Pat of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is running another of his famous contests. This time he’s giving away five copies of the U.S. hardcover edition of HUNTER’S RUN, the new novel by Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham, and me.

To check out the rules and enter, go to

http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2008/01/win-copy-of-george-r-r-martin-gardner.html

And if you don’t win, just run down to your favorite local bookstore, where the nice people will gladly give you a copy of the book in return for some wrinkled old pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents on them.

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Parris and I would like to express our thanks to all of you who have sent us condolences about Gus. We can’t thank each of you individually, and we want you to know that your messages were read, and your kind words much appreciated.

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Gus is gone.

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Two big upsets in today’s NFL action. The football pundits proved to be as wrong about today’s winners as the political pundits were about New Hampshire.

The Giants and Cowboys played a nailbiter, and of course I was thrilled that the G-Men won and will be going on to the NFC Championship Game in Green Bay. Packers against Giants, that’s real Old School NFL. Somewhere Vince Lombardi is smiling.

All the same, I’m going to forego my usual “life is magical and full of joy” tag line. There’s no a lot of joy around our house just now. Gus is home, and still fighting gamely, but remains very sick. It’s really hard to care much about anything else.

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Random musings and nuggets of news, oh my.

I don’t follow comics closely these days, but do buy an issue from time to time, and of course I do have still have huge affection for the characters of my lost youth. So I was puzzled recently when one of my readers emailed me to ask what I thought about what Marvel had done to Spider-Man. I didn’t know what Marvel had done to Spider-Man, but I was curious enough to Google, and pretty soon I found out. Bloody hell. I hate this, and judging from the discussions I am seeing on various blogs, I am not alone. Retconning sucks. Leave the goddamned continuity ALONE, for chrissakes. What happened, happened. Take an old character in a new direction, fine, cool, but don’t go back and mess around with the character’s past. It’s a breach of trust with your audience, as I see it. The DC universe has never really recovered from the Crisis on Infinite Earths, despite all the Crises that have followed, and I think the Marvel universe, and Spidey in particular, will be a long time recovering from this decision. So that’s my two cents. In a nutshell: boo, hiss, shame on you, Marvel. If I had a rotten tomato, I would throw it.

And here’s a promise you can write in blood. The Wild Cards universe will never be retconned. What happened happened, and will continue to have happened, no matter what might happen in the future.

On other fronts, there’s a nice new review of HUNTER’S RUN up at http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2008/01/hunters-run-by-george-r-r-martin.html

The political season is well underway. I haven’t made any political posts here as yet, but be warned, they will be coming. That’s one of the reasons I started this Not-A-Blog, you may recall. So far, I haven’t decided which Dem to support in this year’s presidential contest. I was leaning toward Bill Richardson, who has been a superb governor for New Mexico, but Bill is out of it now, so I guess I’ll have to find a new candidate. Obama and Edwards both interest me. I am lukewarm about Hillary. I wish she had come out stronger against the war.

The best thing about this election, no matter who wins, is that come 2009, we will finally be rid of the worst president in all of American history, that malignant moron George W. Bush.

The new Wild Cards book, INSIDE STRAIGHT, will be out in less than two weeks. The official pubdate is January 22. Here’s a shout-out for all of you New Mexicans, and for readers in surrounding states as well — we’ll be having a big launch party and signing for INSIDE STRAIGHT at Albuquerque’s Page One Bookstore on Saturday, February 2, at 2:00 pm. I will be on hand to autograph books, and so will Melinda Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, Ian Tregillis, Daniel Abraham, Caroline Spector, Carrie Vaughn, and Michael Cassutt. That’s eight of the nine contributors to the book, and you can get your copy signed by all of us. Only the elusive and enigmatic S.L. Farrell will be missing. We understand that S.L. will be down in Brazil searching for his lost brother Matthew, who was last seen paddling up the Amazon in search of… oh, wait, I’m not supposed to talk about that.

Those of you who can’t make it to Albuquerque for the INSIDE STRAIGHT signing can still get autographed copies of the book by mail order. Just give Page One a call, or order online through their website at http://www.page1book.com/ All of the attending authors (including me) will be pleased to sign copies of their other titles as well, but you will need to buy a copy of INSIDE STRAIGHT.

In Hollywood, the writer’s strike goes on and on, but David Letterman’s company has signed an independent deal with the WGA, as has United Artists, owned by Tom Cruise. So let’s have a round of applause for Letterman and Cruise. And remember

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v2zwKDggI

Speaking of YouTube, all four segments from the Wild Cards panel at the 1988 Worldcon in New Orleans are now up there, so if you’d like to know the secrets of the Bandersnatch and the Howler Revenge Squad, head on over to YouTube and search for Wild Cards.

Who will be the new American Hero?

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We’re not out of the woods yet, but Gus has been showing definite signs of improvement down at the animal hospital in Albuquerque. He’s eating again, and responding well to treatment. The docs still don’t have a firm diagnosis, but they’ve ruled out several of the worst possibilities. If his improvement continues, he might be able to come home tomorrow night.

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Nice win for the Giants and Eli Manning today.

I watched the game, and enjoyed the victory, but please forgive if I don’t write one of my long football posts. Our cat Augustus is very sick, and with that on the back of our minds, it’s been hard for Parris and me to enjoy the NFL playoffs as we would ordinarily.

Test results on Gus are due back tomorrow to our vet, so please spare some good thoughts for him. He’s been a huge part of our lives for twelve years now.

As for football, it did help take our minds off our worries. Some good games. Congrats to all the teams that won, and to all the valiant losers.

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For the Wild Cards fans among you, check out Tor’s official WC website at

http://www.wildcardsbooks.com

Just up, a glimpse into those vanished days of yesteryear when the series and its authors were young — video clips from the Wild Cards panel at the 1988 Worldcon in New Orleans.

The panel was a long one, so we had to divide the video into four parts. The first two are up now, and last two will be added next week. The videos will also be available on YouTube.

Believe it or not, that dark haired guy in the middle doing is the introductions is me, twenty years and eighty pounds ago.

And while you’re visiting the site, be sure to sign up for our official email newsletter.

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I’ve just read the news about the passing of author George MacDonald Fraser.

What a rotten way to kick off a new year. Fraser will never be admitted to the august halls of High Literature, but if there was ever a more entertaining storyteller, I don’t know his name. GMF wrote some fine screenplays and some terrific stand-alone novels, but he will be best remembered for the Flashman books, his delightful series of historical swashbucklers featuring Queen Victoria’s most dubious hero, that notorious cad, bounder, and coward, Harry Flashman. I loved Flashie the first time I encountered him in the pages of FLASHMAN, way back around 1973 or so, and for more than thirty years it has always been an occasion for rejoicing when Fraser discovered another “packet” of Flashman’s unexpurgated memoirs. The arrival of a new Flashman book always meant that I had to stop whatever I was doing, drive to the nearest bookstore, snatch it up, bring it home, and sit down at once to read it. It saddens me to think that won’t happen any more.

Flashman was always great fun, and somehow managed to be an utterly original character, despite being “borrowed” from another book (TOM BROWN’S SCHOOLDAYS). And Fraser knew how to keep you turning pages. He was the best writer of pure adventure in our times, a modern day Dumas. I’ll miss him and Harry both. Roger on, lads.

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