Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day 13

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

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You know who I would trust to write about food (and body image, I’m sure) for women? That’s right! The writer of CATHY. When I opened it at random, the recipe I found was Even Though He’s Asleep on the Couch, I Know He’ll Protect Me Hero Sandwich.

And the Peanuts cookbook is thrown in for good measure. Anyone interested in documenting the atrocities?

Update: These books have been won!

Update number 2: The winner hasn’t claimed these books, so I’ll get donating them to the library.

Child of Fire reviews part 16

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Behind the cut! Continue reading

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day 12

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

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Four ST:TNG novels, including The One Important One, Imzadi. Isn’t that the one that everyone loves? If you want them, speak up!

Update: No one spoke up for these books! I’ll hold onto them until the end of the month. If someone wants to claim them, first come first served. If no one does, off to the library they go.

Another training day today

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I won’t be online much. Try to enjoy yourselves without me, somehow.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day 11

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

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Looks pretty self-explanatory. Want it?

Update: This book has been claimed.

Today in day-job land…

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Today I’m not going to be in the office. I have to report to another building across the city for training in some new software program we’re supposed to use in our new jobs.

Not that we’ve been hired for new jobs. They still have us in the dark on who will get hired and who won’t. I’m pretty sure I’ll have a job come Halloween, but no one in authority will confirm it for anyone.

I imagine that, if I act confused or unable to handle the new software, I won’t be offered a position in the new department; I’m looking at the training we’re getting today as part of the interview process. Never mind that I haven’t shaved in days–we can go to an “interview” with a few days’ growth, yeah?

Anyway, I don’t expect to be online much today. No twitter, LJ or blog comments. I’ll catch up to email during lunch and later this evening. Have a great day.

Randomness for 8/10

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1) Smart phone defeats hedge row maze.

2) Star Wars and Blaxploitation–how perfectly they fit together. The spoof trailer for Blackstar Warrior. Video.

3) How to quit your job. I don’t care if it’s fake. It’s awesome.

4) How to propose to your gamer girlfriend.

5) YA Dealbreakers. I don’t mind bad covers too much if the book comes highly recommended, but I don’t much care about vampires and I absolutely don’t read supernatural stories about rock stars of any kind (this isn’t as big a deal as it used to be).

6) Real life Yakuza review a Yakuza console game. Pretty damn interesting.

Well.

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Today I’m writing at Austin Chase Coffee, which is right next door to the Fisherman’s Terminal. There’s a big glass wall on one side of the room, with the coffee roaster right on the other side. So shiny! So many colored lights! So many turning machines! It’s hypnotic, like an episode of HOW IT’S MADE without the v/o.

Anyway, here’s some big news: The official title for book 3 is going to be CIRCLE OF ENEMIES. Yay! I like it, not least because there isn’t another book on Amazon.com with that title. Also, Google Alerts won’t be sending me links to people who’ve posted Queensryche lyrics.

All CIRCLE OF ENEMIES posts will still be tagged with the working title, MAN BITES WORLD, just like GAME OF CAGES is tagged EVERYONE LOVES BLUE DOG.

Also, I want to talk a little about the book giveaways I’ve been doing. I want to clarify a couple of things: You can enter once for each item, but you can request as many books as you want. I don’t care if you ask for all 31. You can also win as many times as luck allows; you don’t have to stop requesting books after you’ve won one.

I’m not actually picking any winners. Here’s what happens: I receive comment notifications for every LJ and blog comment. Each day’s contest has it’s own folder in Thunderbird, and I drop the email notifications into the correct folder. Once three days have passed since the blog post went live, I make sure there have been no requests within the previous 24 hours; I don’t want to cut things off if people are still actively asking for the book.

Once both conditions are satisfied, I open the folder in Thunderbird and my 8 yo son rolls a die. Whatever the number he rolls, we count down that many emails and that’s the winner. (If he rolls a number higher than the number of emails, he rolls again.)

So far, all the winners have been LiveJournal people, and none on the blog. In part, that’s because LJ comments outnumber blog comments four or five to one in some cases. I’m sure there’ll be a couple of blog commenters getting books at some point–random chance can’t keep favoring LJ forever.

And as of yesterday, all of the claimed books had gone into the mail. The first five, I believe. The giveaway for day six, Ombria in Shadow, will be chosen tonight (as long as no one new jumps in to ask for it.)

If anyone has any questions about this, or if I’ve been unclear, let me know. But one thing I did want to emphasize is that I’m not picking winners of each book. It’s all random chance.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day 10

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

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At one point, so long ago, I’d planned to write a pre-agricultural/”caveman” fantasy novel, but it never came together. Interested?

Update: This book has been won.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day 9

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

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Old fashioned nudie pictures of beautiful, zaftig women, many of them wearing flesh-colored body stockings. You know what’s in these books. (FYI, the larger book has had one corner chewed by a mouse.) Interested?

Update: these books have been won.