Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected biography/68

John Michael Scalzi II (born May 10, 1969) is an American science fiction author 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, where he has written on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several 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, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe. He was first elected president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2010, serving three terms through June 30, 2013.

Scalzi's books are known for their humor. Scalzi's first novel, Agent to the Stars, is a first-contact story about a young Hollywood agent hired by a space alien in order to make their species more appealing to humans. His first traditionally-published novel was Old Man's War, a military science fiction novel about a 75-year-old man who is recruited to fight a centuries-long war for human colonization of space. The novel was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.