There are a lot of energetic bloggers out there. I, on the other hand, am an at best occasionally energetic blogger, and mostly just a slack as hell blogger. The reason I mention this is that I have on a number of occasions considered adding a Book of the Week feature to Coode Street. Something where I highlight a book I like, talk it up, and maybe interview the author. All that kind of promotery goodness. But, I’ve been reluctant to do it because I’m running late on other things, feel I should actually read the books, and because other energetic people like Jeff VanderMeer have been doing it for ages. It seemed like stealing someone else’s idea.

Anyhow, the latest person to stick his hand up and get involved with this stuff is sometime Coode Street reader John Scalzi who, in addition to writing some nifty novels of his own, has started a series of short author interviews/profiles on his AOL blog. This is a cool thing to be doing, and should be interesting to watch evolve over time. The first author to walk the ScalziPlank is Monkeybrain Books proprietor, editor, author and all-round good guy, Chris Roberson, who talks enthusiastically about his new novel Paragaea: A Planetary Romance. I’ve not read the book, but he describes it like this: “It’s the story of a Soviet-era female cosmonaut who falls through a hole in space and finds herself in a strange new world, one filled with jaguar men, ancient androids, pterosaur-riding pirates, and talking metal trees—in other words, the same old, same old.” And if that’s not too cool for school, I don’t know what is.

If it sounds cool to you too, you can:

• Read the interview with John Scalzi (it’s only short, it won’t take long, and you might like it)
• Read some of the book (there are three chapters online, which is more than enough to know you want to buy the book)
• Check out the official Paragaea website (you can read a whole novel!)
• Actually, you know, buy Paragaea: A Planetary Romance.

And Chris? Well, I’ve met him a couple times at WorldCons hither and yon and we’ve had dinner a few times: if his writing is half as much fun as hanging out with him is, then this is the kind of book that I want to be reading.