I found this quite interesting.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/04/07/the-super-secret-thing-that-i-cannot-tell-you-about-revealed-introducing-fuzzy-nation/

I'm pretty sure this has been done before - Bill, RJ or Tina might have some specifics on tap. It certainly has outside the sf spectrum - look up a gent named Shaksper, for example.

I'm sure it will be interesting and entertaining -- though Scalzi doesn't strike me as a very Piper-like writer, so I wouldn't expect it to be as hard-edged as the original.

What a terrible cover, though, with an even more unappealing rendering of the Fuzzy!

I liked the rendering that appeared on the first paperback edition of Little Fuzzy, that made Little Fuzzy look like a bit like a Capuchin. The roly-poly, child-llike renderings in later editions seemed to me too human-like; I can't imagine them not being human-identified immediately. There wouldn't even have been a question about how to interpret their sapience.

I've enjoyed the books by Scalzi that I've read, but I am apprehensive about this. I am a serious fan of Piper, ranking him right after Heinlein and on a par with Poul Anderson in my list of favorite authors. The Fuzzy stories are not my favorite works by Piper but I do like them. I don't think they need to be "rebooted" but I probably will read "Fuzzy Nation." I hope it's good.

I don't much care for the cover, either, but it may not be what appears on the book.

"You can't judge a book by its cover. Unless it's the inside flap, which usually gives a really good summary." -- (I wish I could remember where I read this.)

Agreed, and sometimes even the summary on the inside flap is misleading. But you can appreciate cover art for it's own sake. I have some framed cover art hanging on my walls, I liked it that much. I bid on the original art for a book illustration by Vincent DiFate at a con recently but lost to someone who wanted it even more. I don't care for this cover for "Fuzzy Nation" but will grant that it seems to at least depict something from the book, which is not always the case. I lived through the period of abstract cover illustrations that didn't seem to represent anything, let alone a scene from the book on which it appeared. I prefer the current state of cover art over that but my favorite artists are Alex Schomburg, Kelly Freas, John Schoenherr, DiFate, and John Berkey (showing my age). I also enjoy the work of some of the "younger" artists like Wayne Barlowe, Bob Eggleton, Max Bertolini and Michael Whelan.

Well, fairy tales are often "rebooted" -- Robin McKinley has redone Beauty and the Beast twice -- Beauty and Rose Daughter both retell the fairy tale as novels.

I'm not going to make you a list, but it's not unusual for writers to claim a first when what they are doing has a long history.

Last summer, Jim Gunn was sort of being sorry that the dialog of works has slowed down -- a given book or story written specifically in answer to an earlier work. He seemed to think the dialog was specific to SF, but it really has a long literary history. He was not happy with the way I pointed that out.

But there is very little that is new under the sun.

Nothing personal, Tina - I am tired of reading about such-and-such story "rebooting" a classic. It is going to be a word-of-the-year, I know it. I can't wait for it to die the death that awaits all grating neologisms and goes to the same graveyard now haunted by "it is what it is" and "net-net".

Most neologisms (and their ugly stepsister, netisms) grate on me, too. I content myself with This Too Shall Pass. (I do find it funny that most "reboots" completely boot the effort.)

Then there's self-rebooting authors like The David, who seems to rewrite his classics every time they're printed. But enough...

Slowed down possibly -- but also shifted. Even cud-chewers are in dialog with their models of space opera.

And while I don't really care for (am left cold by) Stross's deliberate engagements with Heinlein (e.g., Saturn's Child), the stories in which he is using a Heinlein-introduced trope without being aware of it are often very engaging.