Serious SF Muscle
It seems some fans are more into me than others…
Adventures in France
As Rebecca and I have mentioned, I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks in France with Dani and little Cassie. I was only in France once before, for less than a full day, and am eager to return and have a more relaxed look around. My high school level French, unpracticed for 20 years, will not serve me well, but Dani speaks a little, and Cassie, being so young, will probably pick it up in no time. I will also get her a beret.
In addition to a few days in Paris on either end of the trip, I will be attending the Imaginales convention in Epinal from May 26-29. Other big fantasy names in attendance will be Brandon Sanderson, Trudi Canavan, and NK Jemisin. If you are able to attend, you can find the full program online here. This makes me feel better for missing both the Nebula awards and Balticon, both of which occur while I am away.
French readers, come and say “Bonjour!”
But that’s not all! While I am in France, Bragelonne will also be launching my new limited edition collection of short stories, L’Or de Brayan (which combines the translated Great Bazaar and Brayan’s Gold) in a BEAUTIFUL volume. The winners of the French Contest will be receiving free copies, and I will probably hold a more general contest (Fan Art or Cosplay) soon, putting some copies, along with other great prizes into the pot.
End of the France Contest
Yesterday, the France contest came to it’s end. We had another (and I must say, rather good) submission from Ken Vu Tong. You can still see the other submissions here.
Hello!
I think there is a really magnificent site to see and visit. The “Cité de Carcassonne” (South of France, in what is called “le Midi”) is a completely preserved medieval city (restored in the nineteenth century): a monument truly fabulous.
Unfortunately, my pictures are blurry, so I am sending you two pictures so that you felt better the beauty of the site.
Hoping for your stay French Imaginales brings pleasant surprises.
Sincerely,
Ken Vu Tong
As a fan of anything medieval this sounds great.
Of course, because yesterday was the end of the contest that means a winner can be announced. And first, I want to say that they are all winners…and I mean that in a literal way! Because of the amount of submissions that we received, everyone placed. However, Peat could only pick one grand prize winner: Jessica D from Pau.
You may remember her entry of a Frenchman with a baguette and a beret in front of “La cascade d’Aydius”.
Jessica will received signed copies of L’Homme Rune, La Lance du Desert, and L’Or de Brayan.
The two first prize winners are Ken Vu Tong (from above) and Jonathan with Sacre Coeur and the Haut-Koenigsbourg replicas as La France Miniature.
They will both received signed copies of L’Or de Brayan. Congrats everyone!
Peat leaves for France in a few days to attend Imaginales and will be posting about what he did there once he gets back and gets over his jetlag. Hopefully some of you will get to see him while he’s there and you can enhance the awesome that is France.
Warded Lanterns
Last year, Zach and Phillip warded some unusual objects: pumpkins. As you can see, they made some amazing warded jack o’ lanterns. There is some great detail in these.
It’s a great idea; the jack o lanterns are supposed to help scare off evil things that will come in the night. Remind you of something?
I do wonder how difficult they would be to actually ward. I imagine the strange shape of them might cause some problems for the warder. So probably not a problem for Arlen but very difficult for everyone else.
The way Phillip and Zach did it, was that Zach drew out the wards on the pumpkins, and then Phillip carved them out. Phillip said “It was hard to get the light to show though in parts of the ward because of how thick the pumpkin was. To solve this, I had to carve the insides from around 2 inches to about 1/2 an inch. We took wards that were on Peter’s site.”
You can see here, that they not only drew just one ward, but many on each of the pumpkins. Obviously they’re covering all of their bases. You never know when it’ll snow on Halloween just to make things difficult, and then the snow demons appear and eat all the candy. Better to be safe than sorry.
So overall, two very talented guys who warded some very oddly shaped objects.
You can also view a gallery full of pictures of the lanterns here.
Posted by Rebecca the (Occasionally Useful) Assistant
France Contest Entries
The time goes by so fast. As you may remember, a few weeks ago we started a new contest; we asked you amazing people to send pictures of places that Peat should visit in France, while he is in the country at the end of the month for Imaginales. Both Peat’s trip and the end of the contest are fast approaching. In fact, there are only 6 more days to enter, which you can do by following the instructions here. It’s well worth entering because the grand prize winner will receive a copy of ALL of Peat’s French books. Nice, no?
Here are the entries that we have so far. I’ve included the letters that the contestants sent because they are much better at describing this places than I am.
First off, we have the entry from Jessica from Pau. Jessica writes,
France isn’t only a country where you can see people with French berets and baguettes – although you might find some…
It’s also a country with beautiful places. Please come and visit our Béarn (south-western France). It’s green and refreshing, such as this odd and mossy waterfall named “La cascade d’Aydius”. Ideal for a busy writer looking for a bit of peace and quiet.
I absolutely love that she managed to get so many amazing French things into this picture. Berets are amazing. Baguettes are amazing. The waterfall looks amazing. And Peat’s books are amazing. So overall, a pretty amazing picture. (I also promise to not use the word amazing for the rest of this post.)
Jonathan made his entry into a team effort; his girlfriend Jessica translated his letter into English for him and even helped pose in a picture as well! He writes,
We went to a little park named “La France Miniature” to take our pictures. I chose this location because I really think you should see this. It’s a park where there is all the memorable monuments, castles, churchs, that anyone MUST see in France, all of them in miniature models.
I present the first one. It’s the Sacré Coeur. It’s a church in Paris, on the summit of the famous Montmartre. This church is magnificent, and you have a wonderful view of Paris while there.
I asked Jess to present you the second destination I LOVE in France: the Haut-Koenigsbourg. It’s a castle near the German border. I love this castle because of its architecture, its color, and a thing that is really rare in France, there is all the furniture still in it. You must know that this castle was destroyed a while ago, and the castle that you see know, and all that is inside it, all was rebuilt from documents and historical accounts. It was very interesting, and Alsace is such a beautiful region.
I think that I need to go to this park. It’s just so whimsical with a nice historical aspect. And I must say it makes for a rather cunning entry. Though I must admit, the forced perspective is screwing with my head! They look so realistic and life sized.
As you can see, we have some pretty awesome entries so far and we’re hoping to get some more in the next few days, at which point we’ll post them.