tamidon | Reading

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/08/hey-ai-still-sucks/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60623

I still ask “AI” questions about me from time to time, just to see what it knows about a moderately notable science fiction author and whether it will still make up things when it doesn’t know something, and as of May 8, 2026, the answer to each is “not as much as it thinks it does,” and “it definitely will.”

As always, I remind myself: If it knows this little about something I know very well, think of how little it knows about things I know nothing about. It literally cannot be trusted with anything factual (because, one again, it doesn’t know facts, it just knows what is statistically likely to be the next word), and thinking that can be is an actual intellectual hazard and fault. Don’t be the one who does that.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/08/hey-ai-still-sucks/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60623

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3243/

'Beyond that lies a vale of fire through which my vision cannot penetrate' is the kind of fun thing geologists, heliophysicists, and early universe cosmologists have a lot of opportunities to say.

https://xkcd.com/3243/

dianec42

Mr Diane & I just flew back from a week & a half in Hawaii.

While we were away, spring has f'ing SPRUNG. The trees are in leaf, the forget-me-nots have taken over the meadow, and the rhubarb is bigger than I am.

I'll write more when I'm less jet-lagged and more caught up.

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/07/the-big-idea-jill-rosenberg/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60615

While it may seem like fantasy is as far from the real world as possible, author Jill Rosenberg suggests that indulging in fantasies and fiction actually connects people instead of isolating them from reality. Dive in to the Big Idea for her newest release, Now I’m Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself, and see if our desires are really just human nature.

JILL ROSENBERG:

People often think of fantasy and the imagination as ways to escape reality, but I think there’s a more complicated and fraught relationship between the two. What we long for, the ways we wish to escape—this grows out of our real experiences of the world. But the reverse is true as well: our “real” experiences are colored by our fantasies.

We might, for example, wish to be an Olympic-level athlete, as one of my characters does, but this wish highlights the absence of her athletic talent, which may not have shown up as an absence if she’d never longed to be an elite athlete. That feeling of absence and desire drives her behavior, which changes her reality, and the resulting experience changes her understanding of herself and what she really wants.

Our imagination can’t free us from the world because our imagination is made from the world. But it can alter the way we see things and what feels possible. The first story in my collection is called “The Logic of Imaginary Friends.” This is where I present this big idea most directly. A single mother is left lonely and longing when her eleven-year-old daughter goes to sleepaway camp for the first time, so she reunites with her imaginary friend from childhood.

It’s great at first, until one imaginary friend is not enough, no matter how she morphs him in her mind to meet her shifting needs and desires. The fantasies are fun, but not satisfying, and she begins to feel that she’s choosing this fantasy life over her life with her daughter, but does she have to choose between the two?

As a child, I used my imagination to revise reality. Every Thanksgiving I’d feel so excited for my cousins to visit. I’d imagine myself gregarious, irresistible, rehearsing all of the interactions I’d have, writing their dialogue and mine. But when they arrived, I could never be that person or get the response from them I wanted.

Later that night, however, I could rewrite the dialogue to be more plausible but equally thrilling, given what actually happened. That was always my favorite part of the holiday, alone in my room, taking what happened and transforming it into the holiday I longed for. But the bigger the gulf between my fantasies and reality, the less I was able to enjoy the fantasies or the reality.

It’s this competing desire that compelled me to write these stories: the desire to be known, seen, recognized and special, to connect with those around us, and the desire to hide what makes us unique, to pretend we’re no different from everyone else.

On the one hand, my characters are often reminding themselves of their freedom. Maybe they really can be anything they want to be, but when they try to do it, out in the world, it’s not so easy. They can’t control reality or other people’s responses the way they can control their fantasies. But the more they shy away and hide from the real world, the more that fear of reality infects their fantasies, or, in the surreal stories, the events of their fantastical lives. As a result, their fantasies and their lives get weirder and worse.

Of course, my strange characters and the unusual things that happen to my characters all stem from my own strangeness and my unusual thoughts and experiences. In my real life, I do not always feel like showcasing the ways in which I deviate from the norm, but I am happy and proud to put my strange and unusual characters out into the world because I do think that fiction shows us new and different ways of being.

The role of fiction, even surreal fiction, is to bring us closer to the experience of being a human in the real world. That marriage between—and tension between—dream and reality is what I find most thrilling and ultimately satisfying in both my writing and my life.

Now I’m Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s|Watchung Booksellers

Author socials: Website|Instagram

Read an excerpt of one story from the collection: The Logic of Imaginary Friends

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/07/the-big-idea-jill-rosenberg/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60615

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/getting-decked/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60606

The current state of the new back deck: In progress!

The astute among you, who also remember anything about the previous deck, will notice two differences so far. Most obviously, those tall posts, which will serve for framing a roof, and rather less obviously, the new deck is going to be flush with the patio door where the previous one had a step down. Why did it have a step down? Because, apparently, why not. Krissy decided she could do without the step down so here we are. This will mean that the stairs from the deck to the walkway will have one more step, but this is a choice we are ready to make.

I think it’s looking good, although when it’s done we’ll have some further decorating and landscaping choices to make. This is the way of all home improvements.

More updates as warranted. Expect at least a couple more before it’s all done.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/getting-decked/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60606

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/trying-out-a-new-recipe-sugar-spiced-dreams-banana-coffee-cake-muffins/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60586

One of my friends recently told me she’s pregnant with her second child, and as much as I love nice cards I knew I wanted to do something a little more for her, so I asked her to tell me what baked good she was really craving. She answered muffins, and my muffin making journey began.

Though she never specified what kind of muffins she wanted, my mind immediately went to a coffee cake type of muffin. In my experience, coffee cake always hits the spot, and there is virtually no one who doesn’t love cinnamon and brown sugar (shout out to the one person I know who is allergic to cinnamon). I just needed to find a good recipe for such muffins.

In my search for coffee cake muffins, I came across this video, showing banana coffee cake muffins:

View this post on Instagram

I knew this recipe was the one. Banana bread vibes enhanced by cinnamon brown sugar streusel?! Yes, please!

Looking at the recipe, it’s very interesting because it uses butter, neutral oil, eggs, and sour cream. So you already know we are in for a MOIST muffin. Especially with the addition of the bananas.

Honestly this recipe is very good for a casual home baker, as there’s nothing weird or hard to come by on the ingredients list. I only had to go buy sour cream and bananas, everything else I had on hand. Though I did use the very last of my flour and brown sugar for this, so sadly I will need to replenish those on my next grocery trip.

Anyways, let me tell you, this recipe is super quick and easy and these taste so flippin’ good! They were so good that I decided to make them again, and this time document it for y’all. So technically this was my second time.

Here’s the ingredients lineup:

King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose flour, Domino dark brown sugar and granulated sugar, Nielson-Massey vanilla, Kerrygold unsalted butter, two bananas, Daisy sour cream, two Vital Farms brown eggs, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.

If you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll notice I left the oil out of the photo. That was an accident, so just imagine a tall bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil in the photo. Thanks.

The recipe says to make the streusel first, and I have no arguments against that, so I did! The first time I made it, my butter was cold and cubed like the recipe says, but the second time it was definitely not as cold. But the streusel turned out fine, in my not-so-expert opinion:

A bowl full of crumbly brown streusel. Looks like wet sand, really.

You want your streusel to kind of be like wet sand. At least, that’s what I’ve heard in the past. I covered this with a tea towel and put it in the fridge while I worked on the batter.

The first step of the batter is to mash the bananas and mix in all the wet ingredients. Finally a recipe that adds the bananas to the wet ingredients instead of making you add them at the end. Lookin’ at you, Joy of Cooking.

It says to mix until smooth and glossy, and that’s looking pretty glossified to me:

A bowl of beige sludge with a whisk in it.

For both times I made these muffins, I actually did not melt the butter fully. It was just very, very soft butter, not liquid. So, melt if you want, but I don’t think it matters too much. Everything whisked together super easy!

In the recipe, it says to mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then fold into the wet ingredients, but why not make this a one bowl batter and just throw the dry ingredients in right on top of the wet, and then mix? Makes more sense to me. Here’s the completed batter:

A big bowl of beige batter!

I always use cupcake liners because I hate trying to get muffins unstuck from the pan, plus my pan is kind of not in incredible shape. It’s seen better days, so liners it is.

The recipe says to fill the cups halfway, then add a layer of streusel, then pour more batter and finish off with a top layer of streusel. So here’s the tricky part. How do you know how much streusel to use on the half-cup-layer to ensure that you have a decent amount in the layer, but also ensure that you don’t use too much and make it so the top layer is weak? You have to prioritize the top layer’s condition, but make sure there’s at least some in the middle.

Honestly, my line of thought is to have a decent crumble, but make sure you’re not completely covering the batter. Like you want to be able to see the batter. Then, when you do the top layer, that’s when you cover the batter completely and make it a very full layer of streusel that can’t be seen through. So here’s the half layer:

A dozen half full cupcake liners topped with some streusel.

See how there’s like, a good amount of crumbles in there but you can still clearly see the batter through the spaces? Here’s the top layer:

The final state of the muffins before baking. Each liner is full to the top and has a bunch of streusel on top.

Almost no batter visible at this point. I used every crumb of streusel in the damn bowl (ignore the streusel crumbs in the middle parts of the pan). These were ready to bake.

One interesting thing about this recipe that I haven’t really seen before is that she says to bake them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and then reduce the temperature to 350 after five minutes, without opening the oven door. How intriguing! I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Regardless, I listened and reduced it to 350 and baked for 13 minutes since it said 12 to 15.

They come out a little ugly, but they smell incredible:

A tin full of baked, golden brown muffins!

The streusel sort of just melds into the top of the muffin instead of being a defined layer on top, so they just kinda look bumpy and weird. But I promise they taste damn good. Look at that crumb!

The cross section of the soft muffin, presenting a moist crumb and golden brown exterior.

These are super soft, moist, flavorful muffins with a delish crunchy, sweet cinnamon streusel topping. There’s cinnamon in the streusel and the batter itself, so you’re getting a lot of warm flavor here. The banana is an enhancement, not a detraction.

I gave the first batch to my friend like I mentioned, and she told me they were “AMAZING” and “insanely good” and literally told me to come back and get one immediately so I could try it myself. Thankfully, I had enough ingredients to make a second batch shortly after, and now y’all can try it for yourself.

Some of the muffins from the first batch had a weird issue of sinking in a little bit on the top in the middle, but the second batch didn’t have that issue. Not sure why.

Anyways, this recipe is going to be one I return to often. These are perfect just to gift to friends and family, or have on hand for a morning snack with your coffee. I highly recommend giving them a try.

Do you like banana bread or coffee cake better? Would you try this delish combo? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/trying-out-a-new-recipe-sugar-spiced-dreams-banana-coffee-cake-muffins/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60586

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3242/

Scientists occasionally invent alternative periodic table layouts, which is usually a sign that they don't have enough enrichment in their enclosures.

https://xkcd.com/3242/

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/the-big-idea-andrew-dana-hudson/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60579

While we all know that technically our lives could end at any moment, sometimes that fact can feel far away. Author Andrew Dana Hudson brings that little known fact into the spotlight in his newest novel, Absence. Come along in his Big Idea as you think about what you would be leaving behind if you were to suddenly, mysteriously, become absent.

ANDREW DANA HUDSON:

What if people could disappear at any moment? How would the world adapt?

We were a year into the pandemic, and I was riding my bike, trying to get out of the house I’d kept myself cooped up in since the previous March. I found myself thinking about the weird pseudo-raptures that had shown up in pop culture over the last few years, like the “Thanos Snap” in the Avengers movies, or the “Sudden Departure” in The Leftovers—big supernatural events that impact everyone all at once. Where were the slow, crawling, banal supernatural disasters? Metaphysical catastrophes less like the rapture and more like the pandemic, or climate change: complex, unfolding, uneven, during which people have to go on living their lives despite unprecedented circumstances.

I got home, got off my bike, and wrote what would become the first chapter of my novel Absence. In this world, people are vanishing into thin air—with a loud popping sound—but it isn’t all at once. It’s one by one by one. Sometimes there are spikes, but mostly it’s ambient. It can happen to anyone, any time, which means everyone is wondering when it’s going to happen to them or their loved ones. Some fear it, others ignore it. A few are eager for it, for wherever people go when they pop. There are fakers and scammers and conspiracy theorists. A few tired bureaucrats try their best to manage the situation. We develop new norms and institutions and infrastructure, without ever ceasing to feel that it’s all so strange.

For me, writing this book was a way to process and capture in fiction the looming dread that I’d felt over my shoulder ever since the first COVID lockdowns. It was existential as much as epidemiological. A fear that an invisible force could reach into my life and take away someone whose presence I’d relied on.

Of course, people have always been mortal, fragile. We’re all a heart attack or a car accident or a well-placed meteor away from being out of the picture. But during that first pandemic year, that inherent human fungibility felt much more present in daily life and public spaces. And when people did get sick, they often disappeared, into quarantine or ICU intubation or, in a few places, mass graves. Death became both more and less present in our lives, and that was something I wanted to explore.

So what would you do? How would you live if you or the people you care about might be gone tomorrow, or the next second? And how would we as a society cope if we couldn’t rely on everyone showing up every day to do the jobs that keep all the economic gears turning together?

In Absence, drivers vanishing on the highway cause enough crashes that solo car travel is discouraged, and pilots popping mid-flight have travelers feeling safer on trains. Theater productions need extra understudies. A lot quickly becomes automated. People try to keep an eye on each other, because the worst thing is to disappear without anyone to tell your loved ones you’re gone. Trust in institutions erodes—which we’ve seen happen in our world too, but here is supercharged by the impossible-to-explain nature of this supernatural phenomenon.

When I started, I thought I was writing a short story. Instead, I found this premise just kept on giving me new wrinkles to explore, and so I kept writing, until I had a whole novel with a twisty mystery and a messy X-Files–style romance. And lots of jokes, since as dark as it was, 2020 was the funniest year of my life. Everyone was suddenly online together, riffing about the many absurdities of our new situation and flailing government. I spent half my days in group chats, laughing at bad memes until I cried. Tragedy and farce were all rolled up in one.

It’s always bothered me that we never got vaccine Mardi Gras, a sudden moment in which we could all hug each other and dance together without fear. We just got more unfolding, more arguments, more slow disaster. For me, exploring this big idea and writing this book eventually provided a lot of that catharsis I’d looked forward to.

My initial big idea turned out to have a lot to say about COVID culture and how we’ve been frog-boiled by climate breakdown, but also about how uncertain and contingent life is and has always been. We tell our family and partners we’ll always love them, but often it doesn’t work out that way. We make plans and then throw them to the wind. We think we’re on solid ground, and it turns out to be so much quicksand. That’s just part of being human. Finding meaning and companionship despite all that is the challenge we wake up with every day, each day perhaps the last before something makes us pop.

Absence: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s

Author socials: Website|Instagram|Facebook|Threads|Substack

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/06/the-big-idea-andrew-dana-hudson/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60579

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/05/the-big-idea-martha-conway/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60563

Do we as a society tend to abide by the phrase, “if you love something, let it go,” or are we more likely to dig our claws in and refuse to part ways? Author Martha Conway discusses in the Big Idea for her newest novel, We Meet Apart, just how impactful the absence of family members and loved ones can be, and what it feels like to be left behind.

MARTHA CONWAY:

When I was twenty-three, three of my five older sisters divorced themselves from our family. They took care to tell me that their issues were with my parents, not me, but nevertheless, I didn’t see or hear from them in over ten years. They didn’t attend my wedding, which hurt me deeply—it seemed to me that their non-relationship with my parents was more important to them than a relationship with me.

My feelings back then were tumultuous. I missed my sisters, I was angry, I was confused, and I was sad—often, it felt like, simultaneously. Later, when my mother died quite suddenly, I felt the same way: an avalanche of mixed emotions.

What do you do when a loved one leaves, or dies? Would you follow them if you could, even if it meant giving up your own independence, your own future? And how do you honor all the many emotions you feel without drowning in them?

In my speculative historical novel We Meet Apart, two American sisters find themselves stranded in Ireland in 1940, but in two separate worlds. They believe their whole family has died. One sister, Gaby, is devastated with grief but lives a comfortable life; her younger sister Sabine is angry and must fight to survive in a war-torn country. When they finally meet—for only an hour a day, at dusk, in that thin veil between two worlds—they must decide whether to stay together or part, probably forever. Staying together is familiar and comfortable, but it doesn’t allow for their personal growth. Parting means growth, separation, and possibly danger.

As I was writing this novel I found myself wondering: can a person give up a loved one voluntarily? And what are the consequences? What are the consequences of hanging on?

The older I get, the more often I hear a similar story to my own from friends and acquaintances: they have a family member who is “off stage” or “out of the family” or “not speaking to the rest of us.” The shame I once felt around my own broken family has lessened, knowing that others have had this experience, too.

Today I have a good relationship with two of these sisters, but it took time. Partway through writing We Meet Apart, when it became clear to me that one sister was going to go her own way, I felt a kind of acceptance. Children grow up, families change, siblings relocate, and the nuclear family shifts into another form. Sometimes, when it happens suddenly and without warning, it feels more impactful. But it always happens, to one degree or another. As the saying goes, the only constant in life is change.

We Meet Apart: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop

Author’s Socials: Website|Facebook|Instagram|Substack

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/05/the-big-idea-martha-conway/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60563

chhotii

Not much new. I'm trying to focus harder on work. I have a habit of reading the Internet on my phone while having my morning coffee, and the outrage of it all gets my blood boiling, which gets my attention and focus off to a choppy start to the day. Plus, the work day keeps getting punctuated by having to wait for tests to run, the computer to reboot, etc., giving me the unfortunate opportunity to look out at the state of the world again. After not getting done what I was supposed to at work last week, I resolved to be more heads-down and shut out everything else other than the open Jira ticket in front of me.

I'm working on the small details of how to configure some cloud resources, and how to write the test code to test to the configuration code, without doing some really smelly duplication of code that figures out these small details. I don't know if I'm focusing on this hard enough to get things done in a timely fashion. But I am focusing hard enough on this to manage to not think all day about just how much I hate Trump and how much I fear what he stunt he's going to pull to try to avoid the ignominious electoral defeat he's earned. Success!

Except... yesterday... I took my eyes off the code for a minute to try to find the perfect emoji to react to something on Slack, and found that some coworker had created a custom Trump emoji. Why? Do they like the guy? Do they just think he's funny?

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3241/

It started as a mistake that everyone was afraid to admit to, and then it stuck because removing it 'looks silly.'.

https://xkcd.com/3241/

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/05/im-in-time-magazine-today/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60556

Would you look at that, TIME asked me to chime in on what tech innovation defines American life at the moment, and while my answer is not surprising (a few others in this list also picked it, in one variation or another), I think my answer might have been slightly more poetic than the other answers here.

Nevertheless, it’s the first time I’ve ever been asked to write anything for the magazine; I have cropped up before in articles on various subjects but here I’ve actually contributed, even if it’s just a couple sentences. It counts! “Scalzi has written for TIME Magazine” is going into my bio now! For a former journalist, this feels like a proverbial feather in the proverbial hat.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/05/im-in-time-magazine-today/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60556

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/04/an-unexpected-culinary-adventure-at-the-denver-airport/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60495

What’s the deal with airline food? Jokes aside, airport food is known by and large to be rather pricey while also being not so fantastic of quality. If you fly a lot, you know your options are limited to packaged snack foods, dubious egg salad sandwiches, or the world’s coldest bowl of soup from the A gate Chili’s. A fun-size candy bar isn’t so fun when it’s $5, is it?

Why is airport food so bad? Surely there has to be another way, right? Can’t we have decent meals at decent prices, or is it truly impossible because of the fact you’re in an airport?

Well, I’m happy to report there is an airport that has the solution to our problems. The Denver International Airport.

I have flown through Denver more than a few times, but never had time during my connections to explore. Maybe a quick coffee, sure, but definitely not enough time to wait an hour on a waitlist for a speakeasy hidden behind a bookstore facade. Until now.

For a myriad of reasons, I found myself at the Denver Airport at about 11am and my flight wasn’t until 5pm. The only other time I’ve had quite that much time at an airport was a layover at Heathrow, and since I was with my father we went to the Centurion Lounge for the entirety of the five hours and I ate tons of food and binged The Bear.

Also, quick shout out to the transportation company that took me to the airport. Groome Transportation picked me up at their Monument Park-n-Ride location and I had a very pleasant shared shuttle ride. The driver was very friendly and safe on the road, and helped me with my bags. It was fifty dollars and a little over an hour to the airport. I have had much shorter drives for considerably more money when using Lyft, so if you don’t mind sharing a big ol’ shuttle with a friendly driver, Groome may be of interest to you! They have a ton of different locations and airports they go to.

Back to the actual airport, I was worried about TSA lines (despite the large amount of time I had to kill), but because I was Sky Priority with Delta and have CLEAR, I actually got through security very quickly and smoothly. Having money is a hell of a convenience.

I wanted a sit down restaurant to have lunch at, so I asked the Delta check-in agent for recommendations (there was no one in line behind me). He told me to check out Root Down in the C gates, so off I went.

Root Down is actually a restaurant in Denver, so this airport version, called Root Down DIA, is their second location. They are two of five restaurants under the Edible Beats family. Edible Beats is a 100% employee-owned business, and are committed to offering seasonal veggie-forward dishes through sustainable practices, like being 100% wind-powered and having 50% of their ingredients sourced right from Colorado.

When I got to the restaurant, there was a line to be seated, and I ended up waiting about fifteen minutes for a table for one. There’s also a grab-and-go kiosk of some of their menu items if you don’t have time to wait. I was sat at a two top table and brought water and menus.

I was offered both the brunch/lunch menu and the all-day menu because there was about fifteen minutes left on their brunch offerings. So I really had my pick of the litter.

For a beverage, I wanted something fun but wasn’t feeling alcohol (yet), so I got their Coconut Gin Fizz cocktail. It is listed as available as N/A, so it ended up being coconut milk, lime, ginger, and soda water. I thought I got a picture of it, but I guess I didn’t! It was in a short glass with ice and a pineapple frond as a garnish. The drink was creamy and nicely sweetened while still being refreshing and just a little fizzy, with enough ginger to give it flavor but not enough to overwhelm it. Very nice beverage!

For my food, I had a really hard time deciding, but I ended up going with their Green Chili Cornbread Bites, followed by their Beet & Goat Cheese Salad.

The cornbread bites came with goat cheese, jalapeno jam, and a whipped honey butter. I asked for the jalapeno jam on the side just in case it was too spicy for me:

A big black plate with three pieces of cornbread on it. Each piece has some nice color on it, with butter on top and some chives. The jalapeno jam is on the side in a little plastic container.

These three pieces cost $9.60, and they were so bomb. I love cornbread, and this warm, soft cornbread really hit the spot. The jalapeno jam proved too hot for my weak self, so the cornbread was thoroughly enjoyed without it.

For their beet salad, it came with goat cheese, arugula, radish, hazelnuts, beet-sunflower pesto, and basil vinaigrette:

A large white bowl containing a ton of beets, arugula, goat cheese, and drizzled with sauces.

Okay, first off, this salad was HUGE. Secondly, oh my gosh it was so good. I have had many a beet and goat cheese salad in my day, but this one really takes the cake. Like, holy cannoli, it was seriously fantastic. The mix of regular beets and golden beets was a really nice touch, the hazelnuts provided some excellent crunch to contrast the soft goat cheese (which they did not skimp on), and the flavors were so fresh it felt like I was eating right out of a summer garden.

This salad cost $20, but honestly for the size and quality it’s a small price to pay. I am still thinking about this damn salad.

Of course, I had to get some dessert. I chose their Avocado Key Lime Pie that comes with a chocolate crust and passionfruit coulis:

A big ol' slice of pie on a small black plate.

Holy cow that’s a lot of pie! Now, it was $12 for the slice, so it makes sense it’s a big ol’ piece. I actually ordered the pie out of curiosity more than anything, because I was wondering if an avocado pie would taste good. This pie was definitely very interesting. If you do not like avocado at all, do not get this pie. While the flavor of avocado was more subtle and not as grassy as it usually is, it was definitely still very present, just toned down and sweeter. The chocolate crust was my least favorite part of this pie, but the passionfruit coulis was the star of the show with its bright, punchy, tropical flavor that helped cut through some of the extra sweet indulgent fluff. Glad I tried it, but would probably opt for their butterscotch pudding next time.

Root Down had so many vegan and gluten-free options, I highly recommend checking this place out if you have dietary restrictions, or if you just want to have a really fresh tasty meal while traveling without breaking the bank! My total was fifty bucks before tip.

After my delicious and filling lunch, I decided to treat myself to a massage, and got a 20-minute chair massage from Colorado Oasis, also in the C gates. It was so relaxing I started to drift off towards the end. I usually prefer to get massages in between flights so I’m not so stiff from the first leg of the journey, but I was plenty happy to get one before my flight.

Finally, I made my way to the A gates, where my flight was leaving from. I wasn’t sure what to do with all my time, since I had left my new book at my friend’s apartment on accident. Just then, I ended up walking past what might have been the smallest airport bookstore I had ever seen. Just a few bookshelves in an alcove. I walked past at first, but then stopped and doubled back when I realized I saw something strange at this bookshop. A host stand.

When I went back, there were two people at the host stand, talking to the hostess about wait times. Wait times for what?! I had to know. Turns out, the bookstore was a front for a speakeasy called Williams & Graham. Wouldn’t you know it, they also have an actual Denver location only a block away from Root Down. How funny!

Obviously, I had to put my name on the waitlist. She estimated a 45 minute wait for me. Well, I certainly had the time to kill, so I sat and waited excitedly. It ended up taking closer to an hour, but I finally got escorted in and seated at the bar. It was an intimate atmosphere, with low lighting and warm woods. Once I was sat, the bartenders welcomed me by name and introduced themselves, as well. That was a pleasant surprise in formality.

I was handed this soft, leather-bound menu:

A long, rectangular, soft leather menu booklet with a golden Williams & Graham on the front.

Here’s a look at the food offered at this fine establishment:

A list of appetizers and entrees taking up the first page of the booklet menu. Also a couple desserts.

A moment of admiration for this frog legs description:

Frog legs: 3 thicc frog booties marinated and fried, served on arugula with curry aioli and lemons.

I’m willing to forgo the classiness and old-world feel of a swanky speakeasy if it means reading the words “3 thicc frog booties.”

And of course, bevvies:

An extensive list of classic cocktails, featuring drinks like Paper Planes, a Penicillin, a Caipirinha, and a Cosmopolitan, to name a few.

Can’t go wrong with the classics, but don’t miss out on their house cocktails, either:

A slightly smaller list of specialty house cocktails.

That being said, I did end up ordering a Caipirinha for my first drink:

A short glass filled with ice and limes and of course, my drink.

(This photo was after I had my first drink of it, so that’s why it’s not completely full.)

Y’all already know I love a refreshing Caipirinha. I never get tired of that tart, acidic limes and sweet demerara sugar combo. This drink was so light and fresh and they gave me hella limes in my glass. I watched them make it right in front of me and was mesmerized by the muddling to release all that delish flavor. Great drink, no notes.

As tempted as I was to order the frog legs, I ended up trying out the deviled eggs instead:

A round white plate holding five deviled eggs, with a bed of greens in the middle. Each egg has bacon and greens on top.

There is no description on the menu for what comes on these, so I’ll tell you myself. Candied bacon, feta, and serrano peppers. Notice something missing? That’s right, once again my weak palette has made me opt out of the spicy ingredients in a dish! I asked for them sans serrano. I’m sorry, okay!

I did not think I could eat five deviled eggs in a row, but I definitely did and they were amazing. The filling was smooth and flavorful, and the candied bacon was the perfect mix of smoky and sweet. The microgreens added a fresh component that brightened up the heavier components, and it’s safe to say I’d gladly eat another plateful of these right now.

I wasn’t sure what to order for a second drink, but I started talking to the bartender and we bonded over our intense love for espresso martinis. About two minutes later, he just so happened to have an extra espresso martini lying around that needed drank:

A martini glass full of espresso martini with a beautiful design on top of the foam, and three espresso beans, as is tradition.

Okay what a gorg martini! That foam design is amazing, I’ve never had any bar do that before. I loved this espresso martini, the sweet cream on top perfectly balanced the rich, Italian espresso liqueur and cold brew. I said I was happy to pay for the drink because I was planning on ordering it anyways as my second drink, but the bartender insisted it would’ve gone to waste otherwise and really I was doing him a favor by drinking it. I graciously accepted.

Since I had passed up on the unique experience of trying frog legs, I decided to instead try bone marrow for the first time. For their bone marrow, it was a roasted beef bone topped with bacon jam and microgreens, with ciabatta toast on the side:

A bone, split in half to reveal the roasted marrow inside, topped with bacon jam and microgreens, and served with toasted ciabatta on the side.

Y’all, the presentation is absolutely serving. Like it’s giving class, it’s giving sophistication, okay. You can’t tell me that doesn’t look like the most amazing bone marrow you’ve ever seen. Granted, my experience is limited but I was so ready to dive into this.

Rarely has such incredible flavor graced my tastebuds. This bone marrow had the most luxurious, buttery texture. It was like liquid, fatty gold. The bacon jam was rich and chewy, and all of these textures went perfectly on the crusty ciabatta toast. I was soaking that shit UP. No crumb went un-ate here. I was scraping those bones clean. I cannot believe this was only $23 and it’s actually only $20 at their main location. (Similarly, the main location has the deviled eggs for $10 instead of $11.)

If you have not had bone marrow, or have been too scared to try it, I’m telling you right now you will not regret giving it a shot. I have been dreaming about this dish, and honestly I’m hoping to find another restaurant soon that has it on the menu. I need more marrow in my life. I never imagined it would be that good.

My bill ended up being just over $50 since I got a drink on the house (again, incredibly generous, thank you to my bartender <3). Any time I get something on the house, I like to tip as if I had had that item on the bill. Of course, in the instance of one drink that means just a couple bucks extra on the tip, but I figure that’s a decent guideline to go by.

Not only did I have incredible service, drinks, and food at Williams & Graham, but I also sat next to a girl at the bar who was also by herself. We started chatting and it turned out we had so much in common, and she was so sweet and fun to talk to! When we both paid and left, she asked if we could get a photo on her little film camera for her travel scrapbook. I said of course, and also gave her a Colorado sticker I had bought at a gift shop so she could use it in her scrapbook. I was so grateful to have such a nice dining companion!

If you have the time to spare, I cannot recommend these places enough. It’s amazing to see that you can have high quality, from scratch kitchens that are dedicated to good food, good drinks, and good service in an airport. No longer shall we settle for McDonald’s and Dunkin’ when we can have craft kitchens and talented bartenders.

Who knew getting to the airport early could be so amazing? (Do NOT get to the Dayton or Cincinnati airports that early, you will be disappointed and bored.)

Would you try bone marrow (or if you have, do you like it?) Do you prefer your eggs deviled or undeviled? Does Root Down’s veggie-forward fare interest you? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/04/an-unexpected-culinary-adventure-at-the-denver-airport/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60495

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Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/04/the-big-idea-matt-harry-2/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60534

In his new novel Ashland, author Matt Harry posits a world that is a little bit… gooey. If you don’t know what that might mean, or what it would mean for anyone who has to live in that world, never fear, Harry is here to get you up to speed. Here, put on this protective clothing before we go any further.

MATT HARRY:

Science fiction is riddled with tropes. The mad scientist, the killer robot, the first contact with aliens. My personal favorite has always been the concept of gray goo – an end-of-the-world scenario envisioned by K. Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation. Basically, it centers on the creation of a self-replicating technology that grows and grows until it devours all the biomass on Earth.

It’s a pretty depressing concept, but one that never seemed particularly feasible to me. How could a single organism affect the entire globe at once? Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Everything shut down and everyone shut themselves inside. As I walked through the empty streets, I found myself pondering a simple question: How could this be worse? That was immediately answered by a follow-up question:

What if we never went outside again?

Such a dystopian idea, I realized, could be due to my own version of gray goo. I considered a lot of options: nanotechnology, viruses, alien organisms. I reached out to an infectious disease doctor and a robotics expert for inspiration. Eventually, I came across an invention that blends multiple fields – organic microbots. These tiny organisms are created in a lab and programmed to perform simple tasks, such as drug delivery, pest control, or anticancer treatments.

But what would happen if these microbots went rogue? That question led me to create the Ash. This self-replicating swarm of organic microbots is developed to destroy cancer cells, but a programming error leads it to target muscle proteins instead. Of course, the Ash gets out, and twenty percent of humanity is killed in the first month. To survive, people are forced to seal themselves inside plastic-coated buildings. If they have to go outside, they need to wear hazmat suits or use remote-operated drones.

Now that I had the what and the why for my dystopian world, I needed the where. Since I’ve lived in Los Angeles longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, I decided to make my hometown the main setting for Ash Land. LA is a sprawling, sunny, outdoors-oriented city, so it felt particularly brutal to trap everyone inside.

Finally, I needed a who. What sort of character could I toss into this dystopian nightmare? A romantic seeking connection? An action hero? Eventually, I decided that a detective would be a fun choice. Trying to solve a mystery while the protagonist is unable to collect evidence or interrogate suspects in a normal manner immediately gave me lots of ideas. To make things a bit easier, I imagined someone pretty similar to myself: middle-aged, father of two boys, loves pop culture and solving a good puzzle. Unlike me, I decided to make him a divorced ex-cop and a pain in the ass. (For confirmation on that last part, you’ll have to talk to my family.)

Every day during the pandemic, I would drive around my then-five-year-old son, trying to get him to fall asleep so I could write for a couple hours. I would park somewhere scenic, and look out over the empty City of Angels while imagining a scenario much worse than my current one. It was oddly therapeutic. The concept of Ash Land led me to develop all kinds of near-future trappings: air locks on every entrance door, transport pods nicknamed coffins, a dangerous gang of scavengers known as Scrappers, and a system of sealed walkway tubes that leads to Griffith Observatory.

Ultimately, I tried to create a gray goo scenario that is plausible, unique, and will hopefully remind readers of humanity’s resilience. After all, if our world can weather Covid-19, I believe we can find a way to fix our other problems, too. Ideally it won’t take a swarm of flesh-eating microbots to make us do so.

Ashland: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s

Author Socials: Web Site|Facebook|Instagram

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/04/the-big-idea-matt-harry-2/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60534

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Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/04/and-now-i-reveal-the-contents-of-my-fbi-file/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60503

Turns out… it’s nothing.

I sent in a Freedom of Information Act request in April, after the unpleasantness regarding the Correspondent’s Dinner attacker, because I was curious if it or indeed anything else had gone down on my permanent record. Nope! If you believe the FBI — admittedly more difficult in these latter days than it was before — I have no record in their files. Apparently despite my three decades of writing in the public eye and two decades of being reasonably well-known author, nothing I have done (or that others have said about me) is cause for the FBI to say to itself “maybe we should keep track of him.”

Which, I guess, good? I had assumed there might be something, even if it was tangential and/or primarily related to other people with bigger and more substantial files. People have had FBI files for even less suspicious activity than I have ever offered to the world. But no, there’s nothing of note. At least now I don’t have to pay the extra that would have been required if the search had needed more than a couple of hours to dig out everything the bureau had on me. My search was quick! And cheap!

I suppose the FBI could be lying about having a file on me, but in all sincerity I doubt it. I know my own past and it is both law-abiding and, from the perspective of law enforcement, boring; I’ve never been cited for anything worse than speeding, and even that was more than a decade ago. And no matter how much certain right-wing bile-spewers on the Internet want to paint me as a flaming socialist threat to decent society for writing books they don’t like (also something that peaked more than a decade ago), in reality there’s nothing in my political beliefs or actions that paints me as terribly subversive. The most “subversive” thing I’ve done is donate money to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and even that doesn’t rate, not even now when the current administration is (laughably) trying to go after them. We all have to live with the reality that I am, in fact and officially, a step below “mostly harmless.”

It’s never too late to get an FBI file, I hear some of you saying. You are not wrong, and also, I’m not sure how I would be going about doing that. I am not, as it turns out, getting more conservative with age, which is a thing people used to say would generally happen. My rather unremarkable principles turn out to be more radical as I go along, if only because the political center in the US has shifted so wildly right while I have mostly stayed in the same place. But clearly that’s not enough to rate interest in itself. My own revolutionary action, such as it is, is less about taking it to the streets (Bradford, OH is not a hotbed of protest marches) and more about openly donating money, both individually and through our family foundation. The IRS has a file on me, for certain. I’ve seen that.

So: No FBI file after all. Which, fine and good. I don’t suppose if the FBI or any other “alphabet” organization in our government really wants to find out more about me, that they would lack public information to do so. They could start here, the official repository of my thoughts for the last 28 years. Hello, FBI and everyone else! There’s a search function here! Have fun!

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/04/and-now-i-reveal-the-contents-of-my-fbi-file/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60503

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Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/02/view-from-a-hotel-window-5-2-26-chicago-il/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60497

I’m staying north of the river, which is unusual for me. Also, the parking lot you see in the photo isn’t for my hotel. But it is a parking lot! Forms were obeyed.

I’m on town because tomorrow I’m in conversation with Joe Abercrombie about his latest book The Devils, and if you’re curious to see us I believe tickets may still be available. If you’re not curious to see us, fine, I guess, we’ll just sit there staring awkwardly at each other for an hour or so, I mean, whatever, it’s fine. It’s fine.

Ironically, this weekend is the 35th reunion for the University of Chicago Class of 1991, of which I am a part, and I am missing those festivities for this, and I feel a bit of a heel about it. Sorry, Class of ’91. You know you’re awesome.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/02/view-from-a-hotel-window-5-2-26-chicago-il/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60497

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Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/01/back-to-the-very-very-basics/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60485

For reasons that are not important now, I have found myself in the possession of a lightly used but still somewhat recent Asus Chomebook, of the sort that one can pick up for less than $200, with 4GB RAM, 64GB of onboard storage, a less than spectacular screen resolution, and a keyboard without backlighting, which means on this dark gray version that once the lights dim, its usefulness will compromised for all but the most talented of touch-typers. It’s been a while since I’ve used something this basic (I’m writing this piece on it now), and inasmuch as my daily driver laptop is a reasonably specced-out M4 MacBook Air, I was curious how I would feel about it stepping down from that.

Answer: I… don’t hate it? I don’t love it, to be clear, and it’s not something I would likely ever choose over using my Air. And there are some things about it which are pretty egregious, that are clearly the result of this thing clocking in at under $200, most notably a screen that would have to work to be called “washed out,” and a track pad that feels genuinely terrible to use, especially coming from a MacBook, which have what are acknowledged to be the best trackpads in the world. It is as plastic as the day is long, and given the paucity of its RAM and the inevitable end of ChromeOS, this computer is so close to the line between “useful” and “e-waste” that one might as well give it a balancing beam.

On the other hand, the keyboard doesn’t suck to type on; it’s a basic chiclet board but it’s nicely spaced and the keys don’t feel overly mushy. The onboard i/o puts the Air to shame: Both the Air and the Asus have two USB-C ports and a headphone jack, but the ASUS throws in a USB-A and Mini-SD card as well (I don’t suspect that the USB-C ports on the Asus are Thunderbolt, but they can port out to an external display, which ain’t chicken feed). Plus the ASUS webcam has a manual privacy shutter, which, frankly, is a thing every laptop with a camera should have regardless. It’s not the absolute worst! You could spend $200 on much more questionable things!

Every now and again I do the check-in with myself on what might be the bare minimum I would need, in terms of personal possessions, if less than wonderful things came to pass I had to live in deeply reduced circumstances. And without going into great detail about the thinking process about this, one of the things I’ve decided is that if I had an acceptable laptop, that would go a fair way toward my needs in terms of audiovisual entertainment, and personal creativity. A decent laptop is a television, a radio, a window to the world and an instrument of expression.

This Asus is… not up to the task of being my acceptable laptop in this circumstance. Too limited by tech and by software, basically. I’ve been a long time enjoyer of Chromebooks, and loved my Pixelbook from back in the day. But Chrome ultimately never won the argument that a thin client to the Internet was all you would ever need, and now that ChromeOS is going to be folded into Android at some nearish point, it never will. Chromebooks will go into the west as forever the “second laptop,” the one you used when you didn’t have actual work to do.

(What laptop do I think it probably the closest to my Lowest Acceptable Spec? I think at this point it’s obvious: a MacBook Neo, which has all the advantages of a Chromebook, including price point for some mid-spec Chromebooks, and also can run more complex software that one would need for creative work, and not be totally reliant on an online connection to do it. It’s tempting to say the Neo is overhyped at this point, except I don’t think it actually is; at $600, it basically takes a knife to the Chromebook value proposition for everything but barebones educational use. It’s not the laptop I would want — that’s my Air — but it would certainly do.)

Considering that I do have a MacBook Air, and an iPad Pro with a “Magic Keyboard,” which essentially takes care of all my laptop-ish needs, what might I use this little Chromebook for? Basically, as a guest laptop, if someone visiting needs to do something that requires a full-size keyboard or a screen larger than the one on their phone, but didn’t happen to bring their own laptop with them. And… that’s pretty much it? As I said, I don’t want to entirely discount this laptop; it’s better than I expected for less than $200, and it fulfills its own admittedly modest brief perfectly well. It’s just that I don’t know how much longer this particular brief is going to need to be fulfilled.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/05/01/back-to-the-very-very-basics/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60485