Stephen Deas » Competition

Giveaway: The Fateguard Trilogy (again) (20/1/2015)

Stephen — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 07:49:59 +0000

Nathan Hawke’s short The Anvil comes out as an e-book on the 12th February. In order to get ready for what will doubtless be THE fantasy event of the year (and so soon, too), Nathan is launching a massive publicity campaign which will consist of signing every single physical copy of the e-book, a gruelling one-stop signing and reading event at the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club and a market-saturating giveaway of a whole one other copy of The Fateguard Trilogy. 940 pages. 330,000 words. Everything Hawke has ever written. A man with an axe on the cover. What more could you want?

Usual deal – comment on this post before Monday January 26th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. Super Relaxed Fantasy Club is meeting on the 27th January, 6:30 at the Grange Holborn Hotel. from past eperience I recommend getting there a little early in order to have a chance of finding where we’ve all gone. There might be a few copies available on the the night, but more importantly there are going to be a slew of fantasy authors, editors and, most of all, fans, hanging out. If you’re the lucky winner and you’re going to be there, I’ll bring the book; otherwise no one has complained (so far) about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. Am currently up to date, in that all recent winners have been posted.

Book Giveaway: Gallow (19/12/2013)

Stephen — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 08:16:44 +0000

I didn’t go a giveaway last week because Reasons. I’ve been working on the edits for The Splintered Gods for a couple of weeks now and likely will be working on them for a couple more. And then there was the whole thing about authors commenting on websites that talk about their books. I say *thing* because I’d like to say debate, but what it actually turned out to be was people posting their opinions, throwing insults and accusations, oozing snide but slyly unspecific contempt and apparently culminating in threats of sexual violence against at least two bloggers who posted their own personal (and quite different) opinions. Which is something to not keep quite about and between the two things I never got around to giving away any books last week and have also been pretty crap at getting things posted (sorry Paul – it’s good to go now…)

This week’s giveaway is a complete copy of the Gallow series by Nathan Hawke (i.e. me with the letters rearranged). No words, no title, no name, just Angry Man With Axe, which is pretty much how I feel about the internet right now.

Cold Redemption Cover

The Last Bastion cover

Usual deal – comment on this post before September 28th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy.

This week I’d like to hear your stories about crappy behavior on the internet. No names, please, and to enter the competition, you don’t have to tell a story, you can just say hi; but if you want to get something off your chest, here’s a safe place to do it (Note – Vent anything you like but I’ll not tolerate any comments on comments that attempt, in my arbitrary and biased view, to start a debate, nor the explicit naming of anyone for being a jerk. My intolerance will manifest as deleting or editing comments. This week is about having a bit of a rant, not debates or potential libel. Thought if you just want to get it off your chest about, say THE LIVING DISASTER OF JACKASS LANE-DISCIPLINE AT THE MIAMI ROUNCDABOUT IN CHELMSFORD, then you should be fine).

You can enter as may times as you like but I’ll count the first two entries – the rest are just for fun and showing off. Extra points for humour and originality and I’ve still got the Angry Dragons mug if you make me laugh, smirk or otherwise amuse me.

Book Giveaway: Mystery Book (26/8/2013)

Stephen — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 08:57:21 +0000

It’s been an odd week. Back from holiday is always a weird feeling. Then one of our cats was missing when we got back and didn’t show up for a week ( by the end we were assuming he’d been hit by a car and died in a hedge – in actual fact, he’d taken to loitering around the back of the local steak restaurant where he was being fed scraps of steak and premium salmon, then been taken in by the restaurant owner, whose partner is a veterinary nurse and works at a pet spa. So while we were imagining him dying by the roadside, cold and in pain and alone, actually he was being bathed, cleaned, brushed, pampered and living on food I largely can’t afford to eat myself . You really couldn’t make this shit up. He’s not entirely pleased to be back). And in the midst of that, there was the final death-rattle of my stupid pleurisy thing from earlier in the summer, which largely consisted of “you’re fine, go away, there categorically never was anything to this more than random infection and your chances of randomly dropping dead are not severely inflated as was initially posited but in fact exactly the same as they ever were,” which turned out more of a relief than I’d expected.

In the middle of that, some writing happened, some of which involved getting stroppy with my Empires co-writer on account of me being stressed about lots of other things. If we’re still talking to each other by the end of this, we really should do a panel on co-operative writing. Anyway, there’s another draft of Empires: Extraction now and this one doesn’t turn into an 18-rated version of Transformers in the middle. And I polished off the first of two Bulldog Drummond novellas, of which I’ll say more later.

This week’s book giveaway is a mystery. I have a number of books available but I’m not going to tell you what they are. Comment here saying what book you’d like to get and I’ll pick someone at random and see if either I have it or Gollancz can spare a copy (hint – pick a Gollancz title…). You can enter as may times as you like but I’ll count the first and if everyone asks for the Republic of Thieves, I’d point out that IT’S NOT OUT YET. And I’ll sulk.

If you’re still here, last week said I’d put up some photos. Here are some photos:

For your inner Ezio

In God’s Country

Big thing is big

The Lone and Level Sands not being terribly Lone and Level

Book Giveaway – Hostage to Pleasure (3/6/2013)

Stephen — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:24:48 +0000

I’m still quite taken with The Blood Juggler. I feel a short story coming on for which I don’t have time to actually write.

Meh. An entire week spent on stuff about which I cannot yet talk. I have been talking to a games company, proofing some other stuff… meh. Oh and rewriting the historical fiction thing. More of that this week and some SF about which I cannot speak and it’s about time to knock the short story for World Fantasy on the head. Meanwhile, this week’s free book is a little bit of a departure from my normal offering – you can blame one of the editors at Gollancz for that who appears to want to experiment on me. So we’ll see what happens. I actually have three copies to give away so expect them to come up again if they’re popular.

Usual deal – comment on this post before June 8th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. No challenge this week but now that I’ve been introduced to Rude Supermarket, there may be a more interesting one coming up. Maybe Lord of the Rings Supermarket (A is for Angmar, B is for Boromir, C is for Celador, etc…)

Book Giveaway – The Warlock’s Shadow (01/05/2013)

Stephen — Wed, 01 May 2013 10:55:24 +0000

Yay! May! It’s been an interesting couple of weeks again. The Splintered Gods (the sequel to Dragon Queen) has gone in to be edited even though there’s quite a bit wrong with it. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do but I pretty sure the plotting is solid and the characters are sound and the world is consistent and yet it’s missing something. Except for the bits with Zafir in and the bits with the Adamantine Man Tuuran. Zafir just kicks arse and steals every scene I write for her (possibly because she has a sodding great big dragon) and Tuuran, well, he’s just fun and straightforward. But it’s still missing something. Too much talking in some sections and not enough . . . something else. And it’s not action. Agency, possibly. And two more itty bitty contracts in the works (more when they’re signed).

The Splintered God isn’t the first book to go to edit with a palpable sense of missing something. This week I’m giving away a copy of the last one to do this to me. In the case of the Warlock’s Shadow the third quarter, at the time, lacked any sense of purpose. My editor at the time half-spotted the source of the problem, enough for me to see it to and so I think it’s fixed. In part it’s fixed by the presence of Tasahre, the most significant female character in the series (sorry about that ladies but the series was conceived as YA for boys. I’ll tried to compensate with Dragon Queen and its sequels…). I had fanmail today citing Tasahre as the “the favourite character of all the books I’ve ever read” and that’s pretty much what put it in mind to give a copy away.

It doesn’t have any dragons in it but it does mention something about that that might just come back again in Dragon Queen. Usual deal – comment on this post before May 4th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. Since it’s one of mine, I’ll sign and line it of you like. If you want a challenge for the comments, name your favourite female fantasy character. Personally I’m temped to go for Paksenarrion (if I’ve spelled her name correctly…)

Book Giveaway – Age of Scorpio (22/4/2013)

Stephen — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:46:41 +0000

I have a couple of collaborations in the pipeline with SF author Gavin Smith coming up, one of which I can’t talk about yet and the other one of which I can but have been systematically too lazy/busy to actually get on and do anything about. Anyway, since he’s a great guy and hugely fun and also my writing partner, here’s a book wot he wrote going begging. I haven’t read this one (too new ) but if the rest of what I’ve seen is anything to go by then it’s an adrenaline-fueled action-fest.

So to enter this time you have to help me resolve an argument – what’s the best SF spaceship ever. Is it really the Millennium Falcon? I’m looking for more than the coolest design – I’ll looking for spaceships with personality. So yes, the Falcon counts as it does have a prone-to-break-down-at-inconvenient-moment personality, just about. To enter the competition you have to comment on this post with a suggested spaceship before the end of Friday 26th. Please be prepared to be patient with the delivery and if it’s to an address to outside the UK then I’ll have to ask for a phone number as well as an address. But they do all get there eventually (I think).

Book Giveaway – Crysis: Escalation (19/2/2013)

Stephen — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:45:54 +0000

About three weeks ago I mentioned that I’d signed a contract to write some SF with Gollancz. What makes this a little different is that it’s a co-operative project with two books by two authors telling one inter-twined story. It’s a bit of an experiment but so far rather fun. This week’s giveaway is for the latest release by my co-author (or collaborating author or whatever the right term is): Gavin Smith’s set of short stories to tie in with Crysis 3, a game which I’m rather drooling to play.

Yes, it’s Psycho with an assault weapon and a weird bow. Never mind. It’ll be great. Usual deal – comment on this post before February 23rd and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. There’s no challenge this week, but I do recommend a quick visit to Gavin’s site.

If you come up with something good, I’ll send an exciting bonus goody your way[1]. Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually

[1] Exciting bonus goody not guaranteed to be exciting, but I do have an Angry Dragons mug to give away.

Giveaway – I Am Legend (12/2/2013)

Stephen — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:23:03 +0000

I Am Legend. Not the book of the movie which happened to share the same title but the original, which my former editor will be happy to tell you is TOTALLY DIFFERENT (at least in the way it ends). Usual deal – comment on this post before February 16th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book.If you really make me laugh I’ll send an exciting bonus goody your way[1]. Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far.

News… I could ramble at length about rewrites but maybe I’ll save that for later. In next year’s dragon book, I can’t help noticing, the three most significant protagonists are all women, two are black and the third is, arguably, an abuse victim. It wasn’t really planned that way but hey, look, accidental political correctness. Yay.

[1] Exciting bonus goody not guaranteed to be exciting, but I do have an Angry Dragons mug to give away. Mostly it’s postcards.

Giveaway – The Lies of Locke Lamora (again) (28/1/2013)

Stephen — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:06:33 +0000

Yesterday I signed a contract to write some SF with Gollancz. With spaceship and everything. More shortly…

Anyhow, this week I’m going to mention the old news of the freebie novella up on the Gollancz blog – a prelude to The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice. PDF here later this week. Or maybe next. But the reason for going a bit retro is that I’m giving away a book I’ve already given – away once before – a copy of The Lies of Locke Lamora, the first volume in the Gentlemen Bastard septet, the second of which is also out, the third of which still appears to have vanished into a time loop. It remains, however, a damn fine read. Several attempts to contact the previous winner have failed and so it’s back. If you are the previous winner, and you’re just wondering why all those replies to all those mails I sent to that never got picked up, er… that’s a mystery to me too. But comment here and I’ll see if I can get a second copy and have two winners.

Usual deal – comment on this post before November 17th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. There’s no challenge again this week, although I’m quite curious to know what sort of things people would actually pay extra money (in a Kickster-esque tiered rewards sort of structure) for in a book – named characters, obviously, but what else…?

[1] Exciting bonus goody not guaranteed to be exciting, but I do have an Angry Dragons mug to give away.

Giveaway – Inside Game of Thrones (31/12/2012)

Stephen — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 13:43:09 +0000

Yay! New Year! And I have to choose between Ezio and jumping out of haystacks to murder people now and then or else Dishonoured and murdering people in other ways. Last week I polished off a handful of short stories that I can’t talk about yet and started the opening chapters of an SF project that I’ll explain once there’s a signed contract. Right now I’m in the middle of an SAS-supported drug bust going down in a skating rink. Bit different to writing dragons.

This week I’m offering the Gollancz hardback Inside the HBO Game of Thrones. Usual deal – comment on this post before January 5th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. Valid entries must contain a vaguely preposterous proposed New Year’s Resolution for either a well-known fantasy author or character (like for me to deliver a manuscript in which no major characters die and everyone lives happily ever after or for Cersei Lannister to retire to a nunnery and take up knitting) .

Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. Previous winners – I’m afraid I’m a bit behind with the posting, but they’ll go out some time this week.