John Scalzi is the author of the science fiction novels *Agent To The Stars, Old Man's War* and *The Ghost Brigades*. His "The Whatever" blog gets about ten to twenty thousand unique visitors a day. One of his blog entries, “Being Poor,” was picked up by several newspapers around the country, and another one, “The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time,” was picked up by NationalLampoon.com. John is also an exceptional conversationalist. John was a panelist in 2005 and was so good at it we are having him return as a NiftyGuest. Quoth Scalzi: “I feel all shiny now.”

Past appearances:

• NiftyGuest for PenguiCon 7.0 in 2009
• NiftyGuest for PenguiCon 5.0 in 2007
• NiftyGuest for PenguiCon 4.0 in 2006