Congratulations to John and John

Per John C. Wright:

I heard just this week from my agent and editor that, despite declining sales, Tor Books has agreed to published the penultimate and ultimate volume in the sexilogy (not what it sounds like; get your mind out of the gutter!) of the nonaward-winning Count to the Eschaton Sequence!

Re: John Scalzi:

Those who have been anxiously waiting for John Scalzi’s best-selling military scifi novel Old Man’s War to get a live-action adaptation won’t have to be waiting much longer. Syfy and Academy Award-nominated director Wolfgang Petersen will adapt the books for television as a series titled Ghost Brigades, after the second novel in the series.

You might remember that Paramount had originally purchased the rights to the Old Man’s War novel to make a movie, but those plans fell through. But don’t worry that this adaptation is going to skip the events of the first novel; as the author himself explains in a tongue-in-cheek self-Q&A on his website, “The series will pull elements from various books in the OMW universe in any event.” The title “Ghost Brigades” was used for the show instead of “Old Man’s War” simply because it sounded “sexier.”

I’m rather disappointed about one of these things, but possibly not the one you might think. While I personally dislike John Scalzi and consider him a fraud, a coward, and a mediocre, derivative novelist, I don’t wish him any ill. I genuinely believe he is rather well-suited for the medium of television, and based on my limited experience in the TV industry, his self-marketing tendencies may actually be on the modest side there.

No, you see, I was rather hoping to have Castalia pick up the rest of the Count to the Eschaton books. C’est la vie, a la prochaine fois. We have not yet reached the point where we can directly compete with Tor Books. But we will. Sooner or later.