February E-book Giveaway (Update)

As I mentioned here a couple days ago, if my February reading list poll hit 500 votes by midnight on January 31st, I would do a giveaway for a few eBooks. Since the polling hit that level a few short hours ago, the giveaway is live.

But first…

Reading List Poll Addendum – Giveaway!

The response to my Reading List Poll has been tremendous so far, with almost 400 votes in from dozens of folks. It’s been really fun to see how the standings have worked out over the last few days, and it appears that the top 6 are mostly locked in. Thing is though, I want to spice it all up a bit and add some more excitement to the whole thing.

So this is what I’m going to do.

• At 425 votes, I will share a piece of news that I’ve been sitting on for the last couple weeks. It relates to my growth as both a blogger and a reviewer, so it goes without saying that I’m seriously very excited about this.
• At 450 votes, I will do another reading poll for March, and this will be for comics instead of novels. This should be rather interesting, given the medium, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this develops.
• At 475 votes, I will make sure to read all the top 10 books on the poll for next month, and review them as well. This is gonna be a tough one, but I’m all for it, if you all can get me to that level!
• At 500 votes, I will do an eBook giveaway for a selection of titles (as yet undecided) from some of the publishers who are on the reading list poll (the publishers, not the books on the reading list!). This is my first time doing a giveaway, so this is even more excitement on top of everything else.

That’s what I’ve got. What do you think? Any suggestion as to other vote levels? Or anything else? Tell me in the comments!

Update: The Giveaway details

The giveaway will start on the 1st February, and run till midnight on 7th February. There will be a separate post for it.

These are the books I’m offering for the giveaway, to provide incentive for more voting (guilty as charged!) —

• Black Library – Short story pack that includes Josh Reynolds’ Gotrek & Felix: Berthold’s Beard, Anthony Reynolds’ Horus Heresy: Dark Heart, Mike Lee’s Nagash: Picking The Bones, and Gav Thorpe’s Dark Angels: Battle Brothers.
• Black Library – one pick from Josh Reynolds’ Gotrek & Felix: Road of Skulls and Gav Thorpe’s Dark Angels: Ravenwing.
• Tor Books – One pick from Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood and David Brin’s Existence.
• Solaris Books – One pick from James Lovegrove’s Age of Ra and Jonathan Strahan’s anthology Engineering Infinity.
• Del Rey Books – Rob Reid’s Year Zero.

NANP: Using Names In Fiction

This has been a while in coming, and I’m really excited to host Guy Haley on the blog today for Names: A New Perspective. I first met Guy last year on Twitter after reading his first two Richards and Klein Investigations novels for Angry Robot (reviews here and here). And when I read his stand-alone novel Champion of Mars (review) from Solaris Books, all I wanted was for him to one day write for Black Library. I thought he’d be a perfect fit for them, since Champion of Mars had the type of style and substance I want in a Black Library book. And lo behold, it was announced a few short months later that he was going to be writing three novels for them! Three! Super excited to read his books. Anyway, here’s the man himself on the topic of names. Enjoy!

NANP: Muses and Monikers

Very excited to say that today’s guest on Names: A New Perspective is senior editor for Black Library Christian Dunn, who recently took the plunge into the writing world with several pieces of short fiction across a variety of formats: short stories, flash fiction, audio dramas, and novellas. I’ve read most of what he has put out and like several other authors that I’m currently following, he is one of those who have been improving with each work (reviews of Malediction and Dark Vengeance). His perspective on names is one of the more unique ones, and here’s what he has to say on the topic.

The Reading List Poll

If you take a look over at my “Reading List” page, you’ll see that I’m pretty much busy till the end of the month as far as reading concerned. In about ten days, I will start working out my reading for the next month. Usually, I just make a list of ARCs (whether print or digital) that I have, as well as other books I want to read and hash out a list of about 10 or so that I find interesting enough.

This time, I thought I’d do something different. I’m going to do a poll on this, and give you guys some options to help me pick what books I should read. I’m intentionally making this a list of 20 so that there’s a fair bit of competition going on. On midnight 31st January I will pick the top 10 off the list and that’s what I’ll be reading, in order of votes cast.

Who knows, I might even make it some sort of a regular feature! One other request: please leave a comment as to why you picked a certain book. It will be much appreciated!

Options after the break!

NANP: The Name Game

Joining me today on Names: A New Perspective is Amanda Carlson, author of the fantastic urban fantasy debut from last year, Full Blooded (Review), the first in her Jessica McClain series. As another novel with a rather contemporary setting, at first it might appear that there can’t be much to talk about in this post relative to the idea behind the series, but Amanda does a good job of showing that is not so. The basics still apply, and I’m looking forward to seeing how she progresses on that front in the upcoming sequel Hot Blooded (due April). Here’s what she has to say.

NANP: Importance And Mysteries of Names

Adam Christopher is an author I discovered through Angry Robot last year when I signed up for their Robot Army initiative. Empire State (Review) was a fantastic debut and I wanted to read more of his work, which happened when his second novel Seven Wonders (Review) was released in the second half of 2012. He is most assuredly one of the best debut authors of the year, and this year should be no different, since he has the sequel to Empire State, The Age Atomic coming out soon, a title that I’m really looking forward to. Here’s Adam’s approach to names and their signifiance.

2013 – What Now? Some Resolutions Maybe?

So the New Year has come and gone. The end of the second week is almost upon us. And so far, it’s been a somewhat lazy, yet productive month. Also one that has been spectacular in a few ways. It’s also time to make some new resolutions and challenges. So let’s get to it.

NANP: To Name Or Not To Name

Today I have Jocelyn Koehler on Names: A New Perspective to share her thoughts on the whole “deeper meaning behind names” theme and her process of finding the right names for her characters and settings, etc. As with all the other posts in the series so far, this one is also a very good read, and I hope you all enjoy it too! Her work sounds fantastic too, and I’m hoping to get around to reading it soon!

51 Most Anticipated Releases For 2013

With regards reading, 2012 was a fantastic year for me. It was the year that I stepped out of my comfort zone and read in genres that I normally would not read, such as urban fantasy (involving angels, vampires, werewolves etc) and historical fiction. It was also the year that I read more than the traditional fantasy, and tie-in fantasy at that. My experiments seem to have mostly been successful as I’ve started to really like reading these kind of books.

My goal for this year is to continue on that same path and read as widely as I can. Which is why this massive list is so huge in scope, with tons of variety. I went through the catalogues for most of these publishers and picked out things I liked,and which caught my eye. Getting through the entire list this year will probably not happen, but then again, never say never!

NANP: The Nuance In The Name

Today’s guest author for Names: A New Perspective is Ciara Ballintyne. I haven’t had a chance to read any of her work so far, since her first novel is still awaiting publication, but I enjoy reading her blog for insight into her writing process and her discussions. Her Deathhawk trilogy sounds great to me and look forward to reading it. Here’s what Ciara had to say on the topic of names.

2012 – A Bloody Fantastic Year Ends

So, the year 2012 ended a few days ago, and it’s been an absolute blast, to say the least.

Anyways, to do a small recap of my goals for the year,

1. Write ~420,000 words of both fiction (various submissions and novel projects) and non-fiction (reviews and blogposts).
2. Read 400 novels, comics, novellas, stand-alone short stories (still not sure if these SHOULD be included) and listen to some audio dramas and audiobooks.

At the end of October, I was very close to both of those goals, having crossed the ~472,000-word mark, and was still ahead on the reading goals, as I was at 352/400 on September 30th. You can find the November report here.