Results tagged “free stuff”

It’s the beginning of the month again!

And you know what that means, right?

No, not endless days of 100 degree Seattle heat leeching away my sanity well into a new month, with no hope of air conditioning ever blowing on my face or allowing me a moment of peaceful slumber!

Can you read how whiny I sound? I really do sound like that right now!

Indeed, instead, it is time to update our Free Library and offer new free eBooks that we can take on Kindles and laptops to the nearest air conditioned cafe or coffee source!

Here are the new additions:

• The Briar King by Greg Keyes – Two thousand years ago, the Born Queen defeated the Skasloi lords, freeing humans from the bitter yoke of slavery. But now monstrous creatures roam the land—and destinies become inextricably entangled in a drama of power and seduction. The king’s woodsman, a rebellious girl, a young priest, a roguish adventurer, and a young man made suddenly into a knight—all face malevolent forces that shake the foundations of the kingdom, even as the Briar King, legendary harbinger of death, awakens from his slumber. At the heart of this many-layered tale is Anne Dare, youngest daughter of the royal family … upon whom the fate of her world may depend.
• King’s Property by Morgan Howell – Born into hardship, Dar learns to rely on herself alone. When her family betrays her, Dar is conscripted into King Kregant’s army and its brutal campaign to conquer a neighboring country. Now she is bound as a slave to a dreaded regiment of orcs, creatures legendary for their savagery and battle prowess. Rather than cower, Dar rises to the challenge. She learns the unique culture and language of the orcs, survives treachery from both allies and enemies, and struggles to understand a mystical gift that brings her dark, prophetic visions. As the war escalates-amid nightmarish combat and shattering loss-Dar must seize a single chance at freedom.
• The Brass Bed by Jennifer Stevenson – THE CURSE: Satisfy one hundred women or be trapped in a brass bed forever Lord Randall was a lousy lover in 1811, so his magician-mistress turned him into a sex demon. Lucky for him, his bed fell into Clay’s hands. THE CON: Sex therapy for women on an antique brass “treatment bed”
  Clay has the perfect scam going, until that pesky, foxy fraud investigator Jewel comes sniffing around. Lucky for him, she has a soft spot for hunky con men. THE CHOICE: Sex demon or sex fraudster? Jewel is Randy’s hundredth woman. Now he says he’s her personal sex slave, and her case against the con artist is dissolving in a hail of hormones. Lucky for her, she’s a tough cop with a lusty libido.
  

There you go! Three new additions to the Free Library! Of those posted I have read The Briar King by Greg Keyes and I think it is one of the best novels I have read in quite a while. It is also one of those books Terry Brooks forced me to read because it deserved to be. The Briar King is the first book of a completed quartet. Keyes writes great characters and I have to admit when I finished up the last few chapters of the last book in the series, The Born Queen, I had standing tears in the eyes.

Now I get to try King’s Property and The Brass Bed—for free!

Be sure to tell your friends about these free books! I’m sure they are fans as well!

Until next month…View image

Don’t forget the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s Member Appreciation Party is tomorrow night! It’s free drinks for a good cause. How could you not show up?

Wednesday, June 24th
6pm to 9pm
Village Pourhouse
64 3rd Ave. at 11th St.
NYC

Enjoy a free open bar of Bud Light & Well Drinks courtesy of clicklinksforfreedrinks.com.

CBLDF Members get into the party for FREE by showing their member card. Not a member of the CBLDF? Well you should be! Join today for only $25 at cbldf.org or sign up at the party. Non-members have a $10 cover to get in. A small cover for free drinks… You can’t get a better deal in NYC!

Want a free drink? And want to help the CBLDF? There’s only one answer, isn’t there? Come on out to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s Member Appreciation Party!

Wednesday, June 24th
6pm to 9pm
Village Pourhouse
64 3rd Ave. at 11th St.
NYC

Enjoy a free open bar of Bud Light & Well Drinks courtesy of clicklinksforfreedrinks.com.

CBLDF Members get into the party for FREE by showing their member card. Not a member of the CBLDF? Well you should be! Join today for only $25 at cbldf.org or sign up at the party. Non-members have a $10 cover to get in. A small cover for free drinks… You can’t get a better deal in NYC!

As I was attempting to do some planning for the upcoming Comic-Con in San Diego this year, I hit a bit of a road block. The official schedule of events, that mammoth catalog of panels, performers, and parties happening at Comic-Con International this year, won’t be out for at least a few more weeks according to the CCI website. So my work on the Suvudu coverage schedule closed almost as soon as it started (though I’ve got a kickin’ template ready to go).

But that doesn’t mean we’re completely in the dark. This year’s San Diego Con highlights a few really cool milestones. I’m going to take a minute to break those down for you in this post. And since we’re talking about milestones and past events, I also want to ask you about your past Comic-Con experiences. Do you have a cool or favorite memory from one of the past Cons? Tell us all about it in the comments section.

And with that, let’s look at some of the featured themes and anniversaries of the coming San Diego Comic-Con:

• 75th Anniversary of the Great Adventure Comic Strips
I don’t know much about the original Adventure Comic strips, but I am the recipient of their legacy. In fact, as comics fans, we all are. 1934 was a boom year for the ACS with titles like Terry and the Pirates, Flash Gordon, ‘Lil Abner and more, the popularity of these strips introduced (or re-introduced, depending on your perspective) comics and graphic storytelling to the masses.

• 50th Anniversary of Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
The Green Lantern has been, and will likely continue to be, one of superhero-dom’s greatest characters. The series has spawned one of the best villains in Sinestro and the Sinestro Corps and continues to reward fans with intricate storylines. Happy 50th Hal Jordan and crew! Here’s hoping for fifty more!

• 50th Anniversary of Rocky and Bullwinkle
That’s right - Rocky and Bullwinkle are turning 50! Incredible, right? To celebrate, the voice of Rocky the Squirel, June Foray, will be attending the Con. I have no idea how many of these she’s been to before, but I urge her to read the suggestions given to me for first-time Con attendees. Good luck, June!

• 25th Anniversary of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Dude! No way! Here’s one that means I’m officially turning into an “Old Dude.” Those mutated, pizza-loving, martial artist turtles are 25 this year. I would make a joke about them doing some sort of career planning or something like that, but given the opening of their last movie, they’ve already done that. But if they were teenagers 25 years ago, that means they are at least 38 years old now. Or not. Best if they’re not. Expect a lot of green outfits at the Con this year, though. I’m holding out hope that I’ll see at least one Shredder outfit. That would be fun!

Del Rey Manga’s Ali T. Kokmen was spotted at this week’s New York Comic Con Happy Hour at Dave and Busters in Times Square. Will he be spotted again at the CBLDF’s Member Appreciation Party on June 24? Only one way to find out… You gotta be there.

Wednesday, June 24th
6pm to 9pm
Village Pourhouse
64 3rd Ave. at 11th St.
NYC

Enjoy a free open bar of Bud Light & Well Drinks courtesy of clicklinksforfreedrinks.com.

CBLDF Members get into the party for FREE by showing their member card. Not a member of the CBLDF? Well you should be! Join today for only $25 at cbldf.org or sign up at the party. Non-members have a $10 cover to get in. A small cover for free drinks… You can’t get a better deal in NYC!

So, I’m currently at BEA in NYC. Lots of authors. Lots of press. Very little Ali. Heard he’s in the building, though. Taking a break from the BEA work, I wanted to make you all aware of Kinokuniya’s Lolita Fashion Day — June 6 at their NYC store.

The store will be celebrating International Lolita Day with help from TOKYOPOP, Gothic & Lolita Bible, and the New York Asian Film Festival. Events include a Gothic & Lolita Bible Giveaway, Café Zaiya Sweet Treats, Gothic & Lolita Bible Photoshoot, and a New York Asian Film Festival Preview.

Want details? Want to go? All the details are right here.

Quick - were you watching Supernatural last night? If so, why don’t you send us a quick “here’s what went down at the end” message? We’re giving away a grand prize featuring Supernatural Season Companion Guides for each of the first three season. We’ll also be drawing two second place winners who’ll receive one copy of the Supernatural Season Three Companion book.

The live event, in so much as we can call it “live,” was last night. Now you’re going to have to turn to your DVR (or your friend’s DVR) to watch. You have till Monday to complete this assignment for a chance at free stuff.

Just a thought. Here’s the legal: Official Rules.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Friday, already in progress.

Suvudu is now offering in the Free Library Star Wars Fate of the Jedi: Dramatis Personae!

Fate of the Jedi is the new Star Wars series set almost four decades after the events of Return of the Jedi, where the characters we know and love have become legends in their own right even as they struggle against the Dark Side of the Force. The Dramatis Personae, a free ebook in our Free Library, introduces new readers or readers who need a refresher to what has been going in the last 40 years in the Star Wars universe.

It is a fun read, making me want to pull out the movie trilogies and watch them back to back, but Dramatis Personae also has an excerpt from Book One in Fate of the Jedi, Star Wars: Outcast, written by Aaron Allston!

So, if you are a Star Wars fan, check out the newest book to our Free Library!

And get ready for next month! Got a few new additions coming!

PS: Get well, Aaron!

Have you seen Supernatural? If you haven’t, we’re going to give you even more reason to try it out: Suvudu will be giving you the chance to win the companion books to the show and all you have to do is watch the upcoming April 2 episode, The Monster at the End of this Book, and tell us how it ended.

Now, along the way you might get sucked into the show and become a fan. That’s the type of collateral that we have to accept in these contests. Occasionally you stumble on a fun demon hunting show and you succumb. That’s life, right?

Hey folks, so this came to my attention from the good folks at Del Rey. Enjoy:

The Fate of the Jedi series has begun! This week, Del Rey Books has released the first book of the nine-book series with Outcast by Aaron Allston. Help spread the word of this exciting new chapter of the Star Wars expanded universe with downloadable PDF e-postcards.

Get an exclusive look at Ben Skywalker’s correspondence with Jaina Solo, in the form of three separate transmissions captured as downloadable PDFs. You can find them at the following locations:

Borders

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Bestselling author Douglas Clegg made digital history a decade ago when his novel Naomi became the Internet’s first publisher-sponsored e-serial.

In that tradition, last year, Clegg made a deal with his fans: If they spread the word and got enough people to check out the free online version of his acclaimed novel Afterlife, he would reward them with a brand new free serial this summer.

Well, they did. And he will. Earlier today the widget below surfaced on the web, counting down to the release of a brand new free email serial. And given the description (click on the widget to get details) we can’t wait.

This is going to be killer.

Sometime in the mid to late nineties, mainstream video games left me behind. I wish I could say it was a gradual thing, like two entities slowly drifting apart, but no, it was sort of like being pushed out of the car on the way to a party. It seemed like everything was going hard core First Person Shooter or MMO and while I’m not here to knock those kinds of games, they just don’t do it for me. There’s a disconnect between us. Which is to say, I suck at them.

I’m one of those games who was weened on Mario and Zelda and just never quite developed a taste for the other stuff. 3-D games? Awesome, I guess, but if you really want to excite me, show me a side-scrolling platformer with juicier graphics. Don’t get me wrong, I tried to get into the next gen systems before. I bought a PS2 a while back, played games like Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, GTA 3, and Devil May Cry.

I tried, I really did, but by the end I was spending all my gaming time on ported game anthologies from the Atari and NES systems. And then I sold the PS2 and didn’t really give gaming much of a thought…until recently.

[read on after the jump]

I know we don’t talk about games as much as we could here, but I came across this game, by way of the Totally Rad Show, and had to share. Lately I’ve been addicted to my iPod games - Reversie, Klondike (or solitaire, for those who haven’t played the apple version), Tetris, and Vortex have become favorite things for me to do while listening to Book Radio. So, I’m into puzzle games. And if you are too, then I’ve got a great new game to kill off whatever productivity is left in your day for you to try.

The game is Auditorium and if you’re looking to kill time without even know you’re doing it, then this is your game. And guess what? It’s free to play.

So what’s it all about? Good question. This is a puzzle game that has the player using directional “lenses” to alter the path of light particles in order to fill up volume meters. You complete each level by filling up all the meters at the same time. By doing so, you also complete the melody that is playing. As I mentioned, the lenses are directional and you can grow and shrink them to alter the way that they reflect the light.

Gradually, color coded meters and more lenses are introduced. The color coded mirrors require you to filter the light through a similarly colored ring before you fill the meter, adding a layer of complexity to the proceedings. I haven’t played through the whole puzzle game, so I don’t know how many variations there are, but I have found a lens that swirls the light, allowing you to fill color coded meters that would otherwise be next to impossible to fill.

[more after the jump]

Sorry, but this contest has ended. If you entered in time, please keep an eye on your email account (and your junk mail filter, just in case). We’ll be contacting the winner shortly. Thanks for checking in!

Remember, the prize contains one of each of the following:

• $100 Suvudu VISA gift card
• In Odd We Trust by Dean Koontz (signed by Dean Koontz and Queenie Chan)
• The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher (signed by Jim Butcher)
• The Pirate King by R.A. Salvatore (signed by R.A. Salvatore)
• The Stowaway by R.A. Salvatore and Geno Salvatore (signed by R.A. Salvatore and Geno Salvatore)
• Breakdowns: Portrait of the artist as a young %@#*! by Art Spiegelman
• Gears of the City by Felix Gilman
• City at the End of Time by Greg Bear
• Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
• Damosel by Stephanie Spinner

So come one, come all! No matter what you celebrate this holiday season (or if you do at all), we want to give you the gift of some truly awesome books.

[drumroll, please]

Ron Breznay of Hanover Township, PA

He’ll be recieving a signed, first edition copy of David Heatley’s debut graphic novel, My Brain is Hanging Upside Down, the companion cd and a Pantheon Comics t-shirt.

Congrats, Ron!

This week’s pick comes to us from the cold (or at least, moderately cool) lands of Canada, where web comic author and artist Jenny Romanchuk has crafted an interesting and original addition to zombie comics.

I want you to understand that zombies and I don’t really get along. I acknowledge their existence in the horror realm, but I don’t exactly celebrate it. Why? They scare the crap outta me, more than any monster with scales, or fur, or teeth the size of golf clubs ever could. Zombies go against the grain two ways. First, they are, or were, human and are now hunting other humans. They could be your neighbors, your friends, or your family. They are monsters who are using our own skin…our own dead skin. And that would be against-the-grain number two: these are way, way, way outside of natural. The dead rising from their graves to eat the living is just…urk, you know?

So I want you to realize that my picking up a zombie comic and not just reading it, but becoming pretty addicted to it, is no small feat. I don’t know if that says more about the comic or about me (probably the former), but I think it’s a big lurching step taken by one of us (probably Jenny).

So about this comic, we learn during the first panel that humanity has been infected with this Zombie virus that has turned much of the population into undead hordes. A small community of survivors has set up shop on an island and is trying to get on with life. As a means of protection, they have formed a small military group called the Red Halos and they, in turn, organized the Zombie Hunters (civilians who are recruited to help the Red Halos recover salvage, lift public morale, and assist in any organized assault or defense). It is with a group of these Zombie Hunters with which the comic is concerned.

More after the jump…

Yes, you read right. If you haven’t yet entered Suvudu’s contest this month now’s your last chance. The contest will be over this on Monday, November 9.

So, check out the original post for the instructions, read the official rules, and then tell me what you know about David Heatley

If you’re really, really lucky, you’ll be the lucky winner of a signed first edition of My Brain is Hanging Upside Down, the companion cd, and your very own Pantheon Comics t-shirt.

Go on, get to it!

In honor of Halloween, I have a few real treats for you here. Including two web comics which have contributed to my inability to get a good night’s sleep lately.

I have been using this space to introduce you to new series that you might not have tried yet, but going forward, I’m going to begin putting an emphasis on webcomics, and today’s post reflects that gentle shift. I’ll still post a few previews (like the brilliant one leading things off today), but I’ll be moving to more coverage of online Comic scribblers and e-inkers.

So with that, let me also address what I’m calling this little Friday shin-dig. Free Comics Friday means, of course, that you can read these comics for free. When introducing previews I had no problem just leaving it at that, but webcomics frequently let you read it for free on the honor system: if you like it, you’ll contribute a few bucks or what you can afford. I like this system and I encourage it in both directions, so if you find one you like, please donate to the creators - they spent a lot of time and effort on this stuff and it shows.

Just a heads-up.

[/rant]

So how about some comics, huh? Read on, my friends, read on…

Cemetery Blues

Let’s kick things off with a little demon and undead hunting, shall we? Cemetery Blues is a black-and-white book that tells the story of Mortimer Ridley and his companion Falstaff, as they hunt down and neutralize things that go bump in the night. They’re good at what they do…but not great. So it’s a little concerning when they’re recruited, after a mistakenly interrupting a funeral, by the church for a demon hunting expedition.

This is a story that requires the characters to carry things, and Ridley & Falstaff are up to the task. Mort Ridley is the “brains” of the operation while Falstaff fills out the sidekick role with humor, but enough know how that you aren’t left wondering how he could possibly do the job he does. They’re interesting, without being over the top, and that subtle touch is well appreciated.

The art is, as I mentioned, black-and-white and appears to be primarily pencil and graphite. The panels move around a bit, breaking up the action without causing confusion. It’s all very well done.

If you’re interested, you can check out Cemetery Blues, by clicking here.

Two amazing webcomics after the jump…
(seriously, don’t miss these)

I was maybe ten at the time and a frequent library goer. The hometown library in the town where I grew up was nothing more than a converted farm house with an addition added on to the back and the librarians who worked there surely knew my brother and me by name. For as often as I was in there, my most vivid memory involves not finding what I was looking for.

I remember it was summer, it was sunny, and warm and my brother and I were trying to kill off a few more hours and stave away boredom in the middle of one of those long, drawn out summer afternoons. So we went to the library because we could get stuff there for free and it was air-conditioned. To this day, I have no idea why I asked for what I asked for, but I had a very specific subject in mind.

Up to the counter I strode, put my hands on the desk in front of the librarian, and asked, “Where can I find a book on Jack the Ripper?”

I think you know where this conversation went and our librarian didn’t waste time in going there. I was too young to be asking about such material, but they did have some books on ghosts that I might like. So what I ended up with was not Jack the Ripper, but a book of Edgar Allen Poe. My brother and I passed the day in our town park reading Poe’s stories to each other.

More after the jump…

The always-amazing Norman Partridge (author of “Slippin’ Into Darkness” and “Dark Harvest,” among others) has just contributed a rare horror story for Subterranean Magazine just in time for Halloween.

Go check out “Apotropaics.” You won’t be sorry.