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You may have already guessed it, or heard about it on the twittface, but the other winner of the DSAC holiday contest was Karen from Rhode Island. She earned it:

I just sent Karen and Lizette’s books out this afternoon, FedEx Priority as promised, and they will be in the winners’ hands on Tuesday. The nearest FedEx Office to me is about 7 subway stops away at Jay Street. That’s about 5 miles from my house, and it was snowing heavily when I lift the store, so I decided, in homage to Karen’s great effort, that I would walk home.

I’m really glad I did. The snow was a light powder that was continually swept along the cold streets without sticking by the constant chill wind. It ran like smoke over the pavement in elegant waves to form drifts on the sides of the road, keeping the street clear. Everywhere people were slowing down to enjoy the beauty around them.

If it sticks, tomorrow we are teaching Cassie to make a snowman.

Have a good night, all. Keep sending in those DSAC entries, as I will give more copies away early in the new year. Everyone who has already entered is still in the running, so you know what you’re up against.

Good luck!

Posted on December 19, 2009 at 7:52 pm by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Fan Art, Fans, Musings
4 Comments »

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
9 Comments »

I never disqualified photoshopped images from the Desert Spear ARC Contest. While the rules lawyers in the comments thread have a fair point that my original and very brief  instructions for the contest did not include a provision for it, my intent was always to be as admissive as possible with this contest, so that everyone could participate in a free and fun atmosphere. I anticipated that a few entries would include some fun with photoshop, and was cool with it. The kid at warding camp was adorable, and you all know it.

So if you submitted an entry, photoshopped or not, it counts.

That said, I am taking the judging very seriously, and am giving more weight to the photos that required great effort to produce. So the hypothetical person actually standing on the Great Wall of China with my book would trump a photoshopped simulation of the same event, even if the view was better. I am also giving weight for creativity, humor, emotional power, symbolism, etc.  Lots of things. My head is full of weights.

I honestly still haven’t decided who will win tonight. There were so many fantastic entries, I am blown away by it. I have it down to under ten finalists who all have good arguments for why they should win, and two or three that I am seriously leaning towards. I am thinking about posting those images and my internal dialogue about them later, but I need to spend a few hours working on The Daylight War first. We’ll see if I have time. If not, I’ll do it tomorrow after I get back from Fedexing out the rush prize.

But even after that, this contest isn’t over by a long shot. All the finalists (and everyone, really) will still be in the running to win more prizes, but beware! Lots of fans are out there planning shots to take over the holidays as they travel. Even now, Chantal is packing a copy of The Painted Man and her camera for a trip to Africa…

Posted on December 18, 2009 at 5:06 pm by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Fan Art, Fans, Musings
2 Comments »

A few more entries came in overnight. If something comes in by the end of the business day I will still accept it for the holiday contest. Otherwise it will just be up for prizes in after New Year’s. I think I have it narrowed down to about 5 finalists for tonight’s prize. I will try to post those later and heighten suspense.

First up are two less photoshoppy images by Emily from Down Under, who is mocking me in cold New York as she eats ice cream on the beach:

Even though I’m not sure whether its Friday for you yet or not ( totally bad with the whole time difference), I have more TDS pics! And these ones are actually photos, not photoshoped 😛

So here they are, I went with my twin to Eastern Beach and sat in the shade to read The Painted man 🙂 And then we went from Bollard to Bollard and chose our favorite one. Miss Geelong seemed rather nice (LoL) and I dripped ice cream all over my hand. LoL but its worth it.

Wait, if she took them with her twin, how do we know it’s really her?

Khaled from… (uh, dude, you need to provide an address to win) somewhere in the world, sent these entries in:

I dressed up my youngest son (2yrs) as a prototypical fantasy hero. I then had my older son (4 yrs) pose next to him with your book, as though he were reading the fantasy hero a bedtime fantasy story.
While turning on the camera, I then overheard my older son instructing the younger: “Say ‘T'” (read: pronounce the letter ‘T’). Somehow, in the process of setting up for the shot, “The Warded Man” moved from book contest prop (and overall awesome book) to introductory pre-school reading workbook.

I love how his idea of a “prototypical hero” is a Spider-man/Tigger hybrid with a Roman breastplate/shield, a ray gun, and what looks like a rolling pin. As Matt pointed out, he is also rocking the bare feet, Die Hard style.

The Mexican wrestler mask is awesome, too.

Simcha from Israel had some really great ideas for the contest that she posted on her blog, involving Bedouins and camels, but I guess she couldn’t make those happen. Shame. Still, she came through with two strong entries:

I hope it’s not too late to send in a couple of pictures for the contest. My son wouldn’t let me have the book to photograph until he finished it first (as pictured. Though I had to cover his eyes during certain adult scenes).
The second picture is of my daughter and a visiting friend who took a walk around our neighborhood, in Mitzpe Yericho, reading The Warded Man along the way (it’s in the Judean desert in Israel, about 20 minutes away from Jericho).

Looking forward to reading the Desert Spear!

Posted on December 18, 2009 at 3:24 pm by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Fan Art, Fans
7 Comments »

I am really having a hard time picking a winner for the “Win a copy for Christmas” portion of the Desert Spear Arc Contest. The submissions this week have been amazing, and they keep coming in. Just minutes after I posted the last update, this entry came in from Elisa in Vienna:

Basically it’s me and around me my friends, members of the Austrian Tolkien Society and the girls from the office I work at. I gave every one of them my copy of your book to make the pictures, some of them taken at the christmas market while it was snowing, some of them at the office, some at the cinema right before we went to see “Avatar” (amazing by the way, especially in IMAX 3D!).

The Austrian Tolkien Society is mugging for the camera with my book. Life is bizarre some days.

There have been so many great entries this week that I’ve made a few decisions about the contest:

1. I will add a few more prizes. So far I just have the three US Desert Spear ARCs to give away, but hopefully I will soon score some UK ones, as well. Even if I can’t, contest runners-up will get signed books or other assorted warded goodies.
2. I think it goes without saying, but to be clear, photos entered this week, even if they don’t win the Christmas book, will still be eligible to win prizes later.
3. I need help picking a winner tomorrow.

So. Be honest. Out of all the entries you’ve seen this week, other than one you yourself submitted, which is your favorite single image, and why? Please answer in the comments thread of this entry.

To be clear, I will still personally decide the final winner, but at the moment, I honestly don’t know who I am going to pick. Shit, I can’t even settle on my top 5. If you think you can sway me with a persuasive argument (or a landslide of votes), I welcome the discussion.

Thanks!

Posted on December 17, 2009 at 11:15 pm by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Fan Art, Fans
34 Comments »