Series Wrap-Up

Firstly, I apologise for taking so long to get to this. The F-SF Guest Author Series wrapped up on Wednesday with James Norcliffe’s post—and it is now Saturday (already–how did that happen?) Well a few things did happen, including visits from family and friends from out of town, and another friend returning from the best part of two months overseas—the stuff of life, to which even blog posts must occasionally take second place. 🙂

The bonus is, having had that little bit of extra time has really given me the chance to reflect on the series—mainly on how much I enjoyed it. The theme was “Why Fantasy-Science Fiction Rocks My World”, and one of the aspects that amazed me was how each new guest could take that theme and give it a fresh twist. Authors spoke of “what if” and “why not” and “wonder”; of hope and hope of change, the human need for belief and acts of invocation; of whether we are, in fact not living in a science fiction novel (and if so, by whom?)—and how, however often the laws of physics may be abandoned in both fantasy and science fiction, the Mighty and Immutable Laws of Fiction must always prevail.

In short, a great deal of territory was traversed, with wit, insight and panache. So I hope you will join with me now in thanking all the authors who contributed to the series:

Alan Baxter (AU: Dark Fantasy)

Nicole Murphy (AU: Paranormal Urban Fantasy)

Mary Victoria (NZ: Epic Fantasy)

Kim Falconer (AU: Epic Fantasy)

Tracey O’Hara (AU: Paranormal Urban Fantasy)

Marianne de Pierres (AU: Science Fiction)

Michael Pryor (AU: Fantasy YA)

Tim Jones (NZ: Science Fiction, Fantasy)

Juliet Marillier (AU: Historical Fantasy)

Anne Hamilton (AU: Junior Fantasy)

Julie Czerneda (CAN: Science Fiction, Fantasy)

Gillian Polack (AU: Fantasy)

James Norcliffe (NZ: Junior/YA Fantasy)

If you would like to re-read the full series (plus a few spin-off posts), or if there is an author you missed and would like to read now, you will find the collected posts under Categories: F-SF Author Guest Series in the far right-hand sidebar.

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Competition Result

The other reason for delaying this post is that I have been waiting for the “Sorting Hat” to do its independent thing with the competition that has been  running from the AU/NZ launch.  You may recall that, as part of the launch of The Heir of Night into AU/NZ, together with the giveaway prizes, I also ran a competition concurrent with the F-SF Guest Author series, as follows:

“Everyone who posted either on October 7 of AU/NZ Launch Day or on any of the posts by F-SF writers in the Guest Author Series, would enter the draw to have their name included as a character name in The Wall of Night Series, Book Two. The qualifying provisos for the competition were:

• Each time an individual commented on a post by an F-SF guest author their name gained an additional entry into the draw (but only 1 new entry per F-SF author post would be allowed);
• The name included in the book was to be the commenter’s real name;
• I also reserved the right to adapt the winner’s name to best fit a fantasy character, e.g. “John the Miller” as opposed to “John Miller”—but the winner’s full name and success in the competition would be set out in the “Acknowledgments” section of the book.”

OK, that’s the background. On to the result! All 99 eligible names were entered into a database, independently verified and then run through a random number generator, and … (trumpet flourish):

The Winner is:  “janlb” — Jan Butterworth!

Congratulations, Jan. 🙂

And yes, I have already thought of a way to weave “your” character into the continuing story!

Bonus Giveaway

You’ll recall that I also offered to give away a copy of Thornspell to anyone who could work out the “numerical literary style” used in Anne Hamilton’s guest post. An answer was put forward, but Anne has advised that it was not—alas!—correct. (You can check Anne’s guest post, here to see what she had to say under the Comments.) But I also said that if the verdict was a “thumbs down” for “777”, then I would ask the Sorting Hat to “choose again” amongst all those who commented on October 7 and during the course of the series, and give the Thornspell copy away as a secondary prize. This, too, has now occurred and …

the winner is: Brendon

—who posted as part of the AU/NZ launch celebration on October 7. Congratulations, Brendon, If you email me via my website (see Contact above), I’ll arrange to post the book to you.