Yes, bound proofs (or Advance Reader Copies if you prefer) of Best Served Cold are in and they look FINE. My wife is reading it NOW and she says it’s GREAT. It is “violent, fast-paced and bloody,” it is “a superb edge-of-your seat read from a critically acclaimed author,” and it is “perfect for fans of George RR Martin and David Gemmell,” and these things are FACTS that you can COUNT ON because my PUBLISHER says so on the BACK OF THE BOOK.
I regret that the goodly folk of the sf&f blogosphere may have to wait a few weeks longer to receive their review copies, as Arch Hype-Sorceror Simon of Spanton wishes to delay their release, that the INEVITABLE TSUNAMI of positive interweb hype-buzz shall combine with the swell of print attention and OVERWHELM THE MARKETPLACE closer to the actual release of the book, rather than going off in a premature hype-ejaculation that merely disappoints everyone involved and is nothing more than another guilty memory when the book appears in shops six months later…
What could possibly be sweeter, therefore, than that YOU, yes YOU, the HUMBLE READER, should be able to steal a march on JOHNNY CRITIC by being welcomed into the BLESSED CIRCLE and reading a proof of BEST SERVED COLD even before it goes to the reviewers and full MONTHS before it becomes available to the jealous fools that constitute your FRIENDS, FAMILY, and the REST OF THE NORMAL POPULATION? Is such a thing possible? Can it be? Believe me, my friends, it CAN.
But what Herculean ordeal must you undertake to harvest this scintillating bounty? Traverse the length of the world to fling a ring of power into a volcano? Defend an undermanned and demolarised fortress against a numberless all-conquering army of savages? Provide clean water to every member of an irradiated post-nuclear wasteland? NO! To win this mind-blowing, earth-shaking, bowel-loosening contest you neeed not even LEAVE your COMPUTER. You only have to email me at:
comp[at]joeabercrombie[dot]com (obviously removing the anti-spam bracketed bits and replacing them with the relevent symbols)
Including a completion of this sentence:
“I MUST read Best Served Cold before everyone else because…”
On the last day of February I will let my old-skool percentile dice – which, in their time, have made so many successful to-hit rolls and caused one much-loved character to memorably fumble a rope and fall to his death – pick one winner with the help of the gods of randomness. On the 16th of March, in order to commemorate the 349th anniversary of the disbanding of the British Long Parliament and, of course, the death of the Emperor Nero, my dice shall select another winner, aided by the hand of fate. Finally, on April Fool’s Day 2009, I shall select the completion of the sentence “I MUST read Best Served Cold before everyone else because…” which delights/scares/excites/praises/amuses or otherwise causes me to emote the most. There may even be further winners depending on whether I am in the giving vein that day and availability of proofs at that time, though believe me, those bad-boys are in DEMAND.
As if that weren’t enough to bring you out in HIVES of anticipation, all such proofs will be SIGNED, DATED, and INSCRIBED with an inscription of your own personal choice by MINE OWN DREAD HAND, then delivered to your FRONT DOOR by Her Majesty’s or other relevant postal service. Only one question remains to be answered…
HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED TO READ THIS?
Or alternatively immediately put it on e-bay?
I await your responses…
A COUPLE OF CONDITIONS:
1. This contest is now open to ANYONE RESIDENT ON PLANET EARTH. You lucky humans.
2. I reserve the right to disqualify anyone at any time, just because I’m a small, small man and it makes me feel good.
3. Only one entry per person, you cheeky so-and-sos. Anyone found to be violating this rule will be visited by my Uruk-Hai hit squad.
25 comments so far
Ohh. I’m going to actually think about that, instead of writing the first load of bollocks that enters my head.
no, bollocks to it, i’m going for the first thing i can think of.
fdsalkjfdsal;kfj saio;fejwr ;ij!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is all.
~Aidan
A Dribble of Ink
P.S. I hope I get a copy of this.
Only EU?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO!!!
What Luke said.
That’s just not right. If we on the other side of the Atlantic pay for shipping, perhaps? I read through part of the post, wet my pants, began composing a magnificent sentence with excellent grammar, a sentence that clearly explained how I had such an amazing reason why it is so devastatingly important for me to read Best Served Cold , then my wife pointed out that we were ineligible due to the happenstance that we do not live in EU.
Jesus wept.
Thanks Joe. Appreciate it.
Will begging help?
hey joe!
what do you think about that map? http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/267/thefirstlawv100lowaf7.jpg
you made to-hit rolls with percentile dice? What game is that?
For those of you not in the EU, it’s just while I’m checking what other publishers might be doing. I daresay I will open it up further in due course.
Phoenix,
The Union’s in the right place.
Erik,
MERP, Warhammer FRP, Runequest, and Call of Cthulu all used percentiles to-hit, as I recall.
Are we allowed to send only one answer/person?
can those of us across the pond still send you something and let you tell us we *would* have won, if it weren’t for that slight ineligibility issue? then we can still join the party and feel great about ourselves, only to get flattened by the great crushing weight of reality that informs us it never really mattered, that we were utterly irrelevant, that the world is a stark and cruel place…
…you know, like the way the end of LAOK made us feel. 🙂
even if you say no, i’m still happy that i won’t have to decide between paying international shipping or waiting an extra 6 months to read the book!
hmm ok. me n my mates never got passed d20 AD&D; before we disolved. Would have liked to try MERP, or ASOIF rpg.
Hows your new Knightsbrige home btw?
To all the people complaining about not being in the EU: come on, it’s clear that Joe meant it as a simple preliminary test. If you can’t manage to do such simple thing as convincing your country to join the EU before the end of February clearly you’re not worthy of the book.
A smug EU citizen.
Woo-Hoo! Freebies! Just one entry it is then. The pressure is overwhelming. What to write?
WV: montin. Ain’t no montin high enough, to keep me away from Best Served Cold?
I’ll get me coat.
“Residents of the EU”. So living in Europe doesn’t count? Such as Norway or Iceland.
How come?
Faye,
Good point. Amended.
Elena,
More than likely US citizens will be able to join the competition before too long, just checking with my US publisher first.
What I should really do is just cancel the competition after a month, in order to crush everyone’s hopes equally.
Erik,
Knightsbridge? Ha ha.
Marky,
I’m sure you’ll think of something.
Joakim, Vadim, and anyone else whose name ends in ‘im’,
I am staunchly pro-Europe, and have no doubt that limiting this contest to the EU will quickly force world leaders to reconsider their non-membership stances, thus considerably broadening the brotherhood of man and contributing to, if not directly causing, the next stage in human evolution.
I’m sure Norway will be fine, just give me a day or two.
OOOooooooooooooooooooooooh! Time to get my thinking cap, and shoes and coat on for this one!
Gaining ARCs before release date is a stressful and traumatic experience, which bloggers can only handle due to years of careful training and repeated exposure to David Eddings novels before release (which numbs the excitement centres of the brain, allowing you to review the new China Mieville or Richard Morgan in a more dispassionate manner).
I do fear for how civilians will respond to early access to ARCs without such preperation. Pant-wetting may be involved. I fear that this will end in woe.
I’m glad you acknowledge a dark past of role playing games.
I said to myself when reading the opening sequence of The Blade Itself, ‘this is a man that has enjoyed a percentile based system or two’.
Oh, great books by the way.
why do the occupants of the fortress have no back teeth?
or did you mean demoralised?
We are such lucky humans, indeed! Even if I was all up for joining the EU, if it means I get free passage through all the really cool, really OLD stuff… =) Now, to go finish that sentence. Hmm…
Very cool. Super excited
“revenge is best served cold’ is my motto!!!! ( Yes, I know what that says about me. LOL)Maybe I’ll get a fre pointers!
The rabbits will win it for me. I’ll be the envy of two of my friends whom I got hooked on JA and made them buy all of First Law each after they read my copies.
I only look once a Month on (in?) this block and it’s not the first time I’m cursing my fate beeing a german, 14-year old girl.
It’s annoying that I have to read english outside school, but I can’t stop because I really like the books.
And who knows, perhaps my English will be better after reading “Best Serves Cold”.
But honestly, I hate the translators for taking so much time.
I can’t wait six more month after the book will be finally realeased.
I hope I’ll be able to understand the book without looking every 3rd word in my dictionary 🙂
See You
Eva