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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
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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 »

So last night I put up my post with pictures and was all caught up for 8 whole minutes before two-time contest winner Dwayne from  the UK sent in his submissions, taken all over London in the cold and snow including the tower of London, a giant ice polar bear, and the gates to London China own:

Then this morning I almost choked on my coffee and sprayed it all over the room. The first time was when I opened an e-mail from Kim Kincaid in Utah:

Okay Peter, you can disqualify me because I didn’t follow the rules, per se. I mean, it’s a photo, sort of. I couldn’t come up with any great ideas to compete with all the exotic and clever places people were photographing so I went with a pseudo-photo of Arlen reading his own story with some commentary. I just had to try for one of those Desert Spear ARC’s.

This was followed a moment later by the two submissions from Matt Ward in Australia, who admits to having too much free time on his hands:

Posted on December 17, 2009 at 4:00 pm by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Fan Art, Fans
3 Comments »

Last night when I went to bed, I was thinking that I was going to have a really hard time deciding who should win the Desert Spear Holiday ARC. That was before I saw today’s entries:

Katherine (Left) and Natalie (right) may appear to be cheating in this pic, holding up shelf copies of The Warded and Painted Man from the Australian Dymocks store where they both work. But they were among the first readers to friend me on facebook, long before the book even published in the US, and they’ve been in my news stream ever since. It’s weird how that makes me feel like I actually know them, despite their being on the other side of the planet. Hi Katherine! Hi Natalie!

Joe from MIT risked life and limb to get this shot of the book in front of MIT’s Great Dome, which is known for having things like cars and telephone booths placed on top by students turned briefly into Dr. Horrible by the stress of math finals so complicated they would short out the brain of a normal person.

He also contributed this fabulous gem:

The next day, we took a walk up the street to Harvard and felt John Harvard could use a good book to read.  He looked rather bored with the book he was holding at the time.

Last we have Brandon, who took some pictures on what looks like the top of the world, but actually, he’s from New Zealand, so I think that’s technically the bottom of the world. He’s literally upside down in these pix. It’s a wonder he doesn’t just fly up into the sky.

But seriously folks, these pix are awesome. As Brandon put it:

Here’s some shots from little old New Zealand. It was a glorious morning and I have the day off so I went for a walk I’ve been meaning to do for a while, the Trig Track near the top of the Rimutaka’s (a small mountain range north of where I live in Lower Hutt). I had the track to myself and shared the summit with the trig and the view. I bought along my copy of the Painted Man for some reading and relaxation time, and attached are a few shots (timer and tripod assisted).

Looking forward to the next book, and thanks for holding such interesting giveaways 😉

I thought this contest was hard to judge before. Now I’m totally screwed.

And it’s only Wednesday. Who knows what is yet to come?

Posted on December 17, 2009 at 12:37 am by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Fan Art, Fans
7 Comments »

I will post another DSAC update in a few hours, but in the meantime I wanted to share a piece of fan art sent in by 16 year old Andrew H. in the UK. This piece was done in acrylic paint for his school art class, and took over 10 hours. Amazing work. It’s a million times better than anything I ever did with acrylic, especially in high school. Too bad he didn’t submit it in time for the Fan Art Competition:

Posted on December 16, 2009 at 6:23 pm by PeatB
Filed under Fan Art, Fans
1 Comment »