We’re winding down here, folks. As of tonight (Tuesday, Dec 9th) all of this year’s auctions are live.
We haven’t talked about all of them yet in the blog, but they’re all posted up on e-bay in all their glory. So if you’d like a sneak peek of some things coming up, there you go.
A lot of stuff in today’s blog. Most of these books are signed, doodled in, and/or rare.
What’s more, we have several books in today’s blog that are Advance Reading Copies of books that won’t be hitting the shelves for months. That means you have unprecedented chances to get hold of books before your friends. so you can taunt them and post up teaser reviews on Goodreads.
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- An ARC of Dead Boys. Signed by Gabriel Squailia.
Earlier in the fundraiser, when we ran our auctions for Professional Manuscript Critiques, we told the story of Gabriel Squailia. Back in 2010, he won a read-and-critique in a Worldbuilders auction from my agent, Matt Bialer. Matt liked it enough to offer to represent Gabriel, and this spring, Gabriel’s book is going to be published.
We were really excited to hear about it, and asked Gabriel if we could talk about his success story. He was more than happy to let us, and sent over two ARCs of the upcoming book as well. A few people on Goodreads have had the good luck to get a copy from Gabriel in person, and they seem to like it quite a bit.
We’ve thrown one into the lottery, and we’ve also got one up for auction. Bid on it over here.
- Auction: Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith.
Sherwood Smith has been a fantastic supporter over the years. This donation is particularly awesome, mostly because it’s one of only three that exist in the entire world.
This is a special reprinting of her 2002 YA fantasy novel Crown Duel, containing the corrected ebook text, the short story “Vidanric’s Birthday Surprise,” and several scenes from Vidanric’s point of view. Sherwood has lovingly decorated this book for us, including detailing the first letter of every chapter with calligraphy. It’s truly a beautiful thing.
To see more pictures, or to place a bid, head over here.
- Copies of The Fault in Our Stars. Signed by John Green.
Amanda told me once that John Green was her favorite author.
That’s right. She said it right to my face. She didn’t even pretend to feel bad about it. I took it as a challenge, and started reading his books, convinced that she was crazy. But I ended up really enjoying them. I wrote up a Goodreads Review of Looking for Alaska, which mostly features me feeling guilty about all of the pain I’ve caused my readers.
John sent over some signed copies The Fault in Our Stars. We’ve put all of them into the lottery except for one, and that one’s going up for auction and you can bid on it over here.
- Copies of Indigo Heartfire. Signed by Jo Marryat.
These books were printed specially just for Worldbuilders. They even say so right on the cover, so whoever wins this knows that they’ve got one out of 10 copies in the world. They’re really cool, and all going into the lottery.
- Auction: ARC of Mirror Sight. Signed, inscribed, and doodled by Kristen Britain.
Last year, Kristen Britain donated a signed dust jacket and doodled page of the rough draft of the book. Now that it’s been published, we’ve got a great, signed ARC of the book, and so we’re auctioning it off just for you. It includes a doodle of the most determined-looking hummingbird I’ve ever seen.
- A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects. Signed by Catherynne M. Valente.
“Catherynne Valente writes in the language of dreams, which is not rational and yet always makes sense. I could read the poems in this book a hundred times and find new meanings, new pleasures in them. It is an astonishingly beautiful and deeply satisfying accomplishment … A brilliant, beautiful book.” – Theodora Goss
Catherynne Valente has a way of taking beautiful words and twining them together to make them stronger, bolder, and more delicate, all at once. I enjoyed her longer fiction quite a bit, particularly The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland…, and this book of her shorter work is just as lovely.
- Auction: A set of The Others Series: Written in Red, Murder of Crows, and an ARC of Vision in Silver. All signed by Anne Bishop.
Anne sent over a complete set of The Others, including an ARC of the 3rd book in the series, Vision in Silver, which doesn’t come out until March. Fans of the series could get an early read of the book, and folks who know fans can lord it over them for the next few months.
Bid here to do just that.
“A stunningly original yarn, deeply imagined, beautifully articulated and set forth in clean, limpid, sensual prose.” – Kirkus Reviews
- Hardcover copies of the Memoirs of Lady Trent: A Natural History of Dragons and The Tropic of Serpents. Signed and inscribed to Worldbuilders by Marie Brennan.
My new favorite thing authors are doing is inscribing their books to Worldbuilders. Marie Brennan sent these along and we’re happy to be putting these gorgeous books up into the lottery.
“Saturated with the joy and urgency of discovery and scientific curiosity.” – Publishers Weekly
- Auction: Lettered, slipcased, and leatherbound edition of The Asimov Chronicles. Signed by Isaac Asimov and illustrators Ron Lindhan and Val Lakey Lindhan.
This, my friends, is something extremely rare.
Those of you watching the early part of the Worldbuilders Livestream yesterday may have seen a few of us smelling the book, since it smells like its beautiful wood slipcase and leather. This book was severely limited, and features one story from each of Asimov’s 50 years writing them.
It’s a beautiful, signed edition. It’s lettered SS out of 52 lettered copies, very hard to track down, and it’s up for auction over here.
- The Great Bazaar & Brayan’s Gold and Messenger’s Legacy. Both signed by Peter V. Brett and include a signed bookplate.
We love Peter V. Brett around here, and these are seriously gorgeous editions of his novellas. They’re from the UK, so they’re extra posh.
We’ve thrown a set into the lottery, including the first three books in the series, The Warded Man, The Desert Spear, and The Daylight War.
There’s also a set of the two novellas up for auction, for those of you who know how badly you need them.
- Auction: Special edition of Mister Slaughter by Robert McCammon. Signed and doodled by Vincent Chong.
This is a Subterranean Press publication, so you know it’s going to be beautiful. Vincent Chong did the cover art as well as the interior illustrations, and for this specific copy he’s signed it and doodled it beautifully. (Embiggen the above picture to see the beautiful illustration.)
Even more, it’s completely sold out, so if you want to grab it, you’re going to have to get it here.
- Auction: An ARC of Trial of Intentions . Signed by Peter Orullian, won’t be out until May of 2015.
Some of you may remember Peter’s musical support of Worldbuilders the last few years. This year he’s sent us a very early copy of his upcoming novel, so we’re auctioning it off. Whosoever wins this auction will get a great treat in getting to read this five months early…
“An ambitious story in the mold of Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind.” – Kevin J. Anderson.
If you want that chance, bid here.
- A Blink of the Screen. Signed by Terry Pratchett.
I love Terry Pratchett, and this collection of short stories would be a great way to be introduced to his work, if you live under a rock and have never read any before. Not only is this book signed by him, but it has his cool holographic seal as well.
“Clever, neatly constructed and funny. Pratchett is one of the great comic writers and storytellers of our time.” – Guardian
- A hardcover set of Discworld novels: Reaper Man, Mort, Hogfather, and Soul Music by Terry Pratchett.
These are particularly beautiful. Gollancz wanted to print nice, affordable hardcover editions of the Discworld books, and the ones they’ve done so far have knocked it out of the park. We’ve got four of them collected here, each one featuring fan-favorite anthropomorphic personification Death, and we’ve put them into the lottery.
- Auction: A first edition hardcover copy of The Illustrated Eric. Signed by Terry Pratchett.
“A hearty dose of comedy and genuine slapstick humor.” – Library Journal
This awesome hardcover sendup of the Faust story has a built-in bookmark, as well as plenty of illustrations by Josh Kirby. Not only is it a first edition, but it’s signed by Pratchett himself. Any collector should be excited to grab this, and so if you want it, it’s up for auction over here.
- First edition copies of The Art of Asking. Signed by Amanda Palmer.
Amanda Palmer is a rockstar in both the literal and figurative sense. This book is a great look at what it means to ask for help, and the ways that people can overcome their fears of doing so to have a more meaningful encounter with people.
As someone who lives in the midwest, where we could never ask for help even if we were dying, reading this is like delving into some arcane mystery. The thought of merely asking someone for help is utterly alien to most of us, and it’s a bit of an eye-opener.
We’re putting several signed copies of this into the lottery, and one up for auction over here.
- First edition copies of Fortunately, the Milk. Signed by Neil Gaiman.
Gaiman is a fantastic author, and we all know that, but he’s a particularly fantastic author of children’s books. This one came out last year, and it’s really wonderful. Oot really enjoyed it. So that’s some high praise there.
We’ve got two first editions, so we’re putting one in the lottery, and one up for auction right here.
- First edition copies of The Graveyard Book. Signed by Neil Gaiman.
I’ve listened to the audiobook version of this with Oot a while back. He really enjoyed it, and I wrote about his response to it in a Goodreads review. It was his first introduction to an audiobook, and I’m glad I started him out on Gaiman.
There are a few copies here, so again, we’ve got some in the lottery and we also have one up for auction which you can bid on here.
- Slipcased, numbered edition of Snow Glass Apples. Signed by Neil Gaiman, George A. Walker, and Professor Jack Zipes.
Amanda lusts after this book like you wouldn’t believe. It’s number 10 of 250. When we had one back in 2010, Gaiman said this:
A note — the SNOW GLASS APPLES book is the text of the Play for Voices (as recorded by Seeing Ear Theatre, starring Bebe Neuwirth), with the Queen’s dialogue printed in red ink. (I only found one for sale online, for over $300.)
They only printed 250 of these, and even when you could buy them from Biting Dog Press they would cost you over a hundred bucks. But the book has been sold out for ages, of course.
Because the people here in the office knew I’d bid on it in an auction, we’ve decided to put this special book into the lottery. Something extra cool and rare that anyone can win so long as they donate $10 or more on the Worldbuilders home page.
Whoever wins it, I hope they give it a loving home.
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Thanks to everyone who’s been pitching in. There are a lot of stretch goals being unlocked, including the newest Hank Green video, which Amanda described as, “impossible not to dance to.”
Speaking of dancing, if you haven’t seen Kevin Hearne’s Thriller Video, you are missing one of the finer things in life.
Continue being awesome, everyone.
Spread the word.
