I’ve got two pieces of mail, both of which should be answered sooner rather than later. So today we’re going to have a twofer.
Let’s do it.
Pat,
I missed your signing in Waukesha! I had a UFO come up at the last minute and wasn’t able to make it. (UFO = Unavoidable Family Obligation.)
My major problem is that I wanted to buy a signed book as a present for my boyfriend, who got me hooked on your book about a year ago. But now, when I’m catching up on your blog, I see that you had copies of the princess book there, too! I’m heartbroken!
Was it cool? I bet it was cool…
The point of my e-mail is to ask you if you’ll please come back to Milwaukee soon? Pretty Please?
Nat
It’s too bad you missed it, Nat. It was pretty cool. Everyone that showed up got an early copy of The Wise Man’s Fear and a backrub. Batman showed up too. He brought oatmeal raisin cookies and taught us all how to shatter a man’s hip using a broken-0ff chair leg.
So yeah, as far as my readings go, it was pretty much average.
I’m sorry you weren’t able to make it, but I don’t know soon I’ll be down in that area again. Logistically, it makes better sense for me to spread around my readings a bit, as it gives people in different areas a chance to attend.
I’ll probably do something down in Chicago before too long. Sarah wants to take Oot to the aquarium there, so I might as well do a little reading and signing while I’m in the area. (If anyone has a favorite bookstore in Chicago where they think I should stop, they can mention that in the comments below.)
Anyway, my point is I probably won’t be doing another reading in Milwaukee for months. But if you keep an eye on the blog and tour schedule page, you should be able to catch me when I’m somewhere nearby.
And if you still want a signed book for your boyfriend, you might want to check out Martha Merrell’s Bookstore. They brought in books for my signing down in Waukesha. And before I left, I signed a bunch of their stock. So they should have a bunch of my signed books still in the store.
They even have a few signed copies of the princess book, if you think your boyfriend would like one of those. It’s probably the only store in the country with those on the shelf right now.
Letter #2
Master Rothfuss,
I’ve been bad. I haven’t been keeping up on your blog, and consequently, I only today found out about your t-shirt design contest.
I desperately want to enter a design or two. But your blog says that the cutoff for entries is… today.
Can you please stretch out the deadline a bit for us sad, sorry losers that don’t check your blog as frequently now that school is out?
I promise it will be worth your while. I’m a graphic design major. I seriously do art and stuff.
In desperate minionhood,
Rich
(For those of you who are hopelessly out of the loop, here’s the blog where I talk about having a t-shirt design contest.)
This is what happens when you’re a lackluster minion, Rich. It’s because of people like you that the death star gets blown up.
Hmmm… I’m guessing that’s not the best example.
My point is that checking the blog should be an essential part of your life by now. You should treat my blog like your second job. You should revel in my blog with the same obsessive-compulsive fervor Sarah uses when I bring a bag of Cheetos into the house.
Seriously. She’s a freak for Cheetos. It’s like watching a very dainty shark.
Anyway, as I am a benevolent overlord, I realize my original two-week deadline was a little tight for some people. I’ve had several letters like this in the last few days, asking for a little extra time to complete designs.
So here’s the deal: I’ll extend the deadline for t-shirt submissions until the end of the month.
Two things to consider:
1. You’ve got your work cut out for you. We’ve had more than 100 designs submitted in the last week, and honestly, I’ve been really impressed. People came up with things I never would have thought of….
That means if you’re coming in under the wire, you better bring your A-game.
2. From this point on, we’ll only accept actual picture-type designs. We’ve got plenty of text descriptions right now. Over this next week, I’ll be turning over the best of these to our team of talented artists. They’ll work their magic, and early next month we’ll put the cream of the crop up here on the blog for people to ogle and vote upon.
Later everybody,
pat
A Plenitude of Signed Books
This is a Worldbuilders blog.
While I was busy gathering more books and getting these blogs ready, Worldbuilders topped 25,000 dollars in donations. Rumor has it this makes us unspeakably cool.
I’ve raised the bar to 50,000 dollars. I’m pretty sure we can beat this one fairly quickly. Tell your friends. Spread the word.
Today we have another wealth of donated books. Many of these sent in by fans and readers who wanted to help make worldbuilders a success.
All of these have been signed by the authors. Many of them are first editions. And several of them are limited editions, numbered and slipcased and all manner of cool.
Enjoy.
Includes a picture of Robert Jordan signing this book.
You don’t need me to tell you about the Wheel of Time.
“The battle scenes have the breathless urgency of firsthand experience, and the . . . evil laced into the forces of good, the dangers latent in any promised salvation, the sense of the unavoidable onslaught of unpredictable events bear the marks of American national experience during the last three decades.” – The New York Times on The Wheel of Time.
“The complex philosophy behind The Wheel of Time series is expounded so simply the reader often gives a start of surprise at returning to the real world. Rand’s adventures are not finished and neither is this thinking person’s fantasy series.” – Bruswick Sentinel (Australia).
Note that these are UK editions of Gabaldon’s books. That means they’re written with an English accent, making them 25% cooler.
“All you’ve come to expect from Gabaldon . . . adventure, history, romance, fantasy.” — The Arizona Republic
“A fun new occult mystery series. Unusually well crafted.” – Locus
“The Warded Man works not only as a great adventure novel but also as a reflection on the nature of heroism.”—Charlaine Harris
“Monstrous, murderous, psychotic, deranged, possessed and insane – the only question is what our heroes hate more: the demons they’re fighting, each other or themselves” – Stephen Deas, author of The Adanamtine Palace
“Wildly descriptive Slaughter-fest fantasy with a surprising pathos” – Stephen Deas.
“Feist is back on top form, and really delivering the goods. The characters are in place, the scenes are set, and on the evidence of Rides A Dread Legion, it’s going to be a wild ride.” – SF Site Featured Review.
“All the spells, severed body parts and horror you expect from Shan, with a nail-biting and shocking finish.” – Waterstone’s Books Quarterly.
“One of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year. … For such a peculiar, stripped-down tale, it’s fantastically evocative… Not too cute, not too weirdly precocious, not a fey mouthpiece for the author’s profundities, Jack expresses a poignant mixture of wisdom, love and naivete that will make you ache to save him — whatever that would mean.” – Washington Post Book World.
“[The Empty Family] reconfirms his mastery of the short story…. ToÍbÍn raised his profile with the exquisitely bittersweet Brooklyn, and this collection is every bit as rich… Likely to rank with the best story collections of the year.” — Kirkus (starred review)
“Arresting… each piece puts us on notice in its own way that an intriguing intelligence is at work.” –The Boston Globe.
The book is published by Quirk Books, the same publisher that brought us Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Among other things, the book tells you which signer was murdered by his own nephew, which signers ended up imprisoned by the British, and which were locked up because of their own greed and stupidity.
“With this work, Kiernan and D’Agnese present readers with astonishing individual portraits of all the signers in an attempt both to dispel some of the mythology surrounding the document as well as to establish a place in the historical discourse for those men not named Jefferson, Hancock, Franklin, or Adams.” – School Library Journal, starred review.
“A terrific comedy about the perils and joys of life beyond death… A zombie comedy with brains” – Kirkus.
“I read my eyes out. I couldn’t stop until I’d finished and it was dawn.” – Anne McCaffrey.
“Christopher Evans is, to my mind, one of the great lost voices of British science fiction… now there is another novel, one that combines the bold and brutal alternate history of Aztec Century with the subtle and disturbing unpicking of identity of In Limbo… We can only hope that Evans’s triumphant return to science fiction is a harbinger of yet another revival in his writing.” – Strange Horizons Reviews.
“Banquet for the Damned…Â brings together the graphic and the subtle, supernatural and human horror, and makes them play their parts to the best effect.” – SF Site Featured Review.
“Mark Morris is one of the finest horror writers at work today.” – Clive Barker.
“If there is one crime writer currently capable of matching the noirish legacies of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, it’s Lawrence Block.” San Francisco Chronicle
I’ve talked about this book in a previous blog.
But if you don’t want to read all of that, this blurb sums things up pretty well: “This book is cool, and Brandon Sanderson smells like fresh-baked cookies.” – Patrick Rothfuss.
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Remember folks, for every 10 dollars you donate to Heifer International, you get a chance to win these books and hundreds of others like them. Plus there’s the whole helping make the world a better place thing. That’s nice, too.
Don’t forget, Worldbuilders is matching 50% of all donations. So why not head over to the Team Heifer page and chip in. C’mon. All the cool kids are doing it…
Or, if you want to go back to the main page for Worldbuilders, you can click HERE.