Agent to the Stars

Agent to the Stars
John Scalzi
Table of Contents and Other Stuff
"...a remarkably intelligent first-contact yarn, this book is absurd, funny, and satirically
perceptive." -- Booklist, 5/15/05
Own a signed, limited hardcover edition of this novel! Details below, after the Table of
Contents.
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13

Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19

Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Legal Notes: This work is copyrighted by John Scalzi. The novel is freely given and may
be freely distributed on a non-commercial basis, in whatever electronic format you please,
as long as the work remains intact and unaltered and is attributed to me, John Scalzi. All
other rights are reserved by me, specifically commercial and derivative rights. If you are
interested in commercial and/or derivative rights, contact me.
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Also on sale: Check out my critically-acclaimed debut novel Old Man's War.
Introduction
Hi there.
In the summer of 1997, I was 28 years old, and I decided that after years of thinking
about writing a novel, I was simply going to go ahead and write one. There were two
motivations for doing so. First, I was simply curious if I could; I'd had up to that time a
reasonably successful life as a writer, but I'd never written anything longer than ten pages
in my life outside of a classroom setting. Two, my ten-year high school reunion was
coming up, and I wanted to be able to say I'd finished a novel just in case anyone asked
(they didn't, the bastards).
In sitting down to write the novel, I decided to make it easy on myself. I decided first that
I wasn't going to try to write something near and dear to my heart, just a fun story. That

way, if I screwed it up (which was a real possibility), it wasn't like I was screwing up the
One Story That Mattered To Me. I decided also that the goal of writing the novel was the
actual writing of it -- not the selling of it, which is usually the goal of a novelist. I didn't
want to worry about whether it was good enough to sell; I just wanted to have the
experience of writing a story over the length of a novel, and see what I thought about it.
Not every writer is a novelist; I wanted to see if I was.
Making these two decisions freed me from a lot of the usual angst and pain that comes
from writing a first novel. This was in all respects a "practice" novel -- a setting for me to
play with the form to see what worked, and what didn't, and what I'd need to do to make
the next novel worth selling.
It worked. I picked a fun, humorous story -- aliens from another world decide to get an
agent -- and I just let it take me where it wanted to go. I banged out the chapters on the
weekends, using the weekdays to let my mind figure out what to do next. The writing was
fun, and for the most part it was easy, and in three months, the whole thing was done (and
just in time for my high-school reunion).
Once the novel was finished, I decided, what the heck, I might as well try to sell it. This
was not particularly successful. The agents I shopped it to liked the writing, but said
humorous SF was hard place; the publishers liked the writing but said humorous SF was
hard to sell. I wasn't terribly put out about this; this was a practice novel, after all. But on
the other hand I thought it was good enough to let other people see it.
So in early 1999, I decided to put it online as a "shareware novel." The premise was
simple: People could read it, and if they liked it, they could send me a dollar, or whatever
sum they liked (even if that sum was zero). If they didn't like it, well, clearly, they
wouldn't have to send me anything. It was a no-risk proposition for the reader. I didn't
expect to see a dime from it, but as it turns out, over five years I made about $4,000 (well,
I think it was about that much. I stopped counting after a while. I know I made enough to
buy a laptop and lots of pizzas. More than