Giving the Game Away | Devour The Vorrh!

I can neither confirm nor deny that The Vorrh will play some part in Top of the Scots 2012... but consider the timing, and the words I concluded my review with.

It wouldn't be a bad bet, would it?

Well, here's a hell of a chance to see why I've been banging on about Brian Catling's masterful first fantasy for yourself, because thanks to the generosity of the peeps at Honest Publishing, I have one strictly limited edition of The Vorrh to give away today.

Only 300 of these signed and numbered editions exist, and no more will be be produced. Books don't come much rarer than this!

Wherever in the world you are, this gorgeous copy could be yours. All you need to is email the answer to this exceedingly simple question to thespeculativescotsman [at] googlemail [dot] com:

From which 1910 novel does the

forest in The Vorrh take its name?

If the answer isn't immediately apparent, simply take another look at my review.

Please mark your subject headers 'Devour The Vorrh', and be sure to include your postal address in the body text of your message... as well as your answer, obviously.

That's all there is to this incredible giveaway!

It's easy when you know how, huh? :)

The Best Things In Life | Click-Clack the Charitable Rattlebag

It's always the way when I'm AFK for any length of time: I fall so far behind on my RSS feeds that it can take weeks before I'm approaching current again. Luckily, whilst trawling through the blogs of all the authors I follow last night, I chanced upon Neil Gaiman's latest post, wherein the estimable author made mention of a short-story of his I'd never heard of.

It's called "Click-Clack the Rattlebag," and this is how it begins:

'What kind of story would you like me to tell you?'

'Well,' he said, thoughtfully, 'I don't think it should be too scary, because then when I go up to bed, I will just be thinking about monsters the whole time. But if it isn't just a little bit scary, then I won't be interested. And you make up scary stories, don't you?'

And today is the day for scary stories, isn't it?

Well, wonderfully, you can hear this one from free!

But we have to backtrack briefly, because I wrote hear rather than read. See, this neat Halloween treat is only available through Audible.

I confess I've never been particularly interested in audiobooks - I either focus too much on them, or not enough - so I didn't have an account already, but because Amazon now owns Audible, you can simply transfer your login details across.

Saying that, you still have to download a download manager and install player software capable of decoding DRM-ridden AA and AAX files, so yes, the process could certainly be better, but I dare say it's a fair price to pay for free Neil Gaiman.

One last caveat: you'll have to be timely to take full advantage of this offer. "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" is only available gratis till midnight tonight. On the other hand, for every download Audible tracks, the US arm of the organisation has pledged to donate $1 to the education-oriented charity DonorsChoose.org, whilst the UK site will give 50p per user to Booktrust. So it's a guddle for a good cause.

Plus, you get a creepy short story by Neil Gaiman for nowt. What's not awesome about that bargain, exactly?

Do this thing, dear readers. 

This is the link to use if you're in the UK. If you're in Germany, you also have a special site. Everyone else needs to go here for their free Halloween reading.

To all and sundry, in any event: I wish you a happy All Hallows' Eve!

Giving the Game Away | Alif, Seen!

To tie a little knot on top of all the fun we had with G. Willow Wilson's tour-de-force debut, I thought this afternoon I'd announce the winners of the giveaway the lovely sorts at Corvus were kind enough to organise.

As ever, I received entries from all round the world, but on this occasion, alas, I was only able to accept those from the UK and Europe.

Before I give the game away, let's remind ourselves of the question I asked you to answer:

Which letter of the English alphabet is

the Arabic character 'Alif' equivalent to?

The solution to this particular riddle? 'Twas as easy as blank, B, C:

The letter 'A'

And almost everyone who entered the giveaway got it right. Next time, let's shoot for the moon, folks!

But enough beating around the alif. We have three lucky winners, and they are:

• Kathleen Hooper, of Nottingham
• John Elder, fae Glasgow
• and Latvia's own Ieva Zalite

Hearty congratulations to the winners — meanwhile my commiserations to the less lucky.

Kathleen, John and Ieva should expect to receive an email from me to confirm their details within the next few days. All else who entered, I'm afraid you'll have get your grubbies on this book the old fashioned way.

By bartering precious stones for it, of course. :D

Giving the Game Away | Win One of Three Complete Sets of The Macht Saga

Perhaps you've read Paul Kearney before... or perhaps you haven't. Maybe you've wondered about The Macht saga from afar, or ogled the omnibus editions of The Monarchies of God and wondered: would I like this?

Well yes, you would. Or at the very least, you should. I don't think it's spoiling the reviews of Corvus and Kings of Morning you'll be seeing from me subsequently to say that they're terrific books, to a one. Reading through these three volumes over the past three weeks has been a beautiful, bloody, bittersweet experience, and I'm officially on board with whatever Kearney writes next. Up to and including this Spartacus tie-in.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet, because in a rare turn of events, I've got some books to give away. I enjoyed this series so much that I wanted to get it into the hands of a few good folks, and Solaris have been more generous than I could have hoped for. They've offered not one, not two, but three complete sets of all three volumes of The Macht saga.

Which is to say, if you can answer this simple question correctly, you'll be in with a chance of winning copies of The Ten Thousand, Corvus and Kings of Morning, which hasn't even been released yet, here in the UK.

You don't have to be British to stand a chance, either! Entries are welcome from the UK, the US, and Europe too. All you have to do tell me:

Which of the United Kingdoms

does Paul Kearney come from?

Simple, isn't it? And if you're not so sure, you'll find the answer somewhere in the text of yesterday's review of The Ten Thousand.

All I'd ask is that you send along your guesses to thespeculativescotsman [at] gmail [dot] com and mark you subject headers "The Macht Saga".

I'm going to let this one run for a week at least, so there's time to get your entries in, and then tell your friends so they can try their hands as well. At the end of that period, our lucky winners will be picked at random, as ever, to the envy of everybody who isn't one.

That's it! Go on, now. You know you want to... and if you don't, well, I beg to differ. :P

### EDIT @16:47 ###

Actually, that thing about a Spartacus tie-in? Turns out that's Amazon trying to make a monkey of me: it's being written by a Mark Morris, and the page only updated today. Never mind I've been secretly excited about it for months.

Anyway, go go giveaway!

Smash Hits | [Insert Skyrim Job Joke Here]

The BoSS is on vacation today. So.


You know, I don't buy terribly many video games. I mean, I play a whole lot of the things - I'd be the first to admit my eyes are sometimes bigger than my belly - but multiplayer modes rarely catch my eye, and £50 for a game that'll entertain me for a few evenings is a very hard sell.

Which is to say, the last video game I actually bought was Mass Effect 2. LoveFilm's kept me rolling in fun times on the 360 and PS3 since.

Anyway, if there was even a shadow of a shadow of a doubt that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim would be the game for which I break my long-standing buying fast, it's gone as of now. Because:

Cloth map! :D

Doesn't hurt that it's a cloth map for the hugely anticipated sequel to Oblivion, which given that I've yet to dare try my hand at an MMO must be the game have I've sunk the most hours into - ever. That I'd buy this beauty at some point was pretty much a gimme.

Then Bethseda announced a lovely burlap cloth map would be made available - for free! - to anyone and everyone who preorders Skyrim, whether from retailers in Europe or North America.

Here I'd been thinking I'd wait to see how the various console versions shook up in the final summation before I made a decision either way. (I mean, I'd like to get the Xbox 360 version, what with the points and all, but for a game of this sheer scale and scope, perhaps the PS3's extra storage will come in handy. Frankly I'd rather not have to worry about compressed textures and dodgy audio because of file format limitations - roll on the next generation already - but such is the gamer's life in this day and age.)

Well, I'd best pick one and be done with it, or no cloth map for me. Which I hardly need confess would make me a very sad Scotsman indeed...

***

Source: Kotaku

Giving The Game Away | Songs Of Cats and Croats

Hey, remember a couple of weeks ago, we had a grand old giveaway?

Well, I'd meant to announce the winner sooner -- in fact I did the random draw last weekend, then I saw three more entries flashing away in my inbox, and it felt a little mean of me to cut the cord so arbitrarily. But they've been trickling in since, too - a couple a day all through the week - and this can't go on forever. So.


The time has finally come to announce our winners.

First, our three runners-up, each of whom will receive a gorgeous Songs of the Earth bookmark just as soon as I can talk the post office camels to heading out your way. They are:

• from Ohio, Andy Campbell
• from Manchester, Daniel Franklin
• from Croatia, Tomislav Tkalec

But our grand prizewinner, who gets a bookmark AND a signed and inscribed copy of Songs of the Earth direct from Elspeth herself, is...


*dramatic pause*


Simon Holland, who hails from Cheshire, where all cats are happy. As well Simon should be. :D


I'll have email to all our winners in a moment to collect address and inscriptions. Well done, everyone!

Giving The Game Away | Songs, Signed and Inscribed

So.

I expect I've crowed about Songs of the Earth enough for one week - I really would recommend you all give it a shot, when the time comes - but I've one last thing to share with you all before we call it a day.

Thanks to the lovely lady herself - and she has been most lovely, to put up with my many, lengthy questions and then to throw this thing into the bargain - I have one hardcover copy of Songs of the Earth to give away to any and all comers, and exclusive bookmarks to tide over three runners-up.

Not just any old hardcover copy, either. This one will be signed by Elspeth - and personalised, too! All you have to do to stand a chance of winning this pretty thing is email me the answer to the following question:

What is the name of the trilogy

Songs of the Earth begins?

The answer to which really very easy question you'll find in my review of Elspeth Cooper's very promising debut.

Rest assured, wherever in the world you are, you can enter this competition. Just send along your entries to "thespeculativescotsman [at] googlemail [dot] com" - taking care to mark your subject headers "Songs Giveaway" - and I'll let you know who the lucky winner of the bookmarks and this precious signed and personalised first edition of what could very well prove to be the best fantasy debut of 2011... shall we say early next week?

I expect we shall.

Ready? Set? Go!

The Best Things In Life Are Free | Songs To Test By

Well it seems GladOS is back in the big chair - where she should be! - because yesterday, someone finally tested some sense into the great and glorious cabal that is Valve, insisting that they release some of the awesome music from Portal 2.

And when I say "awesome," I mean awesome.

I confess, when I first heard that there'd be a sequel to Portal, I had my doubts. But from the moment that first trailer was released on out, I was all in - and in no small part thanks to the exhilarating electro the resurrection of GladOS was set to.

Nor did the game disappoint in that respect... in any respect, truth be told. The soundtrack was but one of Portal 2's innumerable high points - the perfect music to read or perhaps even write some bonkers sci-fi by - so it was cause for something of a sad face when I realised there was no way I could buy it.

Apparently that was only so Valve could give us the thing, piece by piece. Strike my complaints from the transcript, please! Composed and arranged by the Aperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratory, Songs to Test By Volume One is the first of three free CDs' worth of songs from the stupendous Portal 2.

And it is, as I may have mentioned, somewhat awesome. I'm only on my first listen and already I've heard a wealth of music that wasn't in the game proper - or else was, and I missed, because I'm such an obedient little test subject. I hear I missed a wealth of dialogue too, by solving puzzles before Wheatley or some such could complain I wasn't testing fast enough.

...oh well. Replay! :)

In the meantime, you'd be well advised to hit up this link forthwith, and getcher gosh-darned download on.

Not only, but also: please, consider the comments of this post a Portal 2 spoiler section. I'd say the time to be respectful of those folks who haven't had the time or the inclination to beat Valve's latest masterpiece is officially at an end. Besides, I'm practically dying to discuss some of the late-game events of what has to be the best game of the year to date with you all.

In fact, I'll get the cube ball rolling and everything...