Search Results for: ready player one

D&D, Swords from Westeros, and My Favorite Video of the Fundraiser….

We have been getting a lot of messages and comments as we approach the end of the fundraiser, asking what people can do to help out and be involved, so we thought we’d share some ideas with you today:

You can bid on one of the many auctions that are running and get yourself something cool and collectible.

You can also buy cool stuff in the store, where all the proceeds go to Worldbuilders.

Or you can do what 7-year-old Charlotte did.

You have to watch that. Seriously. I demand that you watch it.

Charlotte has created her own page as a part of our Worldbuilders fundraiser, setting a goal of $500 to buy a heifer for a family that needs it. She’s also got the energy and go-get-em attitude to someday rule the world, so you might want to consider getting on her good side now by helping her out.

Several people have created their own pages as part of our fundraiser. There’s one for Nerdfighters. One for people who do NaNoWriMo. Some of them are offering their own stretch goals and their own prizes. (But they all are included in the main Worldbuilders lottery, and they all add to our total.)

I’m happy to see them all, but I hope I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings if I say that Charlotte’s page has made my day.

* * *

Today’s blog is full of auctions. There’s a great variety of things, so read all the way to the bottom and see if there’s anything that piques your interest…

author d&d

Your chance to have a seat at the gaming table in the third year of Author D&D. Join these literary masters at Confusion as they D&D it up. If you want to know what it’s like, they’ve filmed it for the last three years, which you can watch here in an epic playlist.

The game itself will be on January 17 2015, and there will be books, dice, and other supplies provided. This doesn’t include travel or accommodations, though, so if you’re already planning on going to ConFusion, it’s a great opportunity.

Bid on the chance over here.

mkyneum_cover

Mikey Neumann is more than a great game designer (though he is that too, having worked on Half-Life 2, Brothers in Arms, and Borderlands), he’s also a fabulous public speaker, champion whist player, and a writer to boot.

This year, he was kind enough to write a short story just for us, and read it for us in a YouTube video you can see over here. This is the exact copy he was reading from in that video, and Mikey was nice enough to sign it and donate it for us to auction off.

If you’re interested, you can bid on it over here.

bookrapport3

These posters are designed by Steve Shell, an English and Theatre teacher from North Carolina. Each print features a period map of the setting of the text with a cutout of an iconic image or shape from the story and a cutout showing a special selection of text from the novel/poem/story.

There’s a full set of all 30 posters going into the lottery, and another one up for auction. Amanda’s totally bidding on this to give out to all of her friends who are English teachers.

If you want the auction, you can beat Amanda out over here.

Fabulous donations from Valyrian Steel

The folks over at Valyrian Steel started helping out with Worldbuilders last year, and this year they’ve stepped in to donate more of their officially licensed Game of Thrones replicas and memorabilia.

Nearly everything here is limited edition. Some of the items have as few as 500 available in the world, and a few of them are entirely sold out.

So if you, or someone you love, is a fan of Game of Thrones, read on….

  • Auction: The Hound’s Helm. Limited edition of 2,500.

hound-main

This is the helm of the Hound. Not only does it come with a display stand, but it’s also completely wearable.

The jaw opens and closes, and there’s silkscreened Clegane sigil on the stand, which shows that the folks at Valyrian Steel have a nice attention to detail.

If you want to be as badass as The Hound, bid over here.

  • Auction: Daenerys Bust. Limited edition of 2,000.

GOTDAENERYSBUST(I’m *not* going to make a bust joke. Here. Because I’m a professional. Mostly.)

Daenerys is one of the most loved characters in GOT, and this bust was made specifically to recall the closing scene of season 1.

To have the Mother of Dragons watch over you, bid here.

  • Auction: Tyrion Lannister Statue. Limited edition of 3,000.

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Everyone loves Tyrion, and here’s a limited edition statue they made of him before the second season of Game of Thrones. They asked for ideas of what to create a statue of, and were told that the moment Tyrion charges into the Battle of Blackwater would be awesome.

The producers even provided photographs that were taken during filming, expressly as sculpture reference for this piece.

Bid on it in all its coolness here.

  • Auction: Longclaw Damascus Steel Artist Proof. One of only 18.

Damascus Longclaw on Display

This is a real rarity here.

Not only is this a replica of John Snow’s blade, Longclaw, made of Damascus Steel. But this is one of the incredibly limited run of only 18 artists proofs that were made. Typically they were given to Very Important People, like George RR Martin, or folks who work on the show with HBO.

But the folks at Valyrian Steel have given us one as well, and we’re auctioning it off here for the hardcore fans. It even has the Night’s Watch Oath on the wooden plaque.

Want to be one of less than 20 people in the world with this blade, bid on it over here.

  • Auction: Ice Damascus Steel Artist Proof. One of only 18.

Damascus Ice On Plaque

The Stark family greatsword has a lot of history behind it, and plays an important role in Game of Thrones.

This is also one of 18 artist proofs, so we’ve put this one up for auction as well. The chance to grab this isn’t likely to come up again, so if you want it, you’ll need to bid on it here.

Stuff from Authors’ Desks

During our IndieGoGo fundraiser last summer, the Worldbuilders Team and I gave up a couple of precious and beloved things from our desks. We figured they might last until the final day of the fundraiser to sell out, but all 12 were gobbled up within the first couple of hours.

We all wrote careful notes to go with our items, explaining why we loved them so dearly, and shipped them out, happy to have raised some money for charity in return for a little bit of joy.

Fast forward to now, where a handful of authors who have helped with Worldbuilders are offering the same thing. This is a bit of an experiment for us. But I know as an aspiring author, I would have loved to have something from a pro-writer’s desk as my personal writing mojo. In fact, I’m considering bidding on some of these things in order to steal some of these other author’s powers….

Sherwood cat

This is a charming little cat figurine that Sherwood has kept on her desk for many many years. Since she was in the fifth grade, as a matter of fact.

This comes in a “Thanks for All You Do” velvet bag and a caligraphied note giving a little bit of history of the adorable cat. You can bid on it here.

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Jaime has been a big fan of comic books all her life, so her stuff from her desk has a definite theme: comics. Even the note she wrote explaining the gifts is on Superman stationery.

There’s her 2008 Comic Book Legal Defense Fund membership card, as well as some Superman post it notes. If you want to be half as cool as she is, you can bid on them here.

annebishop

Anne sent over a signed and inscribed copy of Written in Red to accompany Snack the Mini Moose. Apparently Snack has read the next book in Anne’s series and was really scared, so  they’re sending him along to someone who will take care of him. The note that comes with Snack was written by The Wolfgard.

According to The Wolfgard, “If you take good care of Snack, someday he will grow up to be Lunch.”

If you want to take care of Snack for Anne, you can bid on him over here.

aprilwhite

April also kicked in some signed copies of her books to go with her desk item. It’s fairly appropriate, since this piece of Victorian jewelry was a part o the what inspired the period and writing of this series of books from April.

If you want this little piece of coolness, bid on it here.

figment

Figment has been on Kristen’s desk since the 80s, when she picked him up from Walt Disney World. Back then, he was the mascot of Epcot, meant to be a manifestation of imagination, which Kristen loved.

He’s going to start sharing his magic with someone new, and if you want that to be you, you should bid on him here.

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Laura has been helping out with Worldbuilders for a long time in many ways. According to Laura, Deadline Cat “has seen me through numerous deadlines with minimal loss of sanity.”

I’m seriously considering jumping in on this one….

If you could maybe use a Deadline Cat, you can bid on him here.

  • Auction: Joe Ducie‘s Handmade Italian Quill.

Ducie quill

Joe (who many of you may remember better as Captain Joe) had a very fancy, handmade quill he thought he’d share with us. Apparently, he won it off of a Fremchman in Canada, and never managed to use it properly. The full details are in the note photoed above, which you can read if you click to embiggen.

If you’d like Joe’s saucy best, you can bid on his quill (hur hur) right over here.

(I would just like to say that Amanda wrote that last bit. For Shame, Amanda. Way to bring down the tone of the blog after I took the high road by avoiding making a bust joke earlier….)

  • Auction: Martha Wells‘s Invitation to Deeper Than Swords.

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Martha’s desk item is bonus cool, because it was all about the opening of the Texas A&M University Cushing Library’s exhibit Deeper Than Swords, which was about the work of George R.R. Martin.

It includes a packet of info and pictures from the exhibit, as well as the invitation itself, some postcards, and a cool sword letter opener. Martha wrote up a letter with the full details of the event (since she got two invitations, she used one and sent us the other).

If you want your own set of memorabilia, you can bid on it right here.

* * *

We hit Neil Gaiman’s stretch goal yesterday afternoon. He’ll be filming it shortly, but in the meantime, there are plenty of others you can watch to keep yourself entertained.

Me? It looks like I better start calling around to see if I can find some farmer who is willing to let me kiss his Llama…

pat

Posted in Worldbuilders 2014 | By Pat18 Responses

Auri, Art, and Something New….

As I type this, Worldbuilders has raised $287,000 dollars. We shot past the $250K stretch goal like it was nobody’s business, and that means tonight, (Wednesday the 26th) Nate Taylor and I will be going a Google Hangout taking about the art in The Slow Regard of Silent Things.

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The hangout will be starting at 7:30 central time, and will last for about an hour. Nate and I will answer questions, talk about how we worked together to come up with the pictures, and show off some of the images that never made it into the book.

Amanda has set up two of these hangouts for the fundraiser, which means she’s pretty much a professional hang-outer. It also means we already have a link you can follow right now so when the hangout starts, you’ll already be there.

http://youtu.be/_FOex40bR1Q

Yeah. That’s right. I just put a link in the text of the link that it’s a link to. That’s how I roll. Extra meta.

What I recommend you do is open a window on your computer right now and turn the volume on your computer up. Then when we start the hangout tonight you’ll freak the hell out because you’ll hear my voice coming out of nowhere and assume that I’m a maniac who has broken into your house.

You can show up and ask your questions in the hangout, or on twitter using the #GeeksDoingGood hashtag. Or, if you’re not into all the space age tech, you can just leave a question down in the comments at the bottom of the blog. That’s fine too.

* * *

As a bit of a teaser for our upcoming Black Friday sale, we’re doing something we’ve never done before in the Tinker’s Packs. Something we’ve never been *able* to do in the Tinker’s Packs because our previous website couldn’t handle it.

We’re selling computer games. Or rather, the steam codes for computer games.

This is kind of exciting for me because I know both of these companies, and I know they make quality games. And if there’s one thing better than sharing things I love with other people, it’s sharing things I love while making the world a better place.

Let’s do a picture here. I’ve been having the kind of day where I need to look at a happy kid to remind myself why we’re doing this.

heifer

There. That’s what this is all about.

I don’t want to get all heavy here in the middle of my charity post. But I’ll be honest with y’all. These last couple weeks have been hard for me. Sometimes it just feels like everything in the world is spiraling into shit. Politicians are awful. Corporations are worse. Our justice system seems to be irrevocably fucked. Cash register receipts are giving us cancer and the oceans are poisoned with our plastics.

There’s just so much of it, all the time, and I can’t fix it. All this shit is so wrong and it’s just so fucking *big* and I can’t do anything about it.

There is a word: “Weltschmerz.” I’ve heard it defined as “the despair we feel when the world that is, is not the world we wish it would be.”

I feel this way all the time. I am so endlessly angry and disappointed in the world. If people really understood how constantly, incessantly furious I am, nobody would ever dare come within arm’s reach of me.

That’s why I run Worldbuilders. Because the world isn’t what I want it to be. And I can’t fix it all, but if I don’t do something I’ll either start drinking or simply rage until there’s nothing left of me but ashes.

I can’t fix it all. But I can do this.

Lugazi Dioces Heifer Project (21-0616-01)

There. That’s what I’m about. That little guy is so fucking excited because he has clean water to drink.  That I can do.

So thanks for coming along with me, folks. I do this to make the world a better place, but the fact that so many of you come with me on the ride, the fact that you are all so generous with your help. It makes me feel like there’s hope for humanity. And hope is in such short supply these days.

Okay. Sorry about that. Like I said, it’s been a rough couple of days.

Enough digression. Quick link to the donation page, then on to games.

*     *     *

First let me talk about Hidden Path Entertainment.

Two years ago, I was on a panel out at PAX, titled something like “Narrative in Gaming.” I had a ton of fun because everyone else on the panel wrote games, and I was just a novel-type author. Since I wasn’t an expert, I just got to speak as a storyteller and someone who has been playing games for about 30 years.

Which mean I mostly made jokes and shot my mouth off a lot. I probably sounded like a cross between a mad prophet and that angry old man who shouts at kid to get off his yard. “Story is King! Today’s games don’t give people the chance to fail! Narrative engagement is the Holy Grail! I spent two years trying to solve Zork III! Uphill! In three feet of snow!”

At one point, a member of the audience asked, “Is narrative important for a good game?” And I jumped in quickly with a “Absolutely not!”

Everyone was pretty surprised, because I was the story guy on the panel.

“Tower defense games.” I said. “Vastly entertaining. No narrative.”

“What about Defense Grid?” someone asked. “That’s great tower defense game and it has a great narrative too.”

“What?” I said. “Seriously?”

That was the one game that I bothered tracking down at the convention, and when I did, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were fans of my work. I admitted that I have a strange love for tower defense, and one of them gave me an access code for their game.

Simply said, I loved it.

defensegridheader

Fast forward to now. Hidden Path has given us a bunch of codes for this, their first Defense Grid game. I have to say. I’m a bit of a connoisseur of this type of game. To say that this is the best tower defense I’ve ever played doesn’t even do it justice. It’s like saying Portal is my favorite Jumping game. Doesn’t come close to doing it justice.

Did I just compare this game to Portal? Yes I did. Let me say it more plainly. This is the Portal of Tower Defense games.

And I say that with layered meaning. The game bundle we have available in our store includes a bunch of DLC. And in addition to the extra levels and maps. There’s a special little expansion of the game called the You Monster DLC.

That expansion features GlaDOS from Portal. She effectively takes over your training simulation and starts to screw with you. Changing the rules of the game on ever level. Not playing fair in any way.

I have to say, I thought I was pretty good at the game before that DLC pack. But the truth is, I was cookie dough, after I worked my way through the levels and beat GlaDOS. I was carved out of wood.

Amanda says: “Really? Okay, Pat. You just made your first sale.”

You can head over to the Tinker’s Packs and buy it right now.

Defense Grid 2

After I played the game, I called Hidden Path and gushed about how much I liked it. I must have made an impression, because later on, when they were writing the sequel, they asked me if I’d like to come in and do some work on the game with them.

I really wanted to, but I said no. I was working on novel stuff, and besides, I was already committed to one video game project already. (Torment.)

So I introduce them to Mary Robinette Kowal, because not only is she an amazing writer in her own right, award-winning and more experienced with Sci-Fi than I am. But if they can’t get me, they should get someone who’s better at pretending to be me than I am.

Hidden Path has given us codes for the Steam Special Edition of this game. It comes with a bunch of stuff, including the digital book The Art of Defense Grid 2, the e-book The Making of Defense Grid 2: The Complete Story Behind the Game by Russ Pitts, and “A Matter of Endurance,” a audioplay written by Mary as well, performed by the same actors who voiced the game, including one of my favorite voice actors of all time: Alan Tudyk.

You can head over here to buy your code and all proceeds will go go Worldbuilders.

Windborne_Download

The folks over at Hidden Path also sent us download codes for the Early Release of their new game, Windborne. It’s a social sandbox game with quests, exploration, building, and lots of multiplayer options.

I haven’t played it yet, because I just had a book come out, and I’ve been busy running Worldbuilders. But at this point, I’m willing to trust them to produce a good game.

It’s already extremely well received on Steam, and you can be a part of this early access test by buying your copy over here.

Wasteland2_Download

Remember when I mentioned that I was already working on some video game stuff? Well that’s how I know this company. InXile Entertainment is the company that is making Torment, and I’ve been working with them on that for more than a year now, building my companion character and helping write that game.

I’ve been nothing but impressed with them so far. They have a strong focus on storytelling and character, and I’ve already seen them viciously revise the torment storyline once when it wasn’t doing what they wanted. As a hard-core reviser myself, I respect that dedication to the story.

Wasteland 2 is a game that follows in the tradition of the Fallout games. And not just thematically. The first Fallout games were actually put together by people who wanted to write a sequel to the original Wasteland. So Wasteland is actually where Fallout originally drew a chunk of its inspiration.

This game has been a long time coming, and it’s been getting good reviews. I haven’t had a chance to delve into it yet (because writing) But I’ve seen people having fun with it online:


So you can see that these guys have a strong sense of fun as well.

If you want to explore the apocalypse and find your own Wesley doll, you can buy a download code over here.

*     *     *

Tomorrow’s thanksgiving, so we’ve got something a special planned. We’ll be sharing some stories you might be interested in….

And after that we’re having our Black Friday sale in the store.

So stay tuned…

pat

Posted in baby ducks, gaming, Stories about stories., Worldbuilders 2014 | By Pat22 Responses

Slow Regard of Silent Things: Recapping the Tour

When I started my book our for Slow Regard, I had high hopes of writing a few blogs while I was on the road.

Nothing big. Just little posts where I would mention some of the fun things that happened on each particular night. Maybe post a picture or two. Maybe if I was really ambitious, I’d put a cap on some of the blogs I had mostly done.

But no. Eventually, I will learn the truth: I cannot write a blog when I’m touring.

So here’s some highlights:

  • Pre-Tour:

Believe it or not, my signing tour actually started *before* my book came out.

As many of you know, Worldbuilders tried an experimental mid-year fundraiser last year. We ran an Indiegogo for a week and raised over $200,000 dollars.

Among other things, we gave people the chance to pre-order of signed copies of The Slow Regard of Silent Things. And in three days we sold about 1600 of them.

I wanted to make sure those folks got their books as close to the book release as possible. So in the week leading up to my tour, I signed about 2000 books.

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Believe it or not, that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was bubble-wrapping, boxing, addressing, and shipping those packages.

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You don’t really understand how many 1600 packages are until you see them all in one place. Those shelves up there are stacked three deep, and there are other shelves I’m not showing you here.

Despite the tight timeline, the Worldbuilders team pulled it off. All the packages were shipped off the Monday before the book release.

I’m really proud of the fact. This was our first kickstarter-ish project, an experiment that was vastly more successful than any of us had hoped. I think it says a lot about my team that they put in the extra hours and made sure everything shipped on time so y’all could get your books in a timely fashion.

  • Opening Night: Portland.

Not only was this the first day of my book’s launch. This was my first-ever ticketed event that wasn’t a team-up with Paul and Storm.

The thought of selling tickets to my events seems strange to me. It offends my egalitarian sensibilities. But the simple fact is that you can’t fit 600 people into a bookstore. And even if you could, they couldn’t all hear me do my reading, or see me, or have seats.

So Powells arranged for a venue, and 800 people paid to come out and see me.

.@PatrickRothfuss and Nate Taylor get ready for tonight’s event! #PowellsEvents @MajorSheep pic.twitter.com/ppgUX5o8Po

— Powell’s Books (@Powells) October 29, 2014

It was a posh venue. Ushers and balconies and a delightful sound system. If I’d had my act together, I would have taken a picture of the crowd that showed up. But I didn’t, because I even think of it.

The Doubleclicks where there to open for me, and they rocked the house. I got misty when they sang “Wonder” like I always do. Then they invited me out to play the cat keyboard during the chorus of “I love you like a Burrito.”

Here’s the thing, we planned it before hand. I practiced a couple of times. I went so far as to number the keys on the cat-keyboard.

But I still screwed it up. More than once. Every time, in fact. On every chorus.

It was a great time.

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The signing afterwards was lovely, and I was joined by Nathan Taylor, the dashing artist who illustrated the book. Unfortunately, because I’m an idiot, I forgot to mention him to the crowd beforehand.

People brought me art. People brought me hugs. People brought me pie.

The next day I stole the fancy soaps from the hotel and it was off to….

  • San Diego:

The thing I remember most was that there was a really cute baby in the front row. Before my reading I talked to him for a bit, and when he reached for me, his mom let me hold him for a couple minutes. Thank you, baby mom. That meant a lot to me.

There were some awesome D&D players there who asked me geeky questions. They reminded me of me when I was their age.

And this happened.

B1OSAbsIcAAIqQi

That’s right, they’re all wearing cloaks. They all came to the signing from the same college where they have a book club. They call themselves “The Scrivs.”

It doesn’t get much better than that.

  • Seattle:

This was another ticketed event, and another 800 people or so showed up. It was in a church across the street from the University Bookstore.

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Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I was already there that I realized it would be really funny to go in with a bunch of dry ice hidden under my clothes then cuss a lot and pretend to catch fire. Maybe next time.

The fabulous Molly Lewis opened for me, but I didn’t try to sing with her, as I’ve already screwed that up once before. (I’m pretty sure there’s a video out there of me making a hash of Tom Lehrer’s Elements with her.)

I also learned that Molly is doing a musical called ThanksGiving Vs. Christmas.

Image.axd

If you live near Seattle and don’t go to it, you probably really need to examine what you’re doing with your life. Seriously.

My friend, illustrator and frequent collaborator Nathan Taylor was at this event too, as Seattle is close to home for him. And in a blithering display of lame, I forget to mention it to the crowd a second time.

In an attempt to make it up to him, I’ll mention the kickstarter he just launched.

As for my reading and Q&A, I can’t remember much of what I said. But I do know that I talked about feminism a bit, and at one point I held forth about the several ways that Frogger was sexist.

I felt pretty stupid about that afterwards, until a guy in the signing line said, “I’d never really thought about sexism in games before. But you’re right. Frogger is sexist. That’s kinda fucked up.”

So I’m counting that as a win.

  • Milwaukee:

At this point I’m four days and four cities into the tour. I’m getting around 3-5 hours of sleep a night with supplementary naps on planes and in cars.

Because of that, I remember less and less of the events. I know it was Halloween in Milwaukee, but I can’t bring to mind the costumes except that someone came as Batman.

The other thing I remember is that in the signing line, someone told me that their creative writing teacher required them to go to a reading as part of their class, but that my reading didn’t count, because I wrote fantasy.

I had her record a video where I voice my opinion on the matter.

Here’s the video. It isn’t entirely safe for work, as I remember saying the word “Bullshit” about seven or eight times.

 

Then onward to…

  • Lexington:

The cafe attached to Joseph Beth bookstore changed their menu for the day of my event:

Damfine menu

I’m proud of my addition: the Damfine Apple Pie.

We had about 600 people show up, including two gender-swapped Kvothe cosplayers showed up. That’s never happened before.

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  • Chicago:

People brought me wine and wizard hats,  and after the signing I had dinner with Peter Segal and some new friends.

Other than that, all I can remember is that this was actually in a town called Skokie.

Skokie. It sounds like an adorable animal sidekick from a Disney film.

Skokie.

  • St. Louis: (Fenton) 

The last stop of the tour. It might be unfair to call me a shambly mess, but it wouldn’t entirely be untrue.

Some of my friends who live in the area turned up at the signing, and it almost made me weepy. These are the old friends, the ones I’ve known since college. The people that have known me most of my adult life.

I haven’t been a very good friend over the last five years. My life has upheaved several times in several different ways, and I’ve been endlessly busy with one thing and another. All of that has turned my ordinary bumbling forgetfulness into complete isolationist non-communication that sometimes lasts for years.

Despite this, some of my friends drove miles and miles to visit me. They stood in line for hours. They brought me food and presents. They are better than I deserve.

  • The Reviews:

The best part of hitting a different city every day for a book tour is that I was too busy to obsess about reviews. And when I got home, I was mostly too tired to care anymore if people hated it.

Besides, I’d already heard from many of my readers that they loved the book.

Some of them on my blog:

“Thank you for giving me a moment of connectedness. Thank you for helping me love (just a little bit) a piece of myself that I’ve always hated.”

Some on twitter:

(And apparently I’m some kind of sadist, because when people read my book and cry, I feel strangely proud.)

People have also forwarded very nice reviews written by people I respect.

Like this one from NPR titled: Slow Regard is a riddle wrapped in a Mystery Living in an Underground Tunnel.

And an equally lovely one from GeekDad.

Some people don’t like the book. Or they were expecting something else. There’s a delightful blog about the book called: “This Pretzel is the Worst Lasagna Ever” where they discuss the problem of reader expectation in a wonderfully ridiculous way. Another blog dealt with the same issue with considerably more snark.

Generally speaking, I don’t go looking for bad reviews. I’ve been down that road, and I don’t plan on traveling it again. Besides, I already knew people wouldn’t like this book. I said as much in the author’s forward. And I knew people would be pissed that it wasn’t book three because I have the ability to see into the future and read people’s minds.

When writing The Name of the Wind, I decided I’d rather write a book some people love and other people hate, rather than write a book that everyone thought was pretty much okay. That seems to be what I’ve done here. So I’m happy.

This helps.

#2(Click to Embiggen.)

I’m pretty happy with taking second place after Grisham.

To all of you that came, if we had a moment during my tour and it wasn’t mentioned here, don’t take it the wrong way. I had so much fun with all of you. I appreciate the gifts, the hugs, and the thousand small kindnesses you have shown me. But this blog is already ridiculously long, and I have to wrap things up.

Stay beautiful, my people,

pat

P.S. Stay tuned for the big launch of Worldbuilders on Monday. It’s going to be awesome this year.

Posted in appearances, Nathan Taylor, the longest fucking blog ever | By Pat35 Responses

New Store, New Calendar, and New Novelties

Before we launch into this month’s Novelties, I’ve got a bit of exciting news.

Our online store, The Tinker’s Packs, has a new… um… store.

Yeah. There’s probably a better way I could have said that.

What I mean to say is that for the last several months, the Worldbuilders team has been working on revamping our online store. The old one was fine back in 2009 when we were only selling a few books and t-shirts, but things have changed a *lot* since then.

These days we’ve got all manner of posters, books, jewelry, signed books, games, bizarre ephemera, books that are also games, and… well… kinda just a lot of stuff.

In addition to being pointedly less geocities than our last store, this store gives us a lot more flexibility in what we sell and how we sell it. Best of all, it’s much more streamlined on the back end (hur hur hur) so that we can ship things more quickly and efficiently. That means not only will it be faster and cheaper for you, but more money will go to Worldbuilders.

So. Now that we’ve got a new store, let’s kick the tires a bit with a few new items, shall we?

Maplecroft 2up - blog

“A mesmerizing, absolute must-read.” – Brian Keene

This is the first book in this new series, and a signed first edition to boot. We have a handful of copies available over here.

  • The Mirror Empire. Signed, inscribed, and doodled by Kameron Hurley.

MirrorEmpire 2up - blog

“A smart, brutal, and ambitious epic fantasy.” – Kate Elliot

As you can see, some real love was put into doodling these books. All that love can be all yours (along with an awesome book) if you buy one of our copies over here.

MazeOfGames-blog

This is a rare creature we have here. A bizzare if not entirely unique combination of game and book. The book itself is printed out of order, and you need to solve puzzles to figure out what page to turn to next.

It’s a brilliant piece of geekery, and we were excited to be able to help show off this beautiful hardcover version here, knowing that a lot of you would never run into it otherwise.

Even cooler is the special puzzles included in each of the 6 copies Mike and Gaby donated to us, but we’ll let them describe it to you…

Yeah. The 6 people who buy this book from us will each have their own, unique puzzle to solve, which then can be combined into one larger puzzle. If that larger, six-part puzzle is solved, Mike and Gaby will donate a goat to Heifer International.

Because I like their style, I’ll match that goat with another goat. If you want to be a part of the coolness, grab a copy over here.

If you’d like to learn more about the book, or would like to order non-signed copies, you can do all of that over here.

We’ve also got a new game in the store this week….

GetLucky - blog

Some of you might have caught this when it was up as a kickstarter when I posted about it on Facebook. If the picture of the game doesn’t jog your memory, maybe this will.

Pat_as_Meymon_Smelt_1024x1024

(Yup. I make a cameo appearance in the game.)

Amanda’s been playing this game for months, and digs it. I’m behind the times, and only first got to try it out at PAX.

If you’ve played the board game Kill Doctor Lucky, it’s a card game version of that. If you haven’t, think of this as the prequel to Clue: the players are the people trying to kill a wealthy old man in his mansion without getting caught.

It’s a fun, fast game you can carry with you. Quick enough that you can play it while you’re waiting for your food to show up at at a restaurant, or when family gatherings have gotten particularly boring.

If you want it, head over here and grab one.

And now for something extra exciting….

KHCalendarCover_1024x1024

Some of you have already seen this in the Geeks Doing Good fundraiser we ran back in July.

In fact, if you ordered the calendar back then, there’s a good chance you already have your copy. We’re only selling this now because we’ve just finished up shipping out our pre-orders.

If you’d like to see some of the previously unseen pages, check this out.

KHCalendarSpread_1024x1024

You’ll probably want to click and embiggen that image, if for no other reason than to check out the middle picture. We specifically commissioned it for this year’s calendar, and it features a couple characters there you might recognize….

Needless to say, the Worldbuilders team was really excited to see these come back from the printer.

AmandaNomNomNom

Everyone has their favorite page:

Nicole2

The sooner you order your copy, the sooner we’ll ship it out to you using our shiny new store.

Also, if you own a store and you’d like to carry copies of these going into the holiday season, drop us a line at calendar [at] worldbuilders.org and we’ll arrange to get you some.

Fondly,

pat

P.S. Stay tuned to the blog, as I’ll be posting up the details of my book tour. Soon.

Posted in Novelties, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat23 Responses

House Rules and Candy Land

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, or following me on any type of social media you realize that I’m a game player.

So it’s probably not a surprise that I like playing games with my little boy.

You probably also realize that I’m something of a hyper-critical curmudgeonly fuck. Which means I find a lot of things irritating.

For example, Candy Land:

orenstein_candyland

(This is what my version looked like when I was a kid.)

I’m not going to go off on some screed about game design here….

Ah hell. That’s a lie. I’m so going to. I didn’t mean to. I was just going to come in here and tell a cute story about my kid and then get out under 600 words. But I’ve kinda have to get this out or I’ll probably burst a vessel or something. I really shouldn’t keep this shit bottled up. I promise it will be a smallish, well-reasoned screed. Okay?

Dear everyone: Kids games should be games.

I know, I know. The main things we get from kid’s games isn’t competition. It isn’t intellectual stimulation. We’re not playing Traveler, here. We’re not looking for the subtle intricacies of Go. I get that. There are two primary things a kid’s game provides:

1. It gives you an excuse to hang out with your kids.

2. It gives your kids the basics of how to play a game.

This second one is not to be underestimated. When I started playing with Oot a year or so ago, I was amazed at how much of it wasn’t natural. The concept of taking turns, following rules. They need to be learned.

So yeah. I know those are the two biggies that you’re getting when you play a kid’s game. But you can still have some *game* in there.

Think about it. The main purpose of food is to get calories and nutrients, right? But we don’t just sit down and eat two cups of lard and a multivitamin, do we?

No. We do not. Not twice at any rate.

*     *     *

I remember playing Candy Land with my mom. It was fun. But I was a kid back then, so the bar for fun was fairly low. Pretty much anything a kid does with their loving parent is going to be fun. When I was older, my mom confessed that she’d gotten really tired of Candy Land. She used to hide the low-level candy cards because they made the game last forever.

Tedium is not the mark of a good game.

I felt a connection with my mom when, after playing Candy Land a couple times with Oot, I began to do the same thing. Because it *is* a tedious game, and not just for adults. Oot himself would start to zone out partway through the game. Not because he has a poor attention span, Oot will sit and read books for hours. He’ll work a puzzle on his own.

No. He’s bored because the game is tedious. And it’s tedious because there is no skill involved. You draw a card, you look at a card, you match a color, you move your piece.

Games that involve no skill are not good games.

Yesterday, after months of not playing, we brought out the game again and took another crack at it. Because he wanted to, and he asked nicely. And I can deal with some tedium if it makes him happy.

But we changed the game a little bit. We added a house rule where you drew two cards and got to pick which one you wanted.

With this small change, Candy Land became an actual game.

Sure there was still a huge random element to it, but now there was some skill as well. You had to make decisions.

CandyLand5

So what will it be, my little man? Green or red?

Suddenly, this game became fun for both of us. Not only was the race to the castle *much* faster. But you didn’t have to fear getting a “backer.” (Which is what Oot calls it when you get a card that makes you go backwards.)

Most important of all, there was suddenly some choice involved. He had a reason to pay attention. Which card do you want? Which will move you farther?

What really impressed me was when he got to this point on the board.

CandyLand4

“Oh no,” he said. “I hope I don’t get a green!”

(He didn’t want to get stuck in the Licorice Pit, you see. If you land on that particular green square, you lose your next turn.)

I took my turn and moved, then he took his turn and drew a double green and a double orange.

“I pick the two greens because I like green,” he said. Then he picked up his piece and looked at the board. He set his piece down again. “No. Wait,” he said. “I want the oranges instead.”

I tell you, I practically burst with pride and joy.

With this one simple rule change, the game became engaging for both of us. He even taunted me.

Candyland3

Which, as far as I’m concerned, is as vital a part of game playing as learning to take turns and follow rules.

The crafty little bastard even tried to coffeeshop me when I drew the popsicle.

Candlyland2

He’s like, “You should take the double blue, dad.”

Again, I glow with pride. That’s my boy. If you can’t win by the cards, you win the game with your mouth.

I beat him the first game. I was tempted to throw it, because I could tell he wanted to win. But that’s not doing him any favors. That’s another thing games teach us: how to lose. How to deal with disappointment. How to deal with the fact that sometimes, you just get shitty cards and there’s nothing you can do to fix it. And that sucks. Rub some dirt on it. Happens to everyone.

Also, Oot already taught me what happens when you don’t play straight with kids:

So I played that first game straight and beat him. He took it well, and because the game was shorter with the two-draw house rule, he was willing to jump right back in for a re-match. And, because it hadn’t been a tedious random trawl through sugar mountain, I was happy to give it another go too.

The second game I got an early lead again, and *really* considered throwing it. But I didn’t, and he won anyway. So that’s a good lesson for me, too: Sometimes I should just leave well enough alone.

It was also cool to see him get better at choosing which cards to pick. He’d always pick the doubles over the singles. But originally he liked to pick blue and green because he liked those colors better.

I didn’t tell him he was wrong, I just took my own turns and talked to myself, saying. “Hmmm. If I go to the blue, I go this far. If I take the orange, I go *this* far. I think I’ll take the orange, because it’s farther.”

By the second game, he was doing the same thing. Because kids are smart. They’re built to learn.

Why am I sharing this?

Well, partly because I love talking about games, and I love talking about my boy.

But I’m also telling you this story because I’m guessing a lot of you have kids, or you *will* have kids in the future. Or you’ll at least play with some kids. And this was such a simple, elegant fix to a classic children’s game that I couldn’t help but share it.

If any of you have suggestions for good kid’s games you’d like to share, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

Play nice everyone,

pat

Posted in gaming, mom, Oot | By Pat89 Responses

Stretch Goals, The Kindness of Geeks, and Two Extra Days

As I write this, Worldbuilders has raised $617,000, crushing last year’s total.

ScreenCap1

Because of this maelstrom of support from the geek community, we blew through every stretch goal we had posted.

So yesterday I spent some time on the phone to see who else might be willing to help out. Brian Brushwood offered to teach me to eat fire. (Which is going to make for a great video not matter how it works out.) John Kovalic offered to make a mockery of me in his comic. Nate Taylor was willing to help me develop a new, more detailed map of the Four Corners world.

We posted up those new stretch goals… and passed them almost immediately.

So today we’re doing three things:

  1. We’re showing off the stretch goals we’ve already passed.
  2. We’re posting up a few new stretch goals.
  3. We’re extending the fundraiser a couple days.

This last one shouldn’t come as a *huge* surprise for those of you who have followed our fundraiser in the past. Over the last couple years, it’s become kind of a tradition. In 2012 we extended things a week. In 2011, we extended things *two* weeks.

The difference is, in previous years we needed the extra time because… well… because I was trying to do everything myself, and I suck at organization. This year I was smarter. I’ve let the Worldbuilders team handle more and more. As a result, the fundraiser has been running smoothly and raising a ton of money….

And, because of *that* we’ve been getting media coverage over the last couple days. Which means folk are finding out about us just how and jumping onboard. We’re raising, on average, about $1,500 dollars an hour. Stopping our fundraiser right now, just as so many folks are hearing about it, seems a little silly.

So we’re extending it two days. Worldbuilders now ends the night of Feb 4th, midnight.

Just long enough for disorganized people like me to make last-minute donations.

Long enough to show you our newly unlocked stretch goals…

When Trey told us he’d take a selfie for his stretch goal, we thought it was a brilliant idea. After all, he’s a world-famous photographer. Seven million people follow him on Google+ to look at his pictures.

Then we saw what he did, and it was so much better than what we’d imagined.

Trey Ratcliff - Bathroom Selfie

(Click to enbiggen. Seriously.)

He also shot a video about his adventures setting up the shot. It’s a fabulous story that involves, among other things, the taxidermied sheep you see in the photo.

 

Scott and Elizabeth did not hold back on their true feelings on the second Hobbit film. As you can tell from the fact that their rage-filled video is well over an hour long.

If you needed another reason to love John Scalzi, here it is….

I swear, Hank came up with this on his own.

When Mary come up to Stevens Point to film this, I hadn’t yet read the erotic fanfic she’d written for our 175K stretch goal.

That’s right, I read it cold. So if I’m blushing there, you know why.

The truly amazing thing is how much she *nailed* my writing style.

  • $400,000 Sandeep Parikh drinks a Capri Sun while doing a handstand.

This is the most dramatic thing I’ve seen in… maybe ever.

Brad filmed himself reading the riddle scene from The Hobbit out in the snow… in shorts and a t-shirt. Now, I’m a Wisconsinite… but honestly, even I probably would have worn pants for this.

Probably.

In keeping with our Hobbit theme, Molly did an amazing cover of The Greatest Adventure.

It also got this song stuck in my head. For days.

It’s still there. But in all honesty, I don’t really mind.

  • $475,000 Pat Rothfuss and Amber Benson write urban fantasy erotica.

This is a stretch goal Amber and I dared each other into during an interview.

We hit it, so now Amber and I will write the story of Deuteronomy Jones a “transsexual, plucky, red-headed vampire hunter.” And Lance Franklin. “Rogue warlock-in-hiding. Half-succubus. (On his mother’s side.) And also, a Calvin Klein model.”

I’ll be writing the female character. Amber’s doing the male.

Yeah. It’s going to be a thing….

The title here tells you everything you need to know….

*     *     *

If these acts of whimsy have amused you, you can help spread the word about Worldbuilders by sharing them around to your friends.

2013 Book Wall 02

Feel free to let people know that every ten bucks they donate on the Worldbuilders Team Page, makes the world a better place AND gives you the chance to win a truly staggering number of rare, signed, or otherwise valuable books.

You can see *all* of our stretch goals here, including our new unlocked ones…..

So there you go.

Now, when you head into work tomorrow, and everyone is having the same boring conversation about Superbowl commercials, you can let your geek flag fly by saying, “That’s nothing, I saw Hank Green seduce a tree.” Or “Have you watched the video of Neil Gaiman reading Green Eggs and ham?”

Thanks for everything, folks. You’re all amazing.

pat

Posted in cool things, geeking out, Nathan Taylor Art, videos, Worldbuilders 2013 | By Pat53 Responses

Twitter Contest – The Reveal

Well folks, the votes are in on the twitter conetest.

And the Winner is… Pat Rothfuss.

Or rather, the winner is @Pat_Rothfuss

Which is to say that the winner was *not* Pat Rothfuss.

By which I mean that the winner was not me. And it wasn’t even a close thing.

With a crushing 42% of the electorate, the winner is.

MaryRobinetteKowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of Shades of Milk and HoneyGlamour in Glass, and Without a Summer. In 2008 she received the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2011, her short story “For Want of a Nail” won the Hugo Award for Short Story. Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and several Year’s Best anthologies. She is also a cast member of the Hugo-award winning podcast Writing Excuses. Mary, a professional puppeteer, performs as a voice actor, recording fiction for authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi. She lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters.

Everyone played a good game, but simply said, Mary crushed this contest. Not only did she get nearly three times the votes anyone else did, but she managed to convince twitter itself that she was me.

It was a little disheartening, in all honesty.

Who were the rest of the players?

AmberBenson

Amber Benson is a writer, director, actor, and maker of things.  She wrote the five-book CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES urban fantasy series and the middle grade book, AMONG THE GHOSTS. She co-directed the Slamdance feature, DRONES and (co-wrote) and directed the BBC animated series, THE GHOSTS OF ALBION.  She also spent three years as Tara Maclay on the television series BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. She doesn’t own a television.

KialaKazebee

Kiala Kazebee is a writer on the internet and co-host of Felicia Day’s web show/book club “Vaginal Fantasy” on Geek and Sundry. She apologizes in advance for making you google that.

You can find her on Twitter. Forever.

VeronicaBelmont

In the world of SFF, Veronica is the co-host of the science fiction and fantasy book club, podcast and video show The Sword and Laser. She is also a member of the monthly Google Hangout show, Vaginal Fantasy, where she drinks too much and waxes intellectual on paranormal romance and erotic scifi and fantasy.

Otherwise, you can find her weekly on the tech-help and how-to show Tekzilla, or as the technology contributor to PopSugar Girls’ Guide show, The Sync Up.
  • @PatRothfuss was my assistant, Amanda, with 14.05% of the vote

AmandaHoerter

Amanda and I have known each other for years now, and she’s been reading the blog for even longer. Not only is she my personal assistant (aka Pat-herder) but she’s also developed a creepy knack for impersonating my phraseology. She’s good enough at mimicing me that shes’ managed to fool Sarah once or twice, so it’s not really surprising that she also tricked 14 percent of you….

She tells me she’s considering getting her own Twitter account now, though she worries she’ll feel significantly less cool than while she was pretending to be me.

PatrickRothfuss

I am the actual bonafide Pat Rothfuss. Or at least I thought I was until I lost my own fucking contest.

*     *     *

First and foremost, big kudos to Mary Robinette Kowal, who was above-and-beyond cunning and devious. Her charity, Con Or Bust, will receive $1,000 from DAW Books, and bragging rights for all of eternity.

She already did a bit of strutting, walking around parts of World Fantasy con looking like this:

MRK as Patrick Rothfuss
I expect I will never live this down…

Secondly, I’d like to thank all of you for a lovely game. Even with a few hiccups, I’m very pleased. Once again, you’ve proven that my readers are some of the brightest, wittiest, snarkiest folks a writer could hope to have.

And thank you to Mary, Amber, Kiala, Veronica and Amanda for spending a couple weeks being me.  I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate y’all taking time to goof about with me. You should really check out their work if you haven’t already. Because while they’re quite good at being me, they’re much better at being themselves.

In the next couple weeks, I’m hoping we might be able to schedule a Google hangout together and talk about the contest. But that will probably have to wait until I’m back in the US….

Tonight, (Monday night) I’m going to be doing my reading and signing in Oxford. I hope to see some of you there….

Fondly,

pat

p.s. I wrote  goodly portion of this blog using stolen wifi on a moving train. If you ignore my minor typos up here, I’ll ignore yours in the comments below. Sound fair?

Posted in Achievement Unlocked!, Beautiful Games | By Pat81 Responses
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