Category Archives: cool things

Published: November 9, 2010

The Long-Awaited T-Shirt Blog

Back in June, I asked y’all if you’d like to see some Name of the Wind t-shirts.

When the answer came back a fairly resounding “Yes.” I decided to do a T-shirt design contest.

We got more designs than I expected. So many designs I knew I wasn’t going to be able to include all the ones I liked in the voting.

It took a while to sort through them all. Then we ended up having to do a bunch of secondary research as well. Apparently, if you want to sell something on your website, you need a store or somesuch thing.

I know. It’s crazy.

Anyway, we’ve finally got most of that figured out. So now we have the moment of truth. Now I’m going to ask y’all to vote on which shirts you would actually like to buy and/or wear.

You’ll notice that we’ve included a few of the designs that I initially said we were going to pass over. That’s partly there were a few persuasive blog comments and e-mails sent in. Also, Sarah and Valerie stood up for some designs. Sarah loved the little anime Kvothe with his speech bubbles, and demanded that I include him. I’m growing increasingly fond of the little guy myself.

Before you vote, a few polite requests:

  • Let’s not descend into internet jackassery here. We’re better than that. Don’t vote a bunch of times. That’s not cool.
  • 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. 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.

Names Compilation

Dangerous to Go Alone

Denner Toothpaste

NOTW Kvothe Symbols

Lute Design

Sweets Draccus

Denner Fishing

Eolian Bar Shirt

NOTW Tree

NOTW Speech Bubbles

NOTW Fancy Design

Kingkiller

Hello My Name Is

(Note: This design will be the size of an actual name sticker.

Also, “You may have heard of me” will be printed under the sticker in smaller text, not on the back.)

Lute Hero

Choose your t-shirt!

  • Eolian Bar Shirt (20%, 2,124 Votes)
  • Kingkiller (16%, 1,727 Votes)
  • Names Compilation (13%, 1,428 Votes)
  • Denner Fishing (10%, 1,056 Votes)
  • NOTW Fancy Design (7%, 721 Votes)
  • Lute Design (6%, 642 Votes)
  • Hello My Name Is (5%, 585 Votes)
  • NOTW Tree (5%, 499 Votes)
  • Lute Hero (4%, 455 Votes)
  • Sweets Draccus (4%, 402 Votes)
  • NOTW Kvothe Symbols (4%, 398 Votes)
  • Dangerous to Go Alone (4%, 379 Votes)
  • Denner Toothpaste (2%, 207 Votes)
  • NOTW Speech Bubbles (1%, 159 Votes)

Total Voters: 6,684

Loading ... Loading ...

A few additional notes:

  • Vote soon. Tell your friends. The poll will be closing in a week.
  • We will be printing at least two different designs. Maybe three.
  • Colors are to-be-determined. (Though the sweet-eating draccus will probably be blue.)
  • T-shirts will be high-quality material, and probably cost around 20 bucks.
  • All proceeds from the t-shirt sales will go to Worldbuilders.

Later all,

pat

Edit: We will, of course, have lady-sized shirts. Because I want to do something special for all the ladies in the world.

Also posted in calling on the legions, Dionysian force | By Pat213 Responses
Published: October 25, 2010

Coming Soon: Worldbuilders 2010

Well folks, November is fast approaching. I can see Thanksgiving on the horizon, and beyond that the Holidays are slouching toward us like some huge beast, drunk on eggnog.

This has always been my favorite time of year. I like the cool weather. I like the smell of fallen leaves. I like not having to worry about mowing my lawn.

But lately, fall has has become my favorite time of year for a different reason:

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while should remember Worldbuilders. For those of you who are new to the blog, here’s how the whole thing works:

1. Authors and publishers donate books.

2. I put the books up on the blog, and we all bask in the warm glow of their radiant awesome.

3. You donate money to the Worldbuilders team page on Heifer International’s website.

4. I (and hopefully a few other helpful sponsors) match a percentage of your donations.

5. You get a chance to win some cool books.

6. Heifer International uses the money to make the world a better place.

See? Simple.

If you want more details, you can check out last year’s fundraiser over here. If you’re curios as to how all this started, you can read this blog here.

Over the last two years we geeks of all creeds and nations have banded together and raised over $250,000 dollars for Heifer International. I heard a rumor that this makes us pretty awesome.

This year, I’m hoping we can can do it again, except even bigger.

I’m posting up this pre-fundraiser blog for a couple reasons:

First, to let people know that yes, we are doing it again this year. I’ll be posting the official Worldbuilders kick-off blog around November 10th.

Second, I’m looking for a little help.

Normally I spend a lot of time gathering donations for Worldbuilders. I wheedle and schmooze authors at conventions. I hit a mailing list or two. I try to convince publishers that donating some books to us, would help raise awareness of those books, in addition to making them look extraordinarily generous and cool.

But this year I haven’t gone to many conventions. In fact, I haven’t done much at all over the last six months except revise Wise Man’s Fear and desperately try to avoid being a crappy, absentee dad.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got a few shelves of books already, with more coming in every day. We’ve even got a few new publishers donating this year. But still, I’m only one guy, and I’m not terribly well connected in the publishing world. So I thought I’d make an open request for donations here on the blog.

So. If you’re an author, and you’re willing to donate a couple signed books to a good cause, drop me a line at paperbackcontest [squiggly atsign thinger] gmail.com and I’ll give you all the details.

Now that I think of it, you don’t really need to be an author to donate. We’d love to get donations from anyone. So if you’re a publisher, an editor, a small press, a bookseller, a collector, or just someone who wants to help out, feel free to drop me a line at paperbackcontest [squiggly atsign thinger] gmail.com. The more the merrier.

Lastly, if you happen to know someone you think might be interested in donating, you’d be doing me a great favor if you brought Worldbuilders to their attention and let them know we’d love to have their support.

(I’m guessing the best way to show them what we do is to link them to the central blog for last year’s fundraiser.)

Thanks in advance everybody. I’m really looking forward to November 10th…

But for tonight, I’ve got more revision.

Wish me luck,

pat

Later Edit: Oh man. I just had an awesome idea. If you do a webcomic and you’d like to help out. Drop me a line at the above address. Even if you don’t have any print books to donate, drop me a line if you’d like to help out. Seriously. This might be cool.

Also posted in baby ducks, Worldbuilders 2010 | By Pat51 Responses
Published: October 19, 2010

A New Addition to the Family: Tuulen Nimi

Guess what showed up in the mail today?

(Click to Embiggen.)

It’s the Finnish translation of The Name of the Wind. Huzzah!

I suppose I might get jaded about this stuff eventually. But the truth is, I still love seeing the new editions of the book. I love trying to figure out how to pronounce the title. I love seeing which map they end up putting in the front. (Usually it’s Nate’s version, but not always.) I love flipping through the book and seeing if I can figure out what’s going on.

And I *love* the versions with new covers. For this one, I’m willing to bet that the artist actually read the book. I can tell because of how the lute looks. The pegbox isn’t cantilevered, and there’s only three pegs on this side (so four on the other side would make seven.) I also like the hood of his cloak.

That’s all for now, T-shirts will be showing up soon. So keep an eye out here if you’re looking to vote on which ones are your favorite…

pat

Also posted in book covers, foreign happenings, Nathan Taylor | By Pat52 Responses
Published: October 15, 2010

Kvothe and Friends

So a while back, Oot had his first birthday. Which meant that he had his first birthday party.

Personally, I didn’t really see the point in this. While my baby is a lump of weaponized cute, he is still mostly a lump. He doesn’t know it’s his birthday. He doesn’t even know it’s a party.

And as for presents, they’re really lost on him. One of the many things Oot and I have in common is the ability to be vastly amused by common household items. Given the choice to play with a cardboard tube and, say, a Porsche, both of us would probably end up playing with the tube.

All of that said, the party was a good time, and an excuse to see a lot of friends that I haven’t seen for a long time.

And as for the presents…

Book-in-Leaves
… one was a little cooler than the rest.

For me, that is. I don’t think Oot will be able to appreciate it for a while. Let’s get a close-up…

(You might need to embiggen this to appreciate it.)

It’s a book one of my friends made by taping pictures over one of those heavy-duty kid books with the cardboard pages. Most of the art came from various places on Deviantart.

(Though the cover is by Marc Simonetti from the French translation of my book.)

Want to read along with me?

This version of Kvothe is by Lucy Artiss. She is a lovely person who I met at a booksigning in London more than a year ago. She gave me copies of her drawings of Kvothe, Denna, and Kvothe’s parents, which I absolutely adored. I’ve been meaning to write a blog about them ever since, but with one thing and another, I just never got around to it. Because I’m a jerk.

Kvothe and Wagon.

When I read this to Oot, I usually say, “Denna is hot as nobody’s business.” Then, if Sarah is around, I also add, “She is also a little bit crazy. Most women are crazy. But that’s okay, because crazy women are strangely compelling and roughly 35% hotter than ordinary women.”

The art is another one of Lucy’s.

Picture credit for Auri.

Picture credit for The Wind.

That’s all for now folks. I’ve got to get back to revisions….

pat

Also posted in babies, Oot | By Pat64 Responses
Published: October 4, 2010

Girl Genius

If you would have asked me yesterday, I would have sworn I’d already written a blog recommending Phil Foglio’s work. I would have gone so far as to bet money on it. A lot of money.

And, apparently, I would have lost that money. Because today when I went looking for it, I discovered I’d written no such blog.

So, in an attempt to set things right, I’d like to talk to you about Girl Genius.

*Ahem.*

I’m guessing a lot of you already know about Phil and Kaja Foglio.  They attend a lot of the big conventions. And, if you’re an experienced gamer like me (and by ‘experienced’ I mean ‘old’) you probably remember Foglio’s comic from Dragon Magazine: What’s New with Phil and Dixie.

Oh, and they’ve won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story the last two years. In 2009 they beat out Joss Whedon’s Serenity comic. And this year they beat out Neil Gaiman’s Batman story.

Yeah. That’s right. Their graphic novel Girl Genius not only beat out Whedon and Gaiman, it beat Firefly and Batman, too.

If that doesn’t convince you of how awesome their series is, I don’t know what I can say to convince you. How about we just look at the cover for a moment while I think of something sufficiently gushy:

Simply said, Girl Genius has everything I look for in a story. The worldbuilding is clever and internally consistent. The characters are interesting and multi-faceted. The story is complex while still being clear, and surprising while still being satisfying. (Which is really fucking hard, let me tell you.)

Did I mention it’s funny? It is. Consistently, honestly funny. I don’t need to tell you how rare that is.

It has a strong female lead character who’s good with science, which is nice to see. And it’s perfectly appropriate for just about any age group. In fact, I probably should have mentioned it when was putting together my list of YA recommendations a couple weeks ago.

If none of that convinces you, let me say one more thing. Every time a new volume of Girl Genius comes out, I buy it, then I read all the other volumes leading up to the new one before I let myself read the new one. I haven’t done that with a series since I read Dragonriders back in the 6th grade.

Okay. Enough gushing.

Because Phil and Kaja are really cool, you can read their comic for free over on their website. However, I have to say that the story really deserves to be read in book form, rather than sitting hunched over a computer monitor. I’ve read it both ways and it’s so much more satisfying to read it as a book.

In fact, I like this series so much, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is.

Here’s my offer. If you buy a copy of the first volume of Girl Genius, and you don’t like it, you can mail it to me and I’ll buy it off you for whatever you paid for it.

I’m that sure you’ll like it.

Here are the conditions:

  • If you mail me Volume 1, it has to arrive more or less intact. It can’t be missing pages, crumpled up, or covered in jam.
  • You need to include the receipt showing me how much you paid for it.
  • You need to include a SASE.

As I type this, part of me worries that this might be one of my ideas that seems brilliant when I’m typing it, but later, when I’m not full of coffee and love, I end up kicking myself.

But you know what? I’m fine with that. What’s the fun of being a published author if I can’t occasionally do something lovely and foolish? In my experience being clever and careful is highly overrated.

Here’s the link to the Girl Genius website. Go on. Order the book. I dare you.

pat

Edit: Rest assured that all nine volumes are in print. I know this because I ordered them myself just a couple weeks ago. If you’re having trouble finding them on the girl genius website, you just need to follow this link.

Also posted in comics, Firefly, graphic novels, Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, recommendations | By Pat58 Responses
Published: August 23, 2010

Locus Magazine

I’ve been cutting back on conventions this year so I can focus on revisions and my pretty new baby.

I’d even decided to skip Wiscon this year, even though it’s in Madison, which means it’s practically in my backyard.

But then I found out my friend Nnedi was going to be Guest of Honor there this year. (Remember Nnedi? I interviewed her for Worldbuilders last year, and talked about her book a couple months ago.) Anyway, getting asked to be GOH at Wiscon is a pretty big deal, and I don’t see Nnedi nearly as much as I’d like, so I decided to go.

Then the people at Locus dropped me an e-mail, asking if I wanted to do an interview. I said, “Sure.” Because Locus is a pretty big deal in the Sci-Fi Fantasy publishing world. And I like doing interviews, especially when they’re in person. I spend enough time typing.

So I meet up with the lovely folks from Locus. The interview is fun. They ask good questions. We hang out. Then they say, “Do you mind if we take some pictures?”

And I’m like, “Sure, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

Then a couple weeks ago, this shows up in the mail:

My first thought? “If I’d known they were going to put me on the cover, I would have gotten a haircut….”

My second thought was, “I’m on the cover of Locus.”

My third thought was, “Shit. This is kind of a big deal. I hope I don’t sound like an idiot…”

Then I open up the magazine and burst out laughing. Here’s what I see:

Why don’t we zoom in on that a little?

Yeah. There you go. You can click that to embiggen it if you want, but you might want to be careful, lest the intensity of my sheer awesome reduce you to a quivering wreck.

For those of you who are curious. My t-shirt says: “My Marxist feminist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.” It’s a very specialized sort of joke, and there really isn’t any point in me explaining it if you don’t get it. Suffice to say that Wiscon is a feminist Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention. It’s the only place I can wear the shirt where people think it’s funny.

Anyway, after I had a good laugh at this picture I was much more relaxed. I get very nervous when people take me too seriously.

I read the interview and was very pleased that I didn’t come off sounding like an idiot. It was a lot more wide-ranging than a lot of the interviews I do, and we talked about some stuff I don’t normally talk about.

If you want a taste of it, there’s a few excerpts over on Locus’ website.

Still revising. One week ’til deadline.

pat

Also posted in Achievement Unlocked!, being awesome, Interviews | By Pat64 Responses
Published: June 29, 2010

A surfeit of surreality

So the other day I make a trip to the university surplus store. That’s the place where the University sells things that it doesn’t need anymore.

(Whoops. That should be university. No capital letter. It’s hard to break certain typing habits after working on the book.)

I love the surplus store. I’ve bought couches there. Chalkboards. Computers. The chair I’m sitting on right now came from the surplus store. Five bucks. It’s cushy and everything.

But on this particular day, I wander over because I hear the chemistry department has surplussed some of its glassware. Back before I fell under the dark sway of the liberal arts, I was studying to be a chemical engineer. I quit early on, before I could get sick of it. And as a result, I still have a real fondness for chemistry equipment. Especially the glassware.

So I head over and look at what they have. After poking around in a dozen boxes, I ask them what they’d take for the whole lot of it. We negotiate for a while, and eventually settle on a hundred fifty bucks for everything. I get them to throw in an old hand-crank centrifuge as well. Because if you’re going to have a  lab in your basement, why wouldn’t you want a hand-crank centrifuge?

It was a pretty frivolous purchase, I suppose. But I just love the stuff. Not even because it’s useful. Hell, some of the stuff I don’t even know what it’s called, let alone how to use it.

Other pieces are easier to identify.

This, for example, is obviously a bong:

This, on the other hand, is a much cooler, more complicated bong:

Okay, fine. I’m not sure what either one of those things is for. But look at the lower one. Witness its awesome. How could anyone not want something like that in their house?

After I bought the glassware I realized Sarah was off running errands. So my intrepid assistant Valerie offered to come pick me up and help me move the boxes.

While I was waiting for her, I wandered over to Starbucks for coffee. I know, I’m not proud of it. But I was on foot with half an hour to kill, and daddy needs his medicine.

By the way, we’re getting to the point of the story now. Did I mention that there was a point to this story? There is.

So I’m at Starbucks, trying to overcome the guilt of not supporting my locally owned, independent coffee shop. They don’t have blueberry syrup, either, which I figure is fair punishment for my betrayal.

Then the woman behind the counter says, “I really liked your book.”

I’m always surprised when someone recognizes me. It doesn’t happen that often, but it’s always flattering.  We talk about the book for a minute, and then I head out the door.

On the way back to the surplus store, I walk past a previously out-of-business store someone’s remodeling. I’ve heard a rumor that someone’s starting up a new restaurant in town called “Curry in a Hurry.” Needless to say, I’m delighted. Stevens Point is a nice place to live, but there’s no Indian food around these parts, and that makes me sad.

So I go over and ask the guy that’s painting a few questions. He confirms it is actually going to be the new curry place. I tell him that’s awesome. We smile.

Then, as I turn to leave, he says. “I’m a big fan.”

And this time it strikes me as a little weird. Two stranger in less than three minutes. And they haven’t just read my book, but they obviously know who I am and what I look like.

Still, I shrug it off. This is my hometown after all. And there have been more than a few local-boy-does-good stories in the paper. And I do have a bit of a distinctive look to me…

Given all that, I decide it’s just a coincidence, and that helps me keep my cool together.

But then, less than an hour later when I’m picking up an air conditioner at Menards, the guy in the loading bay smiles and says, “How are the books doing?”

And then it’s just all different colors of bizarre. Flattering? Sure. Cool? Yeah.  But mostly it was just weird. None of them said, “Are you that author guy?” They all just knew who I was. I’m not used to that. How can anyone ever be used to that?

Everything said, it made for a very surreal afternoon.

Later space cowboys,

pat

Also posted in day in the life, Valerie | By Firebirdblaze87 Responses

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