Contest - Name that Robot

The folks over at the new SFF imprint, Angry Robot have come up with a clever bit a viral marketing that I'm happy to pass along. It's a contest to name the robot on their website and the prize for the winning entry are copies of their first 7 books. And the best part is that the referring website also gets a prize, so I want all my readers to enter (hell, enter 4 or 5 times if you can) and win me the prize (and one for yourself of course).

Brent Weeks Giveaway

Sometimes when a publisher sends me books they never arrive – and sometimes when a publisher sends me books I get double. Thanks to the latter, I have an extra copy of the first two books in Brent Weeks’ new epic fantasy The Night Angel Trilogy – The Way of Shadows (US, UK, Canada) and Shadow’s Edge (US, UK, Canada). These books are already gaining a certain amount of buzz on some SFF messageboards and look promising. Below is the publisher’s description of The Way of Shadows and you can read Chapter 1 on the Orbit webpage.

The perfect killer has no friends. Only targets.

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art. And he is the city’s most accomplished artist, his talents required from alleyway to courtly boudoir. For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he’s grown up in the slums, and learned the hard way to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins’ world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

So, the giveaway is simple. Just send an email to nethspace ‘at’ gmail ‘dot’ com. Remove and replace the ‘at’ and ‘dot’ with the appropriate symbols or use the email link in the sidebar. Use the subject of ‘SHADOW’. Please include you're name and mailing address. We'll say the deadline is Sunday, November 2. Only one entry please and this is open to all. Good luck!

Win a Copy of The Metatemporal Detective by Michael Moorcock

The good folks over at Pyr have offered up a copy of Michael Moorcock’s latest, The Metatemporal Detective (my review). This is fine book that can serve as an introduction to Moorcock’s multiverse or satiate the biggest fan.

Collected for the first time, eleven tales of Sir Seaton Begg vs. Count Zodiac, including the never before seen “The Flaneur of the Arcades d'Opera.”

Seaton Begg and his constant companion, pathologist Dr. “Taffy” Sinclair, both head the secret British Home Office section of the Metatemporal Investigation Department — an organization whose function is understood only by the most high-ranking government people around the world — and a number of powerful criminals.

Begg's cases cover a multitude of crimes in dozens of alternate worlds, generally where transport is run by electricity, where the internal combustion engine is unknown, and where giant airships are the chief form of international carrier. He investigates the murder of English Prime Minister “Lady Ratchet,” the kidnaping of the king of a country taken over by a totalitarian regime, and the death of Geli Raubel, Adolf Hitler's mistress. Other adventures take him to a wild west where “the Masked Buckaroo” is tracking down a mysterious red-eyed Apache known as the White Wolf; to 1960s’ Chicago where a girl has been killed in a sordid disco; and to an
independent state of Texas controlled by neocon Christians with oily (and bloody) hands. He visits Paris, where he links up with his French colleagues of the Sûreté du Temps Perdu. In several cases the fanatical Adolf Hitler is his opponent, but his arch-enemy is the mysterious black sword wielding aristocrat known as Zenith the Albino, a drug-dependent, charismatic exile from a distant realm he once ruled.

In each story the Metatemporal Detectives’ cases take them to worlds at once like and unlike our own, sometimes at odds with and sometimes in league with the beautiful adventuresses Mrs. Una Persson or Lady Rosie von Bek. At last Begg and Sinclair come face to face with their nemesis on the moonbeam roads which cross between the universes, where the great Eternal Balance itself is threatened with destruction and from which only the luckiest and most daring of metatemporal adventurers will return.

These fast-paced mysteries pay homage to Moorcock's many literary enthusiasms for authors as diverse as Clarence E. Mulford, Dashiell Hammett, Georges Simenon, and his boyhood hero, Sexton Blake.

So, the rules are basically the same as you see elsewhere. Send me an email at

nethspace [at] cox [dot] net

You’ll need to appropriately edit the email so I can avoid the spambots, or you can click on the email link in the sidebar which is coded ‘special’ to block the bots. Use METATEMPORAL in the subject and include your full name and mailing address (no P.O. boxes please). Only one entry per person. This contest limited to those who live in North Amercia. The deadline is Sunday, November 11th.

Good luck to all.

Win a Copy of River of Gods by Ian McDonald

A while ago I wrote this blog post about contests, where I declared Neth Space to contest free…until someone offered me a contest. Well, the good folks over at Pyr are the first to offer a book for a giveaway here (which is appropriate since they were the first publisher to send me review copies). So, now Neth Space can totally blend in with all those other blogs doing giveaways – which of course is great for those of us who like free books.

So, the giveaway is for the Pyr trade paperback version of River of Gods by Ian McDonald. This Hugo-nominated book has received high praise from numerous sources (unfortunately I still haven’t gotten to my copy yet, but I hope to remedy that soon).

As Mother India approaches her centenary, nine people are going about their business — a gangster, a cop, his wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a scientist, and a dropout. And so is Aj — the waif, the mind-reader, the prophet — when she one day finds a man who wants to stay hidden.

In the next few weeks, they will all be swept together to decide the fate of the nation.

River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures — one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. Ian McDonald has written the great Indian novel of the new millennium, in which a war is fought, a love betrayed, a message from a different world decoded, as the great river Ganges flows on.

So, the rules are basically the same as you see elsewhere. Send me an email at

nethspace [at] cox [dot] net

You’ll need to appropriately edit the email so I can avoid the spambots, or you can click on the email link in the sidebar which is coded ‘special’ to block the bots. Use RIVER in the subject and include your full name and mailing address (no P.O. boxes please). Only one entry per person. This contest at least is open to all, since I haven’t been told that international entrees are off limits. The contest is open for a couple weeks – I’ll cut off entries on September 24, 2007 and announce the winner shortly thereafter.

Good luck to all.

Book Giveaways – Everywhere!

I love books; I really love free books, so it’s no surprise that I love all these book giveaways going on.

I think I started advocating for book giveaways as a way to reinvigorate the Wotmania OF message board in early 2004 – at this time there were only the occasional sweepstakes programs here and there. Now, if you know what you are doing, you can find seemingly countless book giveaways that really don’t have any strings attached – all you need to do is supply an email or private message, sometimes with a name and address, that actually isn’t used for anything other than getting you a book in the case that you win. There really is no reason not to sign up.

Excepting bookstore and publisher sweepstakes, I think I first noticed on-line giveaways sometime in 2003. At that time, it was limited and author sponsored – I think the giveaway was a R. Scott Bakker book at Wotmania OF, and not really a true giveaway, but more of a contest. Starting a few years later, Pat over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist really got book giveaways going – he has them all the time. Other places like FantasyBookSpot had occasional giveaways, but nothing like Pat. Now it seems that everywhere I look there are more – SFF World, Wotmania OF, SFX, Fantasy Book Critic, Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review, My Elves are Different, SF Signal, The Fantasy Review, etc… And you can find many other sources for free books such as the reader review programs at many of the major publishing houses, bookstore giveaways at places like Waterstone's, publisher direct contests at their own blogs (such as Orbit), other blog contests (like what Carl sponsors at Stainless Steel Droppings), and even the occasional giveaway from the authors themselves (such as this one from Tobias Buckell).

Clearly the combination of every fanboy/girl out there getting into blogging and the realization by publishers of the power of on-line marketing through the fanboy/girl is making these giveaways even more popular. And why not – it makes good marketing sense (to me anyway). Even this survey indicates as much. Now the specific category of contests is really low, but if the winner of the contest starts recommending it to friends, or writes a review on a blog, or talks it up on a message board or a book club, the chain reaction starts and the cost of that single book has more than paid for itself in more than one way.

And who doesn’t love free books – I am a bona fide bibliophile and I sure do love these contests. I almost compulsively enter just about every one that I see, even though in many cases I could request said book from the publisher or I may even already have a copy. I don’t care, I get selfish, gimmeee books, gimmmeee more books. And if I don’t win, I often do buy that book.

So, my little blog is pretty successful – I’ve had over 20,000 visitors (not counting RSS views) and at a rate of several thousand per month, that’s growing fast. But I haven’t done any giveaways – should I? Perhaps I should declare my blog giveaway free just to be different. Well, that sounds good to me – Neth Space is and will remain giveaway free*.

*this is mostly due to laziness rather than any actual principled stand or desire to be different. In fact if offered giveaways, Neth Space would happily reverse this stand almost instantly – after all, I do love giveaways.

Free Copies of The Lies of Locke Lamora

Waterstone's is offering a huge giveaway of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - they are giving away 1000 copies! The information and entry form is here - I don't really see any fine print, so as far I can tell it's open to anybody and you aren't signing up for a credit card or anything. If you don't have this book, now is the time.

Orbit Books in the US

Orbit Books will be launching their US imprint later this year and right now they are running a great contest where you could win their entire first year's lineup. Authors include Brian Ruckley, Ian M. Banks, K.J. Parker, Kevin J. Anderson, and number of new authors. The contest is here, and the rules here – basically US residents 18 and older.

Scourge of the International Pixel-Stained Technopeasants!

Ok, I’m not a writer and certainly not a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), so I’ve been mostly apathetic with slight amusement over the contested and controversial election going on. However, Howard V. Hendrix made a bit of an idiot of himself with this diatribe – I’m guessing he just pissed his chance away. On a side note – these webcomics are pretty amusing.

Well, there have been a few responses that I’ll not bother to look up, but the most notable is the rise of the International Pixel-Stained Technopeasants. What does this mean for the average reader – well, it’s a good place to find some free on-line fiction. Remember, if you enjoy what you read, consider buying the hard copy if available.

The Sagan Diary (audio book) by John Scalzi

The Sagan Diary is a novelette by John Scalzi that falls in between The Ghost Brigades and forthcoming The Lost Colony in the sequence he began with Old Man’s War. The presentation is a series of diary entries from Jane Sagan just prior to her retirement.

The Sagan Diary is not an action book – the diary entries are pure introspection of Jane Sagan, Special Forces officer. No background into the world is really given, or even much of an introduction to the character. For this reason (and the lack of action) The Sagan Diary will likely only appeal to fans of Scalzi’s other books. At some times the introspective exploration bored me, but at others it was a really powerful expression of emotion – particularly the chapter about sex (which is really a chapter about love); this is really the shining moment of The Sagan Diary. The chapter is basically the thoughts in Jane’s head while she ignores what her lover is trying to tell her – we’ve all been there before, and the playfully raw emotion expressed perfectly characterizes her.

My only real criticism of the book is the use of language. The language is very flowery and metaphorical at times, using lots of big words. These are supposed to be the internal thoughts of person who didn’t really learn to speak true language at first – just thoughts. She even describes at length her limited vocabulary and use of language. It becomes hard to believe that these diary entries are from this person.

I have not actually read the book yet (I’ll get it when Scalzi’s book tour comes through town next month) – this review is based on the audio book, making this one of the more difficult reviews I’ve written. Can I really tell how readable the book is? Would I feel the same about the use of language? Did I miss anything when that asshole cut me off?

The accessibility of this book is truly wonderful – by this I mean that you can download the audio files here for free and burn them on just two CDs. The audio length of the book is just under an hour and a half. Each chapter is read by a different author-friend of Scalzi's. Readers are Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Karen Meisner, Cherie Priest and Helen Smith. All the readers do a wonderful job, with a couple perfectly capturing what I’ve imagined Jane’s inner voice to be – particularly Mary Robinette Kowal.

Due to the rather narrow range of audience that I would think The Sagan Diary will appeal to, I rate it a 6 on my 10-point scale. Fans of Scalzi’s books can likely ignore that rating, as they should like it. The best part is that you can try the audio version for free with little investment in time, and if you like it you can buy the snazzy Subterranean version.

John Scalzi's The Sagan Diary on Audio

John Scalzi has made his novella, The Sagan Diary, available for audio download at his website - for free! This story covers the period of time between The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony. You can get the print version from Subterranean and Amazon.

Each chapter is read by a different author-friend of Scalzi's. Readers are Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ellen Kushner, Karen Meisner, Cherie Priest and Helen Smith. Take advantage of this deal if you are interested in Scalzi's writing at all - as a fan or potential fan.