Friends

The end of the year is almost upon us, and the holidays are bearing down like a freight train, so it must be time for a Christmas sale.

From now until the end of the year, I'm offering special discounts on three of the hardcover books offered on the Signed Books page of my website.

The Meisha Merlin trade hardcover of TUF VOYAGING, with a cover by Michael Komarck and interior illustrations by Janet Aulisio, normally sells for $29.


The Bantam Spectra hardcover reissue of WINDHAVEN, my collaboration with Lisa Tuttle, sells for $26 on the website.


And INSIDE STRAIGHT, first volume in Tor's new Wild Cards triad, goes for $27.


You can also get all three of these books for $69.

But those are the normal prices. From now through the end of the year, as a Christmas special, I'm offering each of the hardcovers for $20, or all three for $57.

Those prices include Book Rate (Media Mail) shipping within the United States. If you would prefer Priority Mail, please add $5 for a single book, or $10 for more than one. Overseas and out-of-country shipping is more; please inquire.

And of course I'm always willing to sign and inscribe the books.

Happy holidays, and good reading.

Note from the Assistant's desk:

Please email grrmbooks@gmail.com with questions regarding ordering or international shipping rates.

you know, when you're feeling bad and miserable and the world is bleak and life sucks...

that's when you really want the zombie apocalypse to happen.

As in, like, right now, Z-day. Come on. Come to papa.

*crossing fingers*

You have killed a Zombie, and need to make sure that it is dead. Maybe it is in your compound and you need to move it, or you need to step over it to get down a hallway in a hospital or police station (your group needs antibiotics or ammo or something), or you need something that is on the Zed's body.

How do you ensure that it is actually dead and is not going to lunge at your legs as you stand next to it?

For the purposes of this thought experiment you can not check that it is dead by 're-killing' it:

• You can't risk shooting it (you fear attracting attention or you are low on ammo) unless you are sure it is not dead.
• You are too weak from hunger to swing an axe/maul/hammer/crowbar, but can muster the strength if you absolutely need to once you are sure that it is not dead.

You need some way beyond "re-kill it again" to check that it is dead. This is something you will need to do again and again every day for quite some time.
What do you adopt as a standard approach to the situation?

Weezer - Pork and beans
New Order - True Faith
Weezer - Perfect Situation
Flogging Molly - Worst day since yesterday
Social Distortion - Ball and Chain
Social DIstortion - when the angels sing
mighty mighty bosstones - someday i suppose
mighty mighty bosstones - rascal king
metric - help, i'm alive
jeff buckley - hallelujah
Talking Heads - Lifetime Piling up
Depehce Mode - Wrong
My sole nod to the season - The Pouges - Fairytale in New York
Howlin' Wolf - Sitting on top of the world
v/vm - Forever Young (Partial)
Alphaville - Forever Young (Special Dance Version) - I'm a sucker for extended sweaping synth interludes.
Moist - Push
Jars of Clay - Flood
Big Pig - I can't break away
Dresden Dolls - Coin Operated Boi
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Queen - Who wants to live forever
Otis Redding - Sitting ont he Dock of the bay
Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Grey Cell Green
Groove Coverage - Moonlight Shadow

I should prolly dig out my The Lash CD.

I'd really, really, really like to cock-punch my brain right now.

I need it to do one thing, one thing only, and that's process call reports.
FOr the next 2.5 hours.

That's it.

Not notice that my freinds list in fb is smaller, that lj isn't quite a full anymore or to have an extended conversation about learning curves, achievable and improbable objectives and methods and flashbacks.

And then there's that little monkey on my back that shows up sometimes, the one that tells me 'hey, there's a new expansion coming out, and you never did get that hunter to 60.."

It's going to be a long-ass decembre, that's all I can think of.

For the record I think LJ is a better system than FB, Fb just automates more and is easier to use with better 3rd party support (mobiles etc.) LJ is the more powerful tool.

Also, y'know what Every motherfucking social site needs? A "you already tried dubmass" icon. 4srs, there's precious little worse than being 'that guy' who keeps attempting to friend/message you over and over and over...

Just wanted to share some more of the wonderful Ice & Fire miniatures from Dark Sword.

First, some lovely painted versions of Prince Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne, and Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, dueling for the life of Tyrion Lannister. Tom Meier did the sculpts, and Matt Verzani painted these for the Dark Sword studio collection.

Prince Oberyn:


The Mountain:


The Duel:


Tom is always so exacting about scale and size with his sculpts; I love how this pairing brings home Ser Gregor's monstrous size in such a vivid and visceral way. And of course Matt has done a wonderful job with the paint, as always.

And while Matt's been busy with his brush, Tom has been sculpting up a storm in his studio, and we have some great new greens to add to the range. These aren't in production yet, but look for them soon.

Here's Arya:


And Sansa:



Lady Catelyn:


And a personal favorite, Sansa building her snow castle at the Eyrie:


For more information and pictures, visit the Dark Sword website at http://darkswordminiatures.com/ And remember, miniatures make wonderful stocking stuffers for all the Ice & Fire fans in the family.

• 20:16 My duck feet have been paddling like crazy all day! Now I have four loads of laundry in. Got to pack to leave for California on Wednesday... #
• 21:23 RT @NoPantsDance: in the face of negativity i ask myself to give more love. (U R BEAUTIFUL.) #
• 21:25 @MetisBlack What happened to the drought? #
• 21:27 Folding clothes and watching Intervention. #

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This book is amazing. (As is the sequel.) This first book begins a little slowly, with e-mail transmission, but it once it picks up...boy does it. This is, hands down, the best zombie novel I've read. The sequel is even better. Never have I read a zombie thriller twice, but I've read this one three times already. A MUST READ!

(Anyone who has read....please let me know your thoughts!)



About:
The end begins with a viral outbreak unlike anything mankind has ever encountered before. The infected are subject to delerium, fever, a dramatic increase in violent behavior, and a one-hundred percent mortality rate...

Death.

But it doesn't end there. The victims return from death to walk the earth.

When a massive military operation fails to contain the plague of the living dead it escalates into a global pandemic. In one fell swoop, the necessities of life become much more basic. Gone are pretty much everyday concerns. Gone are the amenities of civilized life.

Yet a single law of nature remains: Live, or die. Kill, or be killed.

On one side of the world, a battle-hardened General surveys the remnants of his command: a young medic, a veteran photographer, a brash Private, and dozens of refugees, all are his responsibility--all thousands of miles from home. Back in the United States, an Army Colonel discovers the darker side of Morningstar virus and begins to collaberate with a well-known journalist to leak the information to the public...

The Morningstar Saga has begun.

I know that a lot of rudimentary Zed-fighting plans involve firearms. My question is what do we do about the cleaning and maintenance of those firearms during the onslaught? As I understand it, every time a gun is fired, it needs to be cleaned so that its chances of jamming or misfiring are significantly lower. So, has anyone thought to factor that in to their plans?

I'm just curious to hear your thoughts, that's all!

**EDIT Wed Dec 9 00:28:16 UTC 2009 **

The notification system has been fixed in the new release... we are currently processing the queue, which is upwards of 12m jobs... please bear with us while our workers chew through this large queue and get your notification / emails out. Some may come more quickly than others due to weights on the notifications themselves, but we are hoping in the next 24 hours to have all the queues cleared and all notifications delivered that had been queued up over the past few days.

Again I apologize for this inconvenience, but we are almost out of the woods as soon as we are done clear cutting some of the forest ;)

Thanks,

** END EDIT**

Hey Guys,

Unfortunately with our last release, and its instability, we were forced to roll back releases. Unfortunately in doing so, it would seem that our notification system has been broken somehow. Our engineers are working on this issue as quickly as possible. We hope to have a patch within the next day, so we can deploy our code and fix the notification system at the same time. Please *bear* with us ;)

Currently all notifications are being queued up so they can be processed as soon as the fix is pushed and verified to be working correctly.

Thank you,

• 12:52 I'm dieing of cute here! And I'm not even a cat person. bit.ly/7Q5tuU #
• 22:46 Nite cotton tails... sleep well... #

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And down go the Dallas Cowboys, for a season sweep.

Only a SuperBowl tastes sweeter than a victory over the hated Cowboys. Once again, as in the playoff game at Dallas two years ago, all the talking heads picked Dallas, and once again all the so-called experts were wrong. If anyone had told me yesterday that Tony Romo would complete 41 passes and Eli Manning would complete 11, I would have figured the game for a Dallas blowout... but if anything, the final score should have been more lopsided in favor of the G-Men. The last Cowboys TD was a gimme in garbage time, and earlier in the game our Steve Smith let a sure TD catch go skipping off his hands. The keys to the victory were a pair of amazing plays, a catch-and-run by Brandon Jacobs, and a punt return for a TD by Domenick Hixon. You'll see them on the highlight reels this evening.

Will the G-Men make the playoffs? Well, they have a chance now... but the road ahead still looks pretty damn rough, with the Iggles next week and the Vikings at season's end. But for this one week, at least, life is magical and full of joy.

Pretty amazing week in the NFL all round. Evil Little Bill and his P-men were upset as well, the Saints had a close call and an amazing win (has Dan Snyder fired that kicker yet?), and the Raiders knocked off the Steelers with Bruce Gradkowski doing his best Kenny Stabler imitation. Things are getting really interesting.

And Dallas faces the Chargers next week. Maybe I won't need to kill Pat after all.

(P.S. Flozell Adams is a thug, and may be the dirtiest player in the NFL).