Category Archives: fan coolness

Seven Words: Or Stay Home And Save the World(builders).

Hey there everybody,

I’m guessing a lot of you are like me, in that you spend Black Friday huddled inside your house, wrapped in a blanket with the lights off, vowing not to go outside for hear of dealing with the worst elements of humanity.

It’s pretty much the same way I’d behave if The Purge were a real thing, come to think of it.

Luckily, Worldbuilders Market online store is running its own sale that you can participate in from the safety of your own house, or even from under a blanket, if you so desire.

(Check out our fancy graphics)

Pretty much everything in the store is on sale:

The sale is running from today until December 2nd, but the quantities of some items are limited, so if you’re interested you might want to get in there sooner rather than later.

I’m going to start with the stuff I’m most worried about selling out, so those of you who read the blog regularly have the best chance of getting in there in time…

 

Those of you who have been around for a while know that our online store used to sell personalized books. But after years, I had to stop doing it because it was eating up a huge chuck of my time at a point in my life where I was already way too busy and behind schedule.

But this year, to help out with the Black Friday Sale, we’re offering these up in the store again. But just a limited number, and only for a limited time.

I’m going to be personaizling both the gorgeous 10th Anniversary Edition of The Name of the Wind, and The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Now here’s the thing, part of the reason I had to stop doing this is because back in the day people used to ask for really long, detailed personalizations. Not only is there not enough space to write several sentences on the title page of the book, but the longer and more detailed the quote, the more likely it is that I’ll goof part of it up and then we pretty much just have to throw that book into a fire.

To solve that problem, here’s the rule: Keep your personalization to seven words.

For example:

“Kevin, Hope you have a great birthday!”

“Merry Christmas, Jennifer!”

“For Susan, Congratulations on your parole!”

“Happy Bris, Geralt! Sorry about your dick!”

As an interesting note, while typing up this blog, I misspelled both “Congratulations” “Anniversary” and “Parole” on my first pass. And that’s *typing* where I actually have muscle memory working for me. (You can understand why it takes me a while to sign these. )

As part of the black Friday sale, we’ll also be throwing free change jar stickers in with your orders. And folks who pick up the 10th Anniversary editions will get a free bookmark, too.

(Like so.)

I also have added some random quotes a limited number of the standard blue hardcover of The Name of the Wind.

To be clear, these books aren’t personalized, but I’ve written a bunch of my favorite quotes from NOTW in them, like so…

(Click to Embiggen)

Those of you who love Julia Maddalina’s depiction of Auri will be delighted to see that we’ve made a cool new poster in two different sizes  and a greeting card based on her art.

I’m not saying this is my favorite depiction of Auri ever, because there have been some amazing ones over the years. But I did buy the original art…

The Fabulous Nate Taylor has also thrown his hat into the ring with a bunch of cool cards for the store this year, including these three new kingkiller-themed ones

As an interesting note, not only are all the cards discounted due to the Black Friday Sale, but the more you buy of *all* the cards available in the store, the more of a bulk discount you get. That includes all the cards in the store, including Julia’s new Auri card.

Lastly but not leastly, this year we’re also very excited to be offering products made by artisans in Heifer programs

It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for *ages* and I’m delighted we’ve finally pulled it off.

Stay safe today, folks. And while you’re binging on leftover stuffing, take a wander over to the store and check things out. There’s hundreds of other products from so many different creators, and for the next couple days, all of them are on sale…

pat

(I might be streaming later on to show off some of these products live. If you wander over to my channel and follow it, you’ll get a notification when I go live.)

Also posted in Nathan Taylor Art, Worldbuilders | By Pat19 Responses

A bit of blog, a bear, and a blush.

Hey there everybody,

I’m still reeling a bit from the response to the last blog. I’m surprised so many of you still show up here after all the long stretches of silence. I’m even more surprised at the storm of kind comments as well. Though I’ll be honest here: I’m not too surprised, as over the years y’all have proved that you are delightfully compassionate and empathetic human beings. Still, the degree to which you are supportive does still amaze me from time to time.

I’m going to be making an effort to blog more, even if they’re just little blogs. Too often I feel like I should only blog if I have something really big to say. But then invariably what happens is I start a big, emotionally engaging blog with a narrative arc and several scene breaks and pictures…. and I get pulled away by other more pressing concerns before I finish it. Then it just sits there….

I just checked. I have 300 partially drafted blogs here on wordpress. And while I’m guessing at least half of those are probably nothing more than a link to an interesting video or article I wanted to talk about. I know many of them are half-written musings on the nature of truth, book reviews, or the nearly-complete story of the time I got to ride the carousel with Neil Gaiman at House on the Rock.

I’ll probably try to finish up those blogs too, here and there. I’m trying to get better about finishing things lately, too.

For now, let me offer you something smaller. This is practice for me, writing a little blog of no particular import.

Here are a couple pictures from earlier this ear at Emerald City ComicCon.

The first was a truly astonishing Princess and Mr. Whiffle Cosplay. She gave me my very own Mr. Whiffle, too.

Now you might look at this picture and think to yourself, “Why is pat so angry despite the fact that he’s just had his mind blown open with delight by a reader showing his work this much love?”

The thing is, I’m not angry. I’m trying to imitate Mr. Wiffle’s expression.

(Added coolness? Mr. Whiffle’s eyes are actually adjustable so I can change his expression.)

Edit: People keep asking about the Princess and Mr. Whiffle. Here’s a link where you can buy it without paying ridiculous amounts on e-bay. (And the money goes to charity.)

Here we have a homebrew t-shirt from the same convention. It’s not *that* strange for me to see a fanmade shirt these days, but I will say, this is the first shirt I’ve seen along this particular theme. The art design was really impressive too, and deserves a better photograph than the one I have here. But honestly? I was a little blushy and flustered when I asked if I could take the picture… so this was the best I could do.

Thanks for being awesome guys, I’ll try to be more awesome in the future so you don’t get too far ahead of me.

Be good to each other,

pat

P.S. – Some of you were lamenting that you missed the Call to Adventure Kickstarter. So the folks at Brotherwise Games are doing a short pre-order period where you can grab the game and expansion at the kickstarter price AND still get the kickstarter exclusive cards, too.

You can pre-order over here, but only until Wednesday.

 

Also posted in Arts and Crafts, blogging, cool things, cosplay | By Pat138 Responses

Secrets, Arts, and News of Three Parts

Hey there everybody,

I’m typing this as I sit in a hotel room in Seattle. Tomorrow I fly home to see my babies. But for the last week, I’ve spent my days doing secrety things with cool people.

I can’t really share any details right now. But suffice to say that I had a good time, and you’ll see the fruits of this labor… soonish. Eventually. Before the heat death of the universe at any rate. Probably.

*     *    *

If you’re more interested in things that you can put your sweaty little hands on right now. Allow me to talk about the kickstarter a little bit.

If you missed the last blog, or have simply have been distracted by the many woes of the world, you might have missed the fact that we recently launched a kickstarter to make something like this:

(Oh Bast. If I were you, I wouldn’t ever wear a shirt either….)

What’s more, the kickstarter had a delightfully successful launch, and so many of you jumped in with such enthusiasm that we’re already over 1300% funded already.

This is really nice for us, as it’s the first kickstarter we’ve done completely on our own, and we weren’t sure how it would go. So far, it’s been a wild ride. We even got selected by Kickstarter as one of the Project We Love, which was hugely flattering.

We’ve torn through a bunch of our stretch goals. Unlocking many, many new cards. And we’re showing off new stuff as quickly as we can make it available.

For example, here’s some of the new pieces: Devi, Lorren, and Mola.

(Click to Embiggen)

To make things even cooler, we’ve been slowly releasing hand-painted pieces of original card art from Echo.

 

She does a lot of her work digitally, so it’s rare for her to have original oil paintings available. Some of these will be different from the final card, either because she started working on them before the card was finalized, or simply because they had to be digitally aligned to make them symmetrical, like a card needs to be.

We included some of these when the kickstarter first launched. But they were all sold out by the second day. Now we’re preparing to launch 7 more of them. But since there’s only one of each and they sell fast, we wanted to make sure that everyone who might be interested was notified in advance before we put them up. So, on Tuesday, August 29th at 12pm Central Time we’ll be posting up the following original art pieces:

  • Master Lorren, Alternate King of Spades
  • Denna, Queen of Spades
  • Devi, Alternate Queen of Hearts
  • Cinder, Chandrian Joker
  • Fae Bast, Alternate Jack of Clubs
  • Kilvin, King of Clubs
  • Ambrose, Jack of Clubs

They range in price from $1500 to $1800, which is a steal for hand-painted art from someone like Echo. Each of them will come with all four unique decks of cards, free US shipping, and a set of the special, gilt-edged Chandrian decks.

We’ll be releasing more of the original art in another week or so, but I can’t make all of those announcements here. So if you’re hoping to get your hands on one be sure to back the campaign (even if it’s just at the $5 tier) so you get updates in your email as soon as they go out. You’re always able to change your pledge to another tier until the campaign ends.

*     *     *

We’ve also hit our final print stretch goal: and as a result, Echo will be producing another piece of art showing Kvothe’s Troupe entertaining themselves after camping for the night.

This poster is going to be extra cool though, because we’re having some cameos in it. Three of our Edema Ruh troupers are going to be the McElroy Brothers.

(Awww, brothers….)

These good good boys are going to be appearing in the print. Which fills me with delight, as I’m a huge fan of their work. (In fact, just a couple hours ago I had a real solid cry listening to the final episode of The Adventure Zone.)

What’s more, you’ll get your chance to be included in that print as well, as we’ll be putting some cameos up for grabs in the near future. If that’s something that interests you, be sure to sign up for updates on the campaign, and keep an eye on the e-mails, as that’s where we’ll be announcing when those cameo spots go live, too.

So. If you haven’t already, go and check out the kickstarter and look at the cool art. And if you’re interested in getting some of Echo’s originals, set an alarm, and we’ll see you at 12pm central time on Tuesday.

Thanks again everyone,

pat

Also posted in Arts and Crafts, calling on the legions, cool things, Echo Chernik, geeking out | By Pat10 Responses

Tattoo 2: News & Tattoos Too

Hey there everybody,

Before we do today’s blog, two quick notes:

First, a reminder that we’re running a t-shirt design contest in anticipation of the Geeks Doing Good fundraiser that we’re running in June. If you’re an arty type, we’d love to see what designs you could come up with. Then we’ll vote on them here in the blog, and the winners will become for-real t-shirts that people can buy for charity. (P.S. We’ll pay you, too.)

Fair warning: You have less than a week to submit your designs. If you want more details, you can check out this blog here. (Even if you don’t want details, you can still click the link. If nothing else, there’s a cute video of my kid there.)

Second, we set out our first activism newsletter. It doesn’t have many bells and whistles yet, but those are in development. I think the team did a nice job of providing some good news (with valuable context) for people who want to stay informed (but who are tired of being overwhelmed by getting their news on social media.) Even more importantly, we gave people some good, productive ways to take positive action and help make the world a better place.

We’ve got more than 4000 people signed up at this point. If you’d like to join us, here’s a link.

And now the new coolness:

*     *    *

Back on the second day of my first booksigning tour, I met a woman who had a tattoo of my signature on her arm.

“Wow,” I thought to myself. “That’s pretty nuts. I guess I’ll never see anything like that again.”

But, as with many things, I was completely wrong. And eventually assembled and shared an entire blog full of tattoos that people got based on my books.

Since then, whenever I see one of these appear on social media, a tuck it away in a folder to share with y’all later.

So here we go. Tattoo blog two:

I’ve seen more than a few of Auri’s brazen gear. That makes me happy.

Allana Dilene

I like the thought of two people with Fulcrum tattoos noticing each other and becoming friends….

I’m guessing this is the only one of these I’ll ever see. I’m glad they liked Bast’s Rhyme that much….

my-heart-is-made-of-stronger-stuff-than-glassI’m fond of this quote. (And not just due to… umm… placement.)

Tattoo - Parts that form usThere’s some truth in this one that I tend to forget all the time….

tattoo - Only a fool worriesAnd this one too…

fantasy-lit-tattoo

This is hardcore nerd. Is nerdcore a word. It should be. And this is it.

Clicking to embiggen is of the Lethani….

More tats

Sometimes I write something I’m very proud of. It’s hard to express how flattering it it when someone else likes it enough to put it on their skin, forever.

SeenI like this version too. I’m a big fan of the less-is-more aesthetic.


Tattoo iron wheelI never expected to see one of these….

tattoo too

This seems to be one of my more popular quotes.

Tattoo - perfectI’ve heard a lot of folks use it in their weddings…

Tattoo maybeI think this might be the only Amyr one I’ve seen…

VorfehlanWhoo boy. You better hope I wasn’t lying when I said what that translated into…

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a foreign translation tattoo before this one. Or one for this particular quote. I think it turned out lovely….

It reads, “Viajé, amé, perdí, confíe y me traicionaron.” (“I trouped, traveled, loved, lost, trusted and was betrayed.”)

tattoo - auriI’m very fond of the Auri tattoos. She has a special place in my heart.

We’ll do some more of them in the next tattoo blog. I’m realizing now I have too many of these to include here…


Way, way too many….

And this is a good one to close on.  It says a lot.

Thanks so much, everyone. You mean a lot to me.

One family,

pat

Also posted in geeking out | By Pat31 Responses

Art Contest III: The Artening.

Hey there everybody,

If you’ve been hanging around the blog for a while, you know that in June Worldbuilders holds a fundraiser. It’s called Geeks Doing Good, and we put a bunch of cool geekery up on Indigogo for a week so y’all can come over, ooh and ahhh, then hopefully buy some stuff and help us make the world a better place.

Traditionally, we do some T-shirts during the fundraiser. And we have, in the past, occasionally run contests where people can submit designs for t-shirts which we then vote for here on the blog

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

Truth is, over the years y’all have made some beautiful art. And since it’s been two years since our last contest, we figured we were overdue. So we’re throwing open the doors again, and inviting y’all to submit designs for new kingkiller shirts.

But that’s not all….

You see, long long ago. Years and miles away. We made a kingkiller onesie:

It was adored by children everywhere.

We even shot a video of Oot describing what exactly was going on in the picture:

(Awwww… Daddy’s little shill.)

But that was a *long* time ago. Maybe seven years? And we never did a second printing, so most people never had a chance to pick one up….

So anyway, in addition to t-shirt designs, I’d love to see some ideas for onesies or baby shirts if y’all have any bright ideas. I’ve been wanting to make another onesie forever, and this seems like a good opportunity.

Here are some general rules:

  • Must be your original art/design.
  • Please submit your entry as a jpeg, png, or pdf.
  • Images should not exceed 5MB. (If you win, we’ll contact you for high res.)
  • Please submit no more than three designs per category.
  • You can submit the same design to both categories.
  • Submissions must be sent via email. (Below.)
  • The submission period ends on Wednesday, May 17th.

This isn’t a rule so much as an important note: remember that fewer colors for a design tends to be simpler and more elegant, not to mention cheaper to produce.

Here’s how you submit your entries:

  • If you want to submit a t-shirt design, email it to tshirt (at) worldbuilders.org
  • If you want to submit a onesie or baby shirt design, email it to onesie (at) worldbuilders.org

After the deadline, we here at Worldbuilders HQ will sift and sort them, then post a blog where everyone can come in and vote on which ones they like best.

*     *     *

While we’re on the topic of art, there’s another project I’ve been wanting to do for ages. It started as a stupid joke years and years ago, I think I was talking with Paul and Storm about selling out, and what sort of really crass merchandising I’d do. I can’t really remember products we discussed, but it was crazy bullshit like Kvothe action figures with Real Sympathy Grip (TM) and Name of the Windbreakers.

Oh. Oh damn. I meant that to be a joke. But we could totally sell a Windbreaker, couldn’t we?

No. No no. I’m not going to do that. One crazy idea at a time.

Anyway, the one idea I do remember from that conversation was when we joked about making a kingkiller lunchbox. Mostly because I pictured it as having “The Name of the Lunch” written on it. I laughed my ass off at the thought. Partly because when I was a kid, I actually did have a lunchbox. It had Benji on it. And a thermos for milk. My mom packed me a lunch in it for years until I got too old for Benji. Then she used brown bag lunches instead.

So over the years, whenever we would talk about product development, I’d always bring up the Name of the Lunchbox as a joke. Then everyone would roll their eyes at me and we’d all move on with our day.

But when I brought it up this year, everyone kinda just looked at each other and said, “Why not?” The Indigogo is the perfect place to do it, because if people *do* want this bizarre thing and we sell 500 of them, that’s great. But if sanity prevails and we only sell 15, we’ll produce as many as we need, move on with our lives, and Worldbuilders won’t get stuck with four pallets of them gathering dust in a warehouse.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that this is a strange project. Hell, that’s most of the reason I want to do it. And it may prove too complicated to pull it off this year. But what the hell, right? Let’s at least give it a try…

But to do that, we’ll need art for the lunchbox. So if you’re an arty type, I’d love to see what you’d come up with for something like this.

The rules for the lunchbox designs are a little looser. There are size and shape issues that we’ll have to work out if we pick your design. But for your initial submission, USE THE TEMPLATE HERE as a guide, then email it to (you guessed it) lunchbox (at) worldbuilders.org.

Fair warning. We *might* not be putting the lunchbox design up for a vote. As I said, this project is a bit of an odd thing. As I mentioned earlier, you may not see the final product this year. Or maybe ever. But getting art we like is the first step in making my lunchbox dreams come true.

On a completely unrelated note, if you happen to know anyone in the lunchbox-making business who would be willing to give a charity a break on minimum order quantities, feel-free to send them our way.

*     *     *

Lastly but not leastly, I’d like to say that I’m a big fan of people getting paid for their work. Especially designers and artists, who are all-too-frequently asked to ply their craft for free. And while exposure is lovely, we all know you can’t eat it.

Since Worldbuilders is a charity, we run on donations. Partly because of that, and partly because we began as a shoestring operation running out of my living room, most of the art we’ve used was simply given to us out of the kindness of the artist’s hearts. In doing so, those folks have helped us raise a ton of money to make the world a better place.

But artists have to eat too. So from now on, Worldbuilders is adopting the policy of paying the winners of these contests for the use of their art. It’s not going to be buy-an-island money or anything. But it’s something. And don’t get me wrong, if you decide to waive the fee or re-donate it to the charity, we’re still cool with that, too…

I’m just saying. I admire you art-doers. I respect your cleverness and craft. The designs you create fill me with great joy, and help us produce things. You are important to us. So. From now on, there will be money on the table if we pick your design.

I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with…

pat

Also posted in calling on the legions, contests, cool things, Geeks Doing Good | By Pat29 Responses

Temerant T-Shirts and Exciting News

Hey there everybody,

As you may have guessed, we got a lot of entries for the t-shirt design contest. Despite the fact that it was only a week long, and over a holiday weekend, *and* it overlapped the end of the semester.

We got over 200 designs. Y’all are all insane in the best way possible.

As I’ve already shared on facebook and twitter, some designs came in that broke my heart with how lovely/sweet/whimsical they were.

Paul Coffey - An Apple That Thinks Its A Pear(Such as the apple that thinks it’s a pear.)

The reason they broke my heart is that some of them I loved, but they wouldn’t work on a t-shirt. Or they’re too obscure or specialized…

Rest assured that those designs won’t be lost forever. We’re going to chat with some of the artists to see if they’re willing to let us use the art for other things. Maybe cards or postcards. Maybe after some tweaking, we can use the designs for future t-shirts.

But the harsh reality is that we needed to get the number of designs down to 10-ish for this poll to be in any way functional. That means we had to cut more than 95% of the entries.

What’s more, we needed to do it *fast* as we’re launching the IndiGoGo on June 1st.

So here we are.

The titles for the shirts are ABOVE the shirt. Keep that in mind when you scroll down to vote.

1. Ivare Enim Euge

ivare enim euge

2. You Have Died of Chandrian

You have died of Chandrian copy

3. Trouper in the streets, Fae in the Sheets

TrouperTee copy

4. What does it unlock?

unlock

 

5. Maple, Maypole, Catch and Carry

Maple copy

6. Key, Coin, and Candle

key coin candle copy

7. Property of Arcanum Sympathy Department

Arcanum T-Shirt V3 copy

8. Edema Ruh

edema ruh copy

9. Cthaeh

Cthaeh copy

10. Chandrian

Design_1

11. The Waystone Inn

ideas

12. A stone in your heart

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Before you vote, a few polite requests:

  • Let’s not descend into internet jackassery here. We’re better than that. Don’t try to game the system. Don’t vote a bunch of times. That’s not cool.
  • Please vote based on which designs you would buy as a t-shirt. If you like the art, but you wouldn’t wear it as a shirt, then don’t vote for it.
  • If you know deep in your heart that you’re never going to buy a shirt, it would be nice if you didn’t vote at all. It’s not that your opinion doesn’t  matter…. It’s just that it doesn’t matter in this particular instance.
  • You can vote for two shirts. That means you should vote for the shirt that you’d really love to buy. And then the shirt that you’d love to buy if your first choice isn’t one of the ones we print.
  • When you’re voting, double check the name of the shirt to make sure you’re casting your vote correctly. The name of the shirt is ABOVE THE PICTURE. ABOVE.
  • The poll ends 12:00pm Central Time Saturday, May 30. So be sure to get your votes in before then…

Which T-shirt Should We Carry?

  • What does it unlock? (15%, 2,132 Votes)
  • The Waystone Inn (15%, 2,125 Votes)
  • You Have Died of Chandrian (13%, 1,895 Votes)
  • I know you have a stone in your heart (11%, 1,537 Votes)
  • Edema Ruh (10%, 1,428 Votes)
  • Cthaeh (7%, 1,035 Votes)
  • Chandrian (7%, 1,024 Votes)
  • Ivare Enim Euge (7%, 948 Votes)
  • Property of Arcanum Sympathy Department (6%, 820 Votes)
  • Maple, Maypole, Catch and Carry (4%, 591 Votes)
  • Trouper in the streets, Fae in the sheets (4%, 551 Votes)
  • Key, Coin and Candle (2%, 334 Votes)

Total Voters: 8,719

Loading ... Loading ...

[Edit: It’s totally fair to look at the current results before you cast your votes….] [Additional Edit: Given the response here, we’ll be making at least two of these shirts. So please do vote for the shirts you would like to buy. But again: Please only vote once.]

*     *     *

Lastly, we have a piece of extra cool news.

Jim Butcher, fabulous author and proper geek, has agreed to let the Worldbuilders team develop a Dresden Files shirt for the June 1st fundraiser, too.

We’ll be posting up the details in a blog later today. But just let me say if you’re sad you missed your chance to participate in this design contest, you might still have a chance to come and play.

More soon, folks,

pat

Edit: Here’s the link to the blog with the news about the Dresden Files shirt…

Also posted in contests | By Pat154 Responses

WMF Photo Contest Part XIII: Grand Prize Winners

Today we bring you the final part of the photo contest.

Those of you who were around for the beginning of this might remember that I extended our deadline because some people said they were trying to get permission from the FAA for what they were trying to do.

So really, it’s their fault that I haven’t finished the photo contest yet. If I’d had those two weeks, we would’ve finished the photo contest in a timely fashion.

I joke, I joke. And even if it was the truth and their small delay somehow *had* somehow cascaded into this longer one. I honestly think it would be worth it….

You know what? I’m not even going to be coy here. I’m going to skip the preamble and jump right to the end. I’m going to show you the goods.

Here’s what they did:

IMG_0062

This is my book. In space.

It’s. In. Space.

Look at that. It’s so high up that you can see a slight curvature of the earth. And my book.

So there. You know the end. But I’m guessing you’re going to stick around for the preamble anyway. Because you’re my readers. You know the journey is the worthier part…

*     *     *

Three folks from MIT collaborated to make this happen. Jay, Kristyn, and Mike. (With a strong assist from their friend Malcolm, who let them use his book.)

Their photo shoot started at 5am on a Saturday.

IMG_0102

They got a serious weather balloon, and started setup.

IMG_0121.2

IMG_0126 copy

IMG_0567 copy

Realize that these photos were taken in 2011. Four years ago. Digital cameras weren’t *quite* as pervasive then, and neither were superphones.

So they hacked an old camera to take pictures every 5 seconds, attached a phone that sent out a GPS signal every 30 seconds, and wrapped everything up in Styrofoam for protection during the flight.

IMG_0424 copy

But they didn’t stop at getting a cool view of the city.

IMG_1951 copy

You see how the clouds in the sky make the same ripple effect that wind makes on the waves? You see how that is the same ripple effect you see in the sand on the beach?

You know what that is? That is the name of the wind writ large across the face of the world, my friends.

IMG_1678 copy

Hello you great, blue beautiful thing….

IMG_0062

It’s almost perfect. It just needs a little something….

IMG_0135

There we go. Fucking rainbow. Done.

For those of you who are into numbers, the balloon went up at around 500 ft/min and reached approximately 75,000 feet.

So… yeah. My book has been into space. I’m *so* going to give John Scalzi a hard time about this the next time I see him…

Hold on. It only now occurs to me. Commercial planes don’t fly that high. And I doubt very much that anyone takes novels on rockets due to weight limitations….

That means The Wise Man’s Fear has probably set some sort of weird record. I’d bet a modest amount of money that it might be the first novel in the stratosphere. If not, maybe first hardcover novel. Or.. maybe… First Hardcover Fantasy Novel to Reach Stratosphere Via Balloon?

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Guinness?

You know what? It doesn’t even matter to me. The fact that someone did this with my book is cooler to me than I can express in words. (And when you read that, please consider who is writing it.)

So thank you, you excellent people.

Thank you, you shiny geeks.

Thank you.

*     *     *

I hope it’s obvious that this isn’t something the three of them just banged together in an afternoon. They made plans. Coordinated with the FAA. Make a test run…

Here’s a piece of the story that Mike sent along:

“During Jay’s practice flight he sent up the camera and when it came back down it landed in a wooded area, so he climbed through a bit of woods only to find it stuck about 40 feet up a tree, with not much remaining daylight he had to leave the camera up in the tree.

The next morning I went down with him to see how we were going to retrieve the camera and we stopped by Home Depot to pick up supplies. Jay went to get some pipe while I set about getting rope and duct tape. Turns out asking a clerk before he’s had his morning coffee what aisles rope and duct tape would be in will get you a raised eyebrow. Then trying to explain the situation away before you’ve had your morning coffee doesn’t alleviate his concern.

It ended up taking us the better part of the day throwing sticks, stones, lassos, trying to knock it from the tree with a 40’ pipe before it finally fell. Our triumph lasted long enough to find out the data was corrupted and “tech experts” were only able to recover the first 10 – 20k feet of the flight.”

Of the actual flight, they said this:

“One of the fun things about this project is the fact that you lose control of the balloon’s flight path the moment you let go of it. You can use weather radar and predictive models and they really mean absolutely nothing.  Once the balloon reaches a certain altitude the gps we were using stopped working, but we could track it once it dropped back below that altitude.  So for a couple hours we had nothing to do except find a local diner eat breakfast and wait(my favorite weekend activity).  The predictive model we used suggested the book would travel over 50 miles and land up near Marlborough, Massachusetts about 25 miles from the ocean.

So after breakfast we started driving that way to at least be in the general area.  We kept checking the GPS and eventually it resurfaced(not sure if thats the right word considering the book was coming back down) about 75 miles south of Marlborough and  less than 3 miles from the Atlantic.  So we turned the car around to drive toward the balloon.”

There you go. While it’s safe to say that I loved the thousands of pictures y’all sent in for the photo contest, there’s no denying that these guys went the extra mile.

I think it goes without saying that these guys deserve their gold talent pipes. My heart is full of joy when I look at these pictures. I am awash in the glow of their reflected cool.

Gold Pipes

Because they went above and beyond *ahem* I’ll also be sending them some signed books (And a special copy for their friend who gave up his own copy for the cause) and any other swag their hearts might desire.

What’s more, if y’all are interested, next time I’m out in Boston I’d love to take y’all out to dinner. If you’re free, you can pick the place and it’s my treat. I also offer post-prandial libations and board games at a venue of choice.

Because honestly? You guys are people I want to hang out with. You’re my kind of crazy.

* * *

With that, the Photo Contest is finally a wrap. While I enjoyed it, you guys have no idea how nice it is to finally have the weight of it off my neck. I feel positively bubbly having expiated that particular long-term shame.

Lastly, because I’ve been focusing on getting the photo contest finished. There are a few quick announcements I should make.

1. Worldbuilders will be doing its second-annual mid-season fundraiser at the beginning of June.

Last year it went amazingly well, and we raised more than $200,000 for charity. So this year we’re doing it again. Bigger and better.

2. We’re launching a new t-shirt or two along with that fundraiser.

To that purpose, we’re going to have a quick t-shirt design contest. And I *do* mean quick. We’re launching it on Monday, and the window for submissions will only last for seven days. (Though if you’re reading this you can have a couple day’s head start.)

After a week is up, we’ll ask y’all to vote on which ones you like best and they’ll go up in the IndieGoGo.

 3. This afternoon, I’m going to be participating in the Twitter Fiction Festival.

I’m going to be writing a story on twitter. It’s going to be a bizarre melange of improvisational storytelling, old-school text adventure games, and raw caffeinated madness. You’ll control the character through suggesting the character’s actions. I’ll control the story by choosing which suggestions we use, and giving replies.

It’s going to be a glorious experiment that I expect will explode in a huge roiling ball of narrative flame.

I’ll be doing that from 3-4pm CT today. If you want to check it out, or participate, my twitter is right here.

See you later, space cowboys…

pat

Also posted in Achievement Unlocked!, being awesome, Photo Contest 2011 | By Pat29 Responses
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