On Link Requests: Here’s a Thread

Posted on January 6, 2009    Posted by      40 Comments

While I was on my two week semi-hiatus, I got what I figure is a metric butt-load of requests for links to various things. Seriously, tons. Rather than try to pluck them out of the my 2008 mail archive, the thought of which fills me wth crushing ennui, how about I do this: If you sent me a link request in the last couple of weeks, please use the comment thread in this post to promote whatever thing you wished to promote. If you didn’t send me anything in the last couple weeks about something you hoped I’d promote but now kinda wished you had, well, you can go ahead and use this thread too. And obviously, if you’re the sort of person who likes clicking links — I mean, really likes clicking links — this thread is going to be for you.

Now, the standard technical notice: If you post three or more links in your comment, it will most likely be sent into the moderation queue. Don’t panic when this happens, I’ll look through the queue regularly and liberate posts written by real live people such as yourselves.

So: Go nuts with your links, kids. Tell us what you want us to know about.

Category: Uncategorized    

40 Comments on “On Link Requests: Here’s a Thread”

  5. Ho, ho. But seriously folks, I had some fun messing around with xtranormal, wherein you can play around with prerendered CGI actors voiced with synthesizers. You type in a script, camera angles, hand movements, etc., and the site magically makes movie magic. Then the whole world can watch it. It’s beta, which means there are a host of issues: not enough expressions or movements for the actors, a really limited length of time, not enough voices, a hard-coded limit of 2 actors per scene, and so on. Since it’s free (and free only during the beta!) many of the submitted videos are dull, sophomoric, unintelligible, or outright spam.

    Uh, I think I was saying that it was fun! I made seven or eight episodes of a continuing story before losing interest. I think it can be viewed here. I can guarantee that it, at least, is not outright spam.

  9. Todd Klein, letterer extraordinaire, has been doing a series of signed prints with his favorite authors and artists – Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Alex Ross. They’re all great, with wonderful art and miniature stories, and at a very reasonable price ($20). They’re available here:

    http://kleinletters.com/BuyStuffTop.html

  11. Potlatch is a small book-oriented West Coast science fiction convention. Instead of a Guest of Honor we traditionally have a Book of Honor. This year we’re having our first Silicon Valley Potlatch, and, just to be different, we have two Books of Honor: Ursula Le Guin’s Always Coming Home and John M. Ford’s Growing Up Weightless.

    I realize that Silicon Valley is pretty far from where you live, but if you just happen to be in California at the end of February, you’d probably like it. There’s a fair amount of overlap between the Potlatch crowd and the Wiscon crowd, and there’s even a chance that one of the Potlatch 18 panels will be inspired by one of your suggestions from another con.

  12. Haha, I suspect few of you will be motoring enthusiasts – I’m still not sure how I ended up being both a sci-fi nut and a car nut either – but for any who are, I’d love it if you’d check out my automotive news blog – http://www.themotorreport.com.au !

    Cheers for the opportunity to flog my wares, John!

    – Mike, new-school Scalzi fan since Old Man’s War
    Melbourne, Australia.

  18. I’m currently training to run my first marathon in April. I’m running as a member of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training, and I am raising money to help them in their mission to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and to improve the lives of patients and their families. I need all the help with this I can get.
    If you have a minute, check out my page (it’s also my training blog) here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/va/cmc09/dbessom

    Stop by, offer some encouragement, make a donation (they’re 100% tax-deductible-icious!).

    Cheers all!
    Dave

  20. I’ve launched (yet another) e-zine: Everyday Weirdness. This joins SpaceWesterns.com (Space Western e-zine), Thaumatrope (Twitter-based microfiction e-zine – and locations of Scalzi’s microinterview), The GreenTentacles Twitter list (list of SF/F/H authors and editors on Twitter), and Containment (Convention Finder by Postal Code).

    Visit GreenTentacles for links.

  22. For any die-hard Half Life fans, check out the latest news on the Black Mesa mod. Basically it’s the original game, built around the latest Source engine, and it looks fantastic. Last time I checked there was no pending release date beyond 2009 but they do update semi-regularly on the dev blog it seems. Cheers!

  29. There’s an anthology being put together to raise money for musician S.J. Tucker (who has is facing a major financial whammy thanks to some medical issues), with stories by Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Francesca Lia Block, Storm Constantine, Catherynne M. Valente, Terri Windling, and a lot of other nifty folks (including my wife!). More info (including how to pre-order) can be found here: http://community.livejournal.com/saveours00j/17164.html

  30. I’m auctioning off some limited edition Subterranean hardcovers to benefit musician SJ Tucker. A certain Mr. Scalzi has offered to personalize the copy of Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded for the winner. Other titles being auctioned include Barry Hughart’s The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox and Jim Butcher’s Backup, both of which are out of print, and Tim Powers’s Fisher King trilogy, which the author has also offered to inscribe personally to the winner.

    You can view the auctions and bid here:

    http://community.livejournal.com/saveours00j/7535.html

    They end tomorrow at one minute before midnight Eastern time.

  37. I hope you can forgive me for just quoting my November answer to this, but at least the books are out this January finally ^^, and I so hope they’ll do well.

    “I’m sitting on tenterhooks (isn’t that what they’re called) waiting for the rerelease of P.C. Hodgell’s first two Jamethiel Dreamweaver novels as an omnibus (this time called the Godstalker Chronicles) by her first big publisher BAEN (who already offer all the current releases in ebook format – and there’s an excellent series synopsis at the link) not just as a hardcover, but as trade paperback.
    I so hope they sell well, so that she not only sells the newest book in the series (which ought to be delivered to the publisher sometime next year), but gets additional contracts for more in the series, now that she’s not tied down with a regular day job anymore. She’s been writing them since the 80ies and I think of her as one of the best epic female fantasy authors that no one knows (because her previous publishers were very small or – like Meisha Merlin – went out of business).
    So I spam threads like this whenever I get the chance, in case people haven’t heard of her yet.”

    A quote from the ebook collection at webscriptions.net:

    Richly-alluring High Fantasy from a Master Fantasist Ripe for Rediscovery!
    Have you been looking for a fantasy world-builder on the level of Patricia McKillip, Guy Gavriel Kay, Fritz Leiber or—dare we say it? Yes, we dare!—J.R.R.Tolkien himself? P.C. Hodgell is nigh.
    Welcome to the world of the Kencyrath, where ivory-armored, carnivorous horses travel in herds called “rages,” pretty butterflies might very well suck your life’s blood, and tree leaves migrate south for the winter. It’s a dangerous and beautiful place where it’s easy to get yourself killed. And resurrected. And possibly become bound to somebody else’s soul in the process.

    Excerpt from the first chapter in the first book of the omnibus, God Stalk.
    Excerpt from the first chapter of the second book in the omnibus, Dark of the Moon

    This is one continuing saga, so the second excerpt might not make much sense without reading the first book ^^..

  39. Hi John:

    Thought you might like to be involved in Read An E-Book Week this year. Info is below:

    Read an E-Book Week (March 8 – 14) is fast approaching. In preparation for the big event this year we have completely redone our website – and it’s a beauty. http://www.ebookweek.com

    This year we welcome several new supporters – Tor.com and Warren Adler to name a few. One, and possibly two, well-known guest writers are working on articles about the future of e-books for our site. We want to give you enough notice to ensure your name appears along with theirs on the “Partners” page. Plan your promotion early and let us know what you will do to promote e-books during Read an E-Book Week.

    We note that the International Digital Publishing Forum released the October sales figures from the Association of American Publishers. Although only 12 -15 trade book publishers participated in the survey, the data shows sales of $5.2 million — a 73% increase over the same period in 2007. Even more impressive are the figures released by Ingram’s Education Solutions unit. E-book sales from January to May surpassed the 2007 figures by 400 percent!

    So help us celebrate Read an E-Book Week. Mark your calendars for March 8 – 14 and let us know about your promotional event. Most publishers provide a free e-book to visitors who come to their site during that week. If you would like a banner, they are available for downloading at: http://www.ebookweek.com/ebook_banners.html Feel free to resize them to fit your website.

    Rita Toews
    Founder – Read an E-Book Week

  40. Follow the pointers, By using misspelling?Out that last, or empathize with.Replaced If the, tools I talked.Often include emotional Jetzt eine SMS schreiben an Heiko, Controlled Drugs and more cash into.The date issued, go home with.,

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