3 membersYay, another winner!
I’m super excited to have been given the chance to give a copy of Debris Dreams to one of you. It’s already going on my End of the Year lists for suresies, and I hope everyone else gets a chance to read it and love it.
AND THE WINNER IS…..
KATE SHERROD, YAY!
I know she was really interested in reading this. I hope she loves it like I did.
Congratulations, Kate. Email/Chat me up and let me know what format you want, please?
Image via Karen Gadient
Okay, remember yesterday how I said I had something fun related to Debris Dreams for you guys? I was originally thinking I’d work with David on a playlist for you, but instead we’ve managed to intercept some messages between Dru (our main character) and Sarah (her girlfriend back on Earth).
Sarah’s dad is a salvage worker dismantling Delta City (also known as New Detroit) for spare parts (heh), so Sarah’s been subjected to a lot of “classic” rock and other stuff from the late 20th/early 21st century.
From: CayerBear22
To: DruOfNight
Subject: !!!
Message: I present to you some of the cultural artifacts my dad has found!
*
From: DruOfNight
To: CayerBear22
Subject: Re: !!!
Message: He found a Korean pop song, a psychedelic rock anthem and an autotuned vocal number in a forgotten basement?
*
From: CayerBear22
To: DruOfNight
Subject: Re:Re: !!!
Message: Those whacky Pre-Slump Americans. They really knew how to get down to the G-town.
*
From: DruOfNight
To: CayerBear22
Subject: Re:Re:Re: !!!
Message: Sarah, have I ever told you I only understand fifty percent of what you say?
*
From: CayerBear22
To: DruOfNight
Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re: !!!
Message: I thought that was the foundation of our relationship.
*
From: DruOfNight
To: CayerBear22
Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: !!!
Message: No, that would be Star Wars.
*
From: CayerBear22
To: DruOfNight
Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: !!!
Message: Speaking of Star Wars…
Attachments: 1
~o~
Now for the giveaway! Once again, Candlemark and Gleam have provided us with a DRM-free eCopy of one of their books.
For a bonus entry, tweet about this post and let us know in a comment reply to yourself. For a FURTHER bonus entry, share this post on facebook or g+ and post a screenshot in a comment reply to yourself (or if you don’t want to post your real name in the blog comments, you can just email the screenshot to us at dodisharkicorn @ gmail .com). So easy!
Winners will be drawn from The Hat at 5pm EST on Tuesday, November 20. Check back with us then to see if you’ve won!
A few weeks ago I read and reviewed David Colby’s Debris Dreams. I mentioned then that I’d been looking forward to it since the moment I heard about it. It really didn’t disappoint. It’s part of (what I’m hoping becomes) a trend of super smart YA sf that doesn’t dumb itself down for younger readers. It doesn’t rely on romance to propel itself forward, and it’s so well written, I wish it was for adults so I could convince some of my other hardcore sf friends to pick it up. Yeah, I said it. You think I’m snobby? Heh. YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
Anyway, when I knew the blog tour was coming up, I asked Kate (the head honcho over at Candlemark and Gleam) if she thought David would be interested in writing a post for us about the music he uses for writing. Her response was that it would likely make his day since he’s always making playlists (see, he and I should totally be best friends, TAKE THAT SUSIE!)…and then, like, an hour later, I had this post in my inbox. I may have also made a few notes of commentary (hint: I totally did). Enjoy.
~o~
Music for writing is a very strange topic—at least for me. A lot of my friends compose massive playlists that hew to the tone and themes of their WIPs. I’ve never had the head for that, if only because my musical tastes are bizarre and relatively narrow.
Just like my taste in food!
Wanna know what this is all about? You’ll have to read the book!
Still, I do think that what tracks I listen to has a relationship to what I am currently writing: I like something energetic for when I need to get pumped, something depressing when I’m writing something happy, something upbeat when I’m writing something depressing. But since I have so few musical likes, I think it’d make more sense to talk about specifics than to talk about generalities.
Let’s start off with the songs that are now intrinsically linked to Debris Dreams: Drive in the Sky by Mikio Sakai, Wonderful Life (also by Mikio Sakai) and Sun’s Gone Dim by Johann Johannsson.
Drive in the Sky and Wonderful Life are the opening and closing songs to the astoundingly good, hard sci-fi anime PlanetES. PlanetES was a major inspiration for my writing of Debris Dreams, as it is a show about a team of space garbagemen. Since debris in orbit is a major issue (in Debris Dreams, PlanetES, and real life), the story of garbage collection and debris management is really quite exciting and interesting. It helps that the animation that goes along with both songs are perfect encapsulations of our space program’s humble beginnings and the height that it can one day reach.
And, amazingly, it does this WITHOUT excluding Non-American space explorers. Star Trek: Enterprise, I am still disappointed in you.
However, if you listen to these songs, you’ll find that they’re…rather upbeat. Debris Dreams is, for the most part, not exactly the sunniest book out there.
That’s where Sun’s Gone Dim comes in. I heard Sun’s Gone Dim in the astoundingly evocative and exciting trailer for Battle: LA. While the actual movie overdid the shaky-cam just a bit much (if you ask me), the trailer is a chilling, exciting one that tells very little about what the actual movie is going to be about while still making you excited. And the song—a creepy, slow, somber piece—is awesome all by itself. It perfectly suits the detached feeling I was trying to create in Debris Dreams.
HONORABLE MENTION: The entire This Is War album from 30 Seconds to Mars. I love this album, and listened to it CONSTANTLY while writing the book I wrote just before Debris Dreams. So much so that I can’t listen to Kings and Queens without imagining six teenagers fighting transdimensional spiders with weaponized metaphors, World War I-era rifles, and swords [ed. note - Um...what is this book that I totally want to read? David, we need to talk.]. So, if I hadn’t written that book first, This Is War would be listed here.
But there are some writing songs that are divorced from any particular book, which I love listening to while writing 
anything. I have recently acquired a taste for Katy Perry’s songs – Firework, Hot and Cold, California Girls (I blame the awesome Equestria Girls parody used for a MLP:FIM commercial) and Teenage Dream [ed. note - David, I'm totally pretending I didn't see this. I like you too much to make believe Katy Perry is okay. I'm not even linking to her on my blog BUT I LOVE MLP:FIM, so I'm totally linking to the parody.] are some of my favorites. But I also have an occasional taste for… I don’t know enough about the rap scene to know if Eminem still counts as “hardcore,” but he swears a lot more than most songs I listen to, and a few by him—Won’t Back Down, specifically—have caught my ear and ended up on my iPod.
HONORABLE MENTION: Everything by Weird Al. I love his songs, love his stage presence, love him in general; I even love his underrated comedy UHF which remains one of my favorite comedies ever… right up there with Galaxy Quest and Mystery Men.
So, those are the semi-well known songs that I like, but I’d hate to end this without talking about two bands that are slightly more obscure, but that I love to death for totally different reasons: Memmaker and Abney Park.
Abney Park—which I am currently listening to a lot due to writing a semi-steampunk alternopunk magitech novel—is an awesome combination of electric-rock and STEAMPUNK-themed music. Accordions, synths, and great lyrics makes for songs that really make you feel like an air pirate. If you listen to their songs and don’t want your own zeppelin, then you have no soul [ed. note - David, I swear it's like you're my long lost little brother, or what my oldest will be like in 10 years. You're scaring me.].
But if Abney Park is past-punk, then Memmaker is future punk. Industrial-techno? I think that’s the best way to describe their sound. It’s eerie and strange, but has a driving energy to it, intermixed with the occasional stolen remixed quote made into part of the song. The first song by theirs that I heard—Get your Ass to Mars—is a combination of their music and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dialogue from the fantastic Total Recall.
That’s going to come in handy when I start working on Debris Dreams’s sequels…
HONORABLE MENTION: Heart of Courage, by Two Steps from Hell. Listen to it and try not to feel like the most dramatic thing ever is happening. Right now. It is music that has been written, crafted, and sculpted into the perfect expression of “trailer music” and by the gods, it works. If my novel is ever made into a movie (HAH!) [ed. note - I totally want this to happen AND I hope I'd be invited to the premiere, just sayin'.] that music would be used by the trailer.
Or else.
~o~
Debris Dreams is out November 13 (THAT’S TOMORROW!). While it’s too late to get in on the Kickstarter goodness, you can still watch this awesome video David made to help encourage presales. If this doesn’t make you want to read this book, I’m not even sure why you’re still reading my blog. [wink]
But seriously, go read my review and then head over to the C&G shop to pick up a copy for yourself. Or, you can come back here tomorrow to check out something fun I worked on with David and try to win a copy for yourself!
I know, I know, you’ve all been JUST DYING to find out who won our very first giveaway!
Since it’s cold here and I’m tired, I’ll just do away with all the niceties and get straight to it.
Here are all the entrants nice and neat loaded into the Hat:
Note, there are more, I just didn’t want to take a second screenshot by scrolling down.
And here’s your winner of a DRM-free copy of Justin Robinson’s Mr Blank:
YAY, it’s Heather from Becoming Cliche! Heather, email me to let me know what format you’d like your ebook in and I’ll have the lovely Kate send it over to you as soon as possible.
Thanks so much to Candlemark and Gleam for offering this ecopy up to our readers, and congratulations again to Heather!
Don’t forget that you can purchase your own ecopy for only $5 at the publisher’s website, but if you buy a paper copy, the digital copy is included!
Thanks everyone for entering, hope you all have a great week!
I’m sure you all remember a few weeks ago when Meg and I both raved about Justin Robinson’s Mr Blank (OUT TODAY!). Well, we were lucky enough to strong arm snag an interview with the Reagan-coiffed Mr Blank himself, sometimes known as Rabbit. While it’s difficult interviewing someone without a face, I think we rose to the challenge magnificently.
If we wanted a job/jobs like yours, what would be the best place to start? Is it still Craigslist, or is everyone on to that now?
So you’re looking for a job that pays like crap, half the people you meet are psychotic monsters, and most everyone treats you like something their dog squirted out on the neighbor’s lawn? Why not just work in an office?
Okay, fine. Craigslist still works, though the code has gotten a little more elaborate. And don’t respond to anything that takes you to a rest stop, unless one of your hobbies is being murdered. Almost anyplace that posts jobs will have something. Look for things like courier, security, gofer, and things that sound kind of vague. But not too vague. That’s how you get shoved into a shipping container and sent to one of those countries with child soldiers.
So, which did suck worse – Voyager or Enterprise?
It’s bad form to speak ill of Bakula, but I’m going to do it anyway, if only so he’ll leap into my body and somehow make me president. Enterprise sucked so much worse and we knew as soon as that theme song kicked in.
We learned from our peep into your trunk that you carry around 17 copies of Thermidor [Sandman #29] with you, but it’s never explained why. What’s up with that? Gaiman fetish, or…?
Ever been to LA in the summer? It’s hot. Besides, enough copies of Sandman are like passports now that Downtown has gone hipster.
Something we really wanted to know about, but don’t think you ever touched on – what REALLY happened to Elvis?
It has something to do with the infield fly rule. I’m unclear on the specifics.
Are you SURE there aren’t any vampires? Like, really truly?
I hate you so much right now.
Which was more terrifying – the LGM or the chupacabra?
Well, chupacabras only eat you. The Little Green Men turn you into a hand puppet that begs for death.
We’re still kind of dying to know your real name. Hints, please?
It rhymes with “orange” or possibly “silver.”
Based on – um…certain events in your narrative, it’s fairly obvious that the moon landings actually DID happen, right? Why do you think there’s such a conspiracy buzz around them still today?
Because they were faked. Sort of. See, what we saw on television weren’t the actual images from the moon. Those were filmed later out in Utah in the same desert where they filmed The Conqueror. The reason they didn’t show the real footage is because the aliens were actually waiting for us in a scene that was sort of halfway between that episode of The Brady Bunch where they go to Hawaii and The Thing.
To close, we’d like to know your favourite conspiracies that are 100% false and your favourite conspiracy that is actually true.
Nothing in this world is 100% false except the statement “Deliverance is an awesome date movie!” I guess the closest thing to a false conspiracy is the Mars face. By now, you should be well acquainted with pareidolia, and that’s a pretty clear-cut case of it. Well, all except the thing’s hat, which NASA keeps cropping out of images.
My favorite true conspiracy? Oh, that’s easy. New Coke.
~o~
Now. The fun part. You can go purchase your own copy of Mr Blank today over at Candlemark and Gleam (paper or digital!) OR you can try your chances at winning a DRM-free eCopy in the format of your choice RIGHT HERE!
In addition to receiving a copy of this fabulous eBook, you’ll be getting a chance to win something even better.
“What could be better than that?”
Let me tell you. The copy of Mr Blank you’ll be receiving will be the special Limited Fnord Edition eBook. There are five “fnord”s hidden in the text. Find them all and email Candlemark and Gleam to be entered into a drawing to win an eReader in February! Make sure to follow their blog for more information as it gets closer to the date.
First, you need to either have subscribed to us, or be a regular commenter. Then all you have to do to enter the drawing for the eBook (Did I mention it’s DRM-free? LOVE that!) is leave your favourite conspiracy theory in the comments. On Tuesday, Oct. 30 at 12 pm EDT I’ll put all eligible names into The Hat and announce the winner.
For a bonus entry, tweet about this post and let us know in a comment reply to yourself. For a FURTHER bonus entry, share this post on facebook or g+ and post a screenshot in a comment reply to yourself (or if you don’t want to post your real name in the blog comments, you can just email the screenshot to us at dodisharkicorn @ gmail .com). So easy!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Meg and I work really hard on the things you see here. She does the illustrations, I do the writing. You can use it if you like, but please always track back to us. Thanks!
