There Can Be Only One…

Holiday ARC winner, that is. There will be several winners overall, but only one lucky contestant will get an advance read copy of The Desert Spear Fedexed out to them tomorrow.

I’m kind of bummed about that, myself. I wish I had a case of them to give out, because there have been such incredible submissions. Elijah had a pic sent to me within an hour or so of my announcing the contest, and Brian risked getting in trouble at work. Dwayne ran all over London in the snow, and Dave-Brendon finally came through with an entry after all his big talk and no walk in the last few contests. Matt and Mark had fun with photoshop, and Eve sat out in 14 degree weather without a jacket or scarf. Lisa taught her dog to read, and Elisa got the entire Austrian Tolkien Society to step up and show love. Iris gave us a warm holiday look at her home, and Jess showed us the inside of her closet (I would never do that, for fear of landslide).  Khaled pimped his kids, Ken fought Robert Stanek for the spotlight, Mihir slipped Arlen into an Ikea painting, and Katherine and Natalie, two of my very first readers, waved hi from their bookstore on the other side of the world.

There have even been some admissions that came in just under the wire that I haven’t even posted yet, like this gem from Iris that I totally want to make into the holiday contest’s official poster:

How’s a man to choose?

I’m getting close to picking a winner tonight, but I won’t announce it until the book is already posted and there is no turning back. In the meantime, here are my finalists, and some of my internal monologue about them:

AJ trapped in the Cretaceous Period: AJ and I became pen pals while he was in Iraq, and have kept in touch on facebook since he got back. When he claimed to have an entry to blow all others away, I admit I scoffed, but he really came through with some great pictures. This is my favorite. The frightful look on his face, the demonic creature behind him, the awesome book he’s holding, how can anyone not love this picture?

Brendon at the bottom of the world: Brendon climbed a friggin’ mountain in New Zealand and risked falling off the planet to get this stunning picture of him reading The Painted Man. You can see all Middle-Earth spread out below him.

Emily in the Krasian Desert: I know some people are down on the photoshopping, but I don’t get it. Take a moment and appreciate. Emily takes a real picture of herself holding the book, but then changes the backdrop to turn it into the fantasy world the book transports her to, a barren land where  the sun isn’t even fully set, and already a lone wind demon scours the dunes for prey. Emily stands fast with her talisman, knowing The Painted Man will protect her. This gets points for keeping with the theme of The Desert Spear, creativity, and effort. I don’t think she knocked this out in 15 minutes, and she submitted 3 other entries as well. Emily rocks.

Joe the Hacker: Joe  from MIT took The Warded Man on a hacking expedition, taking pictures of the book in all sorts of places he wasn’t technically allowed to be. He sent me 4 awesome pictures and a tale of his adventures and near-misses with campus security, which led me to actually write back and ask, “Dude, are you sure you won’t get in trouble if I post these?” He said it would be fine, but I was still leery. This is the most innocuous of the bunch, as he stole onto the Harvard campus down the road to put The Warded Man in the hands of John Harvard, who usually reads much more boring books.

Karen at the Tri-State Marker: Karen is a champion. She hiked alone for 5 miles in the cold and snow, avoiding deer hunters to get to the stone marker that shows where Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut meet. She then set her copy of The Warded Man there for a tripod-timer shot. Looking much like a wardpost in the woods, I think it was a perfect choice. Then she cleared the ground around it and used a stick to draw a ward circle in the dirt, Arlen style.

And she did it all while listening to the Warded Man audiobook on her MP3 player.

GQ Arlen, by Kim Kincaid: So after seeing Karen’s herculean live effort, you might be wondering why this image, obviously made in Adobe Photoshop (or more likely Illustrator) from top to bottom, is in the final running. She took a stock image of a well-suited businessman, superimposed the book cover over whatever ledger he was holding, and stole an image of The Painted Man off the web and cropped in the head. Those of us with a little experience in Photoshop could probably put something like that together in an hour.

But consider: That professional painting of Arlen that she stole the head from? It’s her own original fan art, a work of many painstaking hours and done for no reason other than her desire to bring visual life to the character she enjoyed reading about. It wasn’t even for the Fan Art Contest. The only reason I found out about it was google alerts, and then it was me getting in touch to gush to HER. So Kim made this little composite for the competition, and capped it all off with a really funny joke. I did a literal spittake. This picture has been my desktop background for days.

Lizette at the Madrasah: This is my favorite of a series of pictures Lizette sent. She went to the Madrasah (Islamic School) her sons attend, and took some pictures of herself with the book in their Qur’an class. Everyone was excited to hear about the book and be in the pictures.

After having some reviewers mistakenly read their own politics in the book, and drawing wrong conclusions about my intent, these pictures struck a surprisingly strong chord with me, as did the entry this morning from Simcha, all the way from the Judean Desert in Israel:

But then Lizette took the book to Disneyland. Just FTW.

No, seriously. Remember at the beginning of this post when I said there were some late entries I hadn’t had time to post? Check this shit out:

You know, I was still undecided going into this post, but now I think I’ve convinced myself…

Random House gave me six ARCs of The Desert Spear total. Three for the contest and three for me personally to keep or to give to my mom or whatever. I’ve decided to give up one of those precious three and so I can Fedex two books out tomorrow, and still have two more to give away after the holidays. One of those two is going to Lizette. The other…

I’ll tell you after it’s sent.

Posted on December 19, 2009 at 1:45 am by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Fan Art, Fans, Musings
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