almonds.
Now, you might notice a typo in the recipe in the measurements section. Nadia mentions ground almonds four times in the post leading up to the written recipe, and once in the instructions portion of the recipe, but makes the mistake of typing “ground oats” right below “oat flour” in the measurements. One of the comments on her recipe actually points this out, as well.
Moving on, I did not have oat flour or ground almonds, but I did have the cocoa powder, maple syrup, peanut butter, coconut oil, dark chocolate, and, of course, salt. So there I found myself in Kroger’s baking aisle buying Bob’s Red Mill’s Gluten-Free Oat Flour which is different than their Whole-Grain Oat Flour which is not gluten-free, and their Super-Fine Almond Flour (not their Natural Almond Flour, but that one is also gluten-free). I know the recipe says ground almonds, but I figured since the almond flour is basically just really finely ground almonds it’d be like the same thing, right?
Thankfully, this recipe is measured by weight, so this ended up being a very easy, one bowl recipe in which I just dumped all the ingredients in and measured by weight the entire time (except the 2 tbsp of coconut oil and 2 tbsp of peanut butter that are separate for the ganache). You literally just weigh it out and mix it all together, easy peasy!
After mixing the “dough” together (I don’t know if it’s technically considered a dough. What are the qualifications of a dough?), you just roll it out into a thin rectangle and pour the melted chocolate and peanut butter over top, then freeze it just long enough to solidify it enough to cut into bars.
I was genuinely surprised how quick and easy this recipe was, and it’s honestly not very many ingredients. Obviously the oat flour is something that not everyone just has on hand, but if you are gluten-free then maybe that’s more of a common household ingredient for you and this would actually be super convenient for you to whip up.
Okay, so it wasn’t hard and didn’t take very long, but it did it actually taste good? Well, honestly, I quite liked it! I wouldn’t be so bold as to claim that it tastes exactly like a fresh-baked, full-sugar, non-vegan brownie, but it definitely is rich and chocolatey, with some nice flavor from the peanut butter and a melt-in-your-mouth texture. One thing I really like about them is that it can feel like gluten-free treats are always super dry and crumbly, but these are pretty fudgy and not like crumbly sand.
Honestly they look just like they do in the video, and I’m happy I gave them a whirl. I wouldn’t say they’re life-changing, but if you have a gluten-free person in your life you want to whip up a treat for, these might be a really good option.
Final note, the chocolate ganache gets pretty melty at room temp, so I recommend keeping these bad boys in a container in the fridge.
Do you like using measure-for-measure gluten-free flour for your GF recipes, or do you prefer recipes that have flour alternatives like this one? Do you like the addition of the peanut butter, or do you wish this recipe were also nut-free (then I guess the almonds would be out, too)? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
New Books and Arcs, 2/6/26
Posted on February 6, 2026 Posted by John Scalzi 17 Comments
It’s February, again, and look! The groundhog brought a bunch of books with him! What here would you like to keep with you during the coldest part of the year? Share in the comments!
— JS
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying