Pat's Fantasy Hotlist is doing one of their famous contests, for two Advanced Reading Copies of SUICIDE KINGS signed by all of the contributors.

For details as to how to enter, go to

http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2009/12/win-autographed-advance-reading-copy-of.html

Good luck to all.

RIP Dan O'Bannon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Og_YsaXt4&feature=related

He'll be best remembered for ALIEN, but DARK STAR has a fond place in my heart as well. I hope somewhere he's surfing down like a meteor as "Benson, Arizona" plays on the cosmic soundtrack.

YES we are totally going to this tonight. Weird Al AND Rifftrax. It doesn't get much better than that.

http://www.rifftrax.com/files/email/ChristmasLiveToday/index.html


(I'm a huge MST3K fan!)

I'm tired of people saying they want to celebrate Christmas without any religious observation of the holiday.

Ya know what? I'm fine with that, just don't call it 'Christmas'. Call it Winter Solstice or Yule if you'd like. Just don't call it Christmas. You can do the tree with the lights, have Santa and fruitcake, do the presents and everything. Just don't call it 'Christmas'.

I'm also sick of people saying that Christmas started as a pagan holiday. Um, no. It didn't. It wasn't called Christmas when it was a pagan observation! It was Yule or Solstice. Morons!!

If you take Christ out of Christ-mas, you have... YULE!!! You idiots. Flaming fucking idiots!!

I want Christmas to be a religious holiday. All about the birth of Jesus. I want another holiday for Santa and all the cheery gift giving that goes on. (Of course we can still exchange gifts for Christmas, as some people will not want to celebrate the secular holiday.) And there should be a third commonly observed thing called Yule or Solstice for those that refuse to do the Santa thing, I guess that would be for the real earthy Pagans and Wiccans out there. I don't know their mindsets on these things so I can't speak for them. *shrug*

But anyway... Merry Happy, everyone!!!

Now that the year is drawing to a close and temperatures are running high in Copenhagen at the climate conference, it’s time to think about the New Year celebrations.

Here in The Netherlands it is the custom to light fireworks all over the country. Everybody buys their own and all through the night those fireworks are lit, with the worst part of the night the hour or so following midnight.


Every year about forty million pounds of fireworks explode in the air above Holland and Belgium, leaving about 90% solid waste like paper, wood and synthetic materials. According to the Nederlandse Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieuhygiëne (RIVM) (the Dutch Institute for Health and Environment) the air on that night is polluted by soot, sulfurdioxide, nitrogenoxides and dust particles. Water and soil are contaminated by toxic metals like copper, antimony, strontium and barium. And I haven’t even mentioned what happens in the rest of the world.

Of course there is also the terrible noise, the accidents that happen, causing people to lose their eyesight or limbs, and the distress it causes people and pets.

Why is nothing ever done about this? I understand people wanting to celebrate, but why not have a few really good big fireworks, done by professionals, and stop this senseless waste?

It’s now 16 December while I’m writing this and it’s the middle of the day. Over the past half hour I have heard two big bangs, totally illegal of course, but nobody seems to be wanting to do anything about it. The police are probably much more busy fining cyclists without lights I suppose.

To be fair, they're answering a silly list of objections to global warming by The Daily Express (one of our appalling tabloids.) Snark is mandatory when reading the Express.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/50-reasons-why-global-warming.html

It's newsletter time! This month I've got a fun PsyCop/Channeling Morpheus feature about who bought what for Christmas. Who's a good shopper? You may be surprised.

And don't miss the announcement about the latest Lanyon/Price project!

Read it here

Author's sales soar after book spotted in Tiger Woods wrecked SUV http://bit.ly/69G0rw

It was a good day to be wearing green in the NFL.

The Jets won their morning game convincingly, even with Mark Sanchez nursing his knees back in New York City and Kellen Clemens playing abysmally in his stead. Hardly mattered. Gang Green's running game was hitting, and the defense played lights out. Of course, they were in Tampa Bay playing this year's Bucs, so it hardly counted. Josh Freeman, the heralded Bucs rookie QB, looked just awful, but maybe some of that was Rex Ryan's D. Still, these Bucs are so bad they ought to make them go back and wear the creamsicle uniforms until they start playing better.

The Jets are still in the playoff hunt, but just barely. They pretty much have to win out, and with the Colts and the Bengals on their schedule, I think that's unlikely. And next week they have to beat Atlanta, who have a bad record but gave the Saints all they could handle today.

Green Bay won as well. Another "green" team.

And, sadly, this evening the midnight green Iggles of Philadelphia defeated my Giants in a heartbreaker. All the talking heads are saying what a great game it was. Pfui. It was an EXCITING game, yes. The G-Men came out stumbling and spotted the Iggles to a two touchdown lead, then battled back for the rest of the game. Every time they closed the gap to one score the Eagles would get punch in another one and widen it again. Finally the Giants managed to take a one-point lead at 31-30... only to have the Eagles get a long TD on the very first play after the kickoff. The scoring continued after that, and finally ended 45-38 in favor of Philadelphia. The Giants racked up a ridiculous number of passing yards, and both teams left points on the board. McNabb missed one wide-open receiver who was streaking downfield for what should have been a certain touchdown, receiver Mario Manningham of the G-Men had two endzone receptions disallowed for having one foot out of bounds, and his fellow wideout Hakeem Nicks had a couple of TD passes bounce off his hands. There was also a Giants linebacker who dropped what would have been a certain pick-six served up by McNabb. It too bounced off his hands. (And weirdly, it wasn't a pass after all, but a forward fumble, but after our LB dropped it players on both teams just ignored the live ball lying there on the grass). There were fumbles, a punt return for a TD, an freaky pass broken up by an Eagle that caromed off his thigh into the hands of the Giants tight end... lots of crazy, colorful, thrilling stuff. Both teams played hard.

But a great game? Pfui. For fans like me, who appreciate defense, it was far from that. Neither team brought their defense, from what I saw. The Giants certainly proved themselves unable to stop the Eagles. After ranking as the best defense in the NFL at season's start, our D has fallen apart. Especially the pass rush. McNabb had all day back there. Eli played one of the best games I have ever seen him play -- his stats were off the charts, and would have been obscene if Manningham could have stayed in bounds and Nicks could have caught the balls that were bouncing off him -- despite the fact that he was under pressure every snap. McNabb, on the other hand, could have filled out and filed his tax return in the pocket on a couple of those plays. What the hell happened to the Giants' fearsome pass rush? We have the same players as last year and the year before. With added depth; by rights we should be better. But Bill Sheridan, our new defensive coordinator, does not have them playing the same agressive attacking style that Spags did last year, that has made a world of difference. Sheridan needs to go. I want my Big Blue D back. I like winning games 13-10 much more than losing them 45-38.

Oddly, despite the loss, the Giants may still have a better chance of making the playoffs than the Jets do, provided the Cowboys continue their traditional December collapse. But I am not holding my breath. Next week's game against the Redskins has the look of a classic trap game. After getting up emotionally for the big games against Dallas and Phillie, the Giants are all too likely to suffer a bad letdown against the Skins and get upset, which would effectively end their season. I've seen it happen before. And Washinton is better than its record. And even if they get past the Skins, the Vikings are waiting at season's end. The only silver lining in the clouds over the Meadowlands is the fact that the Giants own the tiebreakers over the Cowboys, so if both teams finish with the same record, New York goes to the playoffs and Dallas stays home. But right now Dallas is a game up.

Life is magical... but full of pain.

Fantastic programme on BBC4 about the Ballet Russe http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p90nl. Wonderful clips of dancing to Stravinsky, Satie etc. Amazing skill by extraordinary dancers.

I don't think I would be cut out to be a mum. Don't get me wrong, I love children. I really do. As long as they have their mums there to look after them.

Tonight I have been babysitting my 2-year-old and 7-year-old cousins. It's now 11pm and I'm totally wasted. I'm sitting here with a large glass of wine pondering the fact that I am really in dire need of a week's holiday. I know I'm over the hill and that's probably the reason, but stil, I see grandmums running around with grandchildren like they are still 20-something and I wonder how they do it.

There are women my age who absolutely live for their grandchildren. I don't have any, but I do have my little cousins, whom I love dearly, but I wouldn't want to spend every single minute with them. Maybe it's because I work with children all day long so I'm glad when I get home and get my feet up and make conversation with adults, but then, even if I didn't work with children, I would probably never be that engrossed in them.

After having had dinner with them (food everywhere, even in my lap), having bathed them (I have never been so wet in my life, still shivering), and played endless games, I am now absolutely dead. Tomorrow is Sunday. I'm going to read all day.

I was pretty stumped about what to get my dad & stepmom for Christmas this year--let's hope they're not reading this--when it occurred to me that it would be cool to buy an animal for a needy family in their name. I sifted through several charities and came up with heifer.org, which had a lot of cool options for gifting. There were affordable options (like the flock of chickens I bought) as well as "shares" toward other animals. So let's say you want to give someone a goat but you don't have $120 budgeted to give that person a gift. You can purchase $10 shares in a goat. (Happy Holidays! I gifted 1/3 of a goat in your honor!" You get the idea.)

Heifer.org seems to respect the religious affiliations of not only their members but of the communities they serve. That's important to me.

And if you are reading this, guys...uh...surprise! You'll get a card in the mail with chicks on it.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has announced a new French book digitization project. http://bit.ly/76M37v

(click for bigger pic)


I should not have scoffed last night. Yowsa. It is up to his THIGH.

It looks like a whopping mondo blizzard is headed my way. Seeing as how I grew up in Buffalo where we got up to 8 feet of snow at times, it's pretty hard to impress me with snowfall. But Wisconsin has declared a state of emergency and most of Madison is shut down tomorrow, which is when most of the snow is supposed to hit.

I was just hoping I'd get to use a sick day Thursday instead of going in to the day job ;-)

My guy's company is closed tomorrow, so we'll just stay in bed, read books and drink coffee. Or I suppose I will venture out of bed for a few hours to write and do admin things. But all in all the plan is to keep to the bed.

I'm reading Under the Dome, a 1000-page novel, so I guess the timing is pretty good. (I am supposed to have it back to the library in two weeks, but get real. I do NOT read that quickly.)

EDIT: Meep, the front door didn't open but we did manage to shove the back door open. Snow is knee-deep on the decks. We don't have fancy-schmantzy things like ROOFS over the decks, don'tcha know?

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.

((Oh, and while the supply lasts, the copies of INSIDE STRAIGHT I'll be sending out are signed by Daniel Abraham and Melinda Snodgrass as well. But I have less than 20 of those, so once they're gone, it will be just my own autograph)).

Happy holidays, and good reading.

Note from the Assistant's desk:

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

As always, you can find our ordering page here: http://www.georgerrmartin.com/books-ordering.html

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.

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).

Okay, it's the big week, the final round for the cover popularity contest at Elisa Rolle's Rainbow Awards.

The main thing that I love about Kanaxa's cover for Hemovore is that it conveyed the essence of the book so well. It's more of a thriller than a romance, and the Hemovore cover definitely screams out "thriller!" When I had originally submitted my art requests, I added links to John Saul books with the suggestion that something like that might be cool. And I was totally floored by the way she managed to give me a cover that was both like a John Saul book, and yet was MY book, at the same time!

If you love this cover as much as I do, Please give it a vote! There are many worthy competitors in the group, and I'm so thrilled Hemovore was included among them...though Hemovore is unabashedly my favorite!