Tag Archives: nerdscape

Blog, Nerd Cred

Nerdscape Contest!

Let’s have some fun, shall we? I ran this contest once way back when I was a newbie author and I think I got less than twenty entries. But it was less than twenty entries of AWESOME, so I think it deserves another go!

A nerdscape is a still life in which you let your geek flag fly. While there may be any number of goodies featured in it, there are three base requirements to every nerdscape:

1) A book. Or books!!! They may be comic books, textbooks, whatever. If you have only an e-reader, then it must be turned on and the cover image of a book must be plainly visible. But come on. BOOKS.
2) Junk food.
3) An action figure or figures. These may be fully articulated figures, statuettes, Heroclix, miniatures from your WarMachine games…you know. We basically need sculpted, painted plastic or metal shaped like a fictional character from comics, movies, or games. Stuffed animals, while cute, do not count as action figures. They’re allowed to be in your nerdscape in addition to your action figure, though!

Again, you’re welcome to put other stuff in your nerdscape. Cell phones. Video games. Your motherboard. Your mother. It doesn’t matter, so long as there is also a book, an action figure, and some junk food in there.

I did a couple super-fast to give you an idea. I’m sure you’ll be *much* more creative. First one:

nerdscape1

See there? Good times. My first nerdscape contains hardcover editions of Alan Dean Foster’s Taken trilogy, Cherry Darling from Planet Terror, and a box of Samoas. Since I like baseball I put in my D-backs hat too. It is a shrine to my geekery. Let’s do another!

nerdscape2

I have a bag of Cheetos and a can of Coke for junk food; an action figure of the Ted Kord Blue Beetle; and a copy of Ganymede by Cherie Priest. I also threw in Atticus the otter and a mini-statue of Ganesha, because they are my constant companions while I write.

Neither of these are going to win me any points in photography school; I just threw these together on my kitchen table and didn’t do much in the way of extra staging and bonus goodies. Yet they both show off stuff I love to geek out about. We should all document this, right? This is the still life form of our time! I will endeavor to create a much better one and post it later.

So that’s how you enter the contest. Send me YOUR nerdscape. Have fun trying to cram everything you love into one picture—or artfully arranging the minimalist essence of your geekery. Email a jpeg of your nerdscape to kevin (at thingie) kevinhearne dot com.

What You Can Win

1) One awesome winner will see their name in book seven of the Iron Druid Chronicles! That’s right, I will name a character after you in SHATTERED if you kick all kinds of ass with your nerdscape. You must understand that the character will bear absolutely no resemblance to you apart from your name and gender and will most likely die a horrible death. But I can guarantee that Atticus will have a sad when he hears that the character with your name has snuffed it, so there’s that. This prize can be won by anyone, anywhere. All other prizes, which involve shipping heavy things through the mail, will be US only.
2) I’ll send one winner of my choice a signed set of the series so far, books 1-5.
3) There may be additional prizes from my spiffy peeps at Del Rey because they love their nerdscapes in New York. These prizes will be of a bookish nature. I do not know how many there will be or what they will be, but I am fairly certain they will be good books because that’s what Del Rey publishes. You might even get an ARC of something coming soon. When I know more about what these prizes might be, I’ll let you know exactly what they are and how winners will be chosen. Check back for updates.
4) I’m going to send somebody sausage. Why? Mostly because it amuses me to think of someone checking their email, finding a note from me, and then shouting “I WON SAUSAGE!” in their home or workplace. This will be someone chosen at random.

The primary goal here is to geek out on stuff and share the nerdery we love, so you have until Valentine’s Day to enter. I’ll post all entries in albums on both my Facebook author page and Google Plus, and after Valentine’s Day we’ll find out who won. HAVE FUN! Can’t wait to see your nerdscapes!

Blog, Nerd Cred

Nerds Included!

Whew! Release day was fun! I visited eight bookstores and two Irish pubs! Met many cool booksellers and raised a flagon to Atticus n’ Oberon, my editors and my agent, and my readers. Thanks very much to those of you who have been sayin’ howdy on Twitter, Facebook, and here on the blog; I appreciate it sincerely and am glad you’re enjoying Atticus n’ the gang.

Thought I’d share with you a couple o’ new Nerdscapes with the NERDS INCLUDED! First one requires a wee bit o’ setup.

Last weekend I went up to a secluded cabin in Pine, Arizona, the kind of place where Kathy Bates can tie you up in a bed and knock off your feet with a hammer and no one will EVER KNOW. I was there with The Confederacy of Nerds, comprised of the following: two IT guys who routinely say things like “I don’t want to migrate that to my cluster” and “Fu** Microsoft”; one guy who started out in the A/V Club in high school and somehow translated that into a career where he makes videos and double entendres like “I know how to coil my cable”; and one guy who speaks two languages other than English—Calculus and Klingon. We were there to play games and conduct gastrointestinal experiments.

We played this game called Zombies. It’s simple: You have to make it from the town square to the helipad. The problem is that all the other players are trying to stop you and of course the zombies want to snack on your braaaaaains. So here’s a Nerdscape with zombie action figures from the game, Goldfish and a random pineapple for the food, an ARC of Ari Marmell’s forthcoming release, The Goblin Corps, Longboard Lager and 90 Shilling Ale, and a genuinely excited nerd named Andrew:

Zombies and Bottles and Nerds, Oh My!

Next Nerdscape features an author who walked into Changing Hands bookstore and discovered a little display thingie they’d created for him in advance of his signing party on May 9:

Me Pointing at Me

Heh! I am amused. But now that I’ve introduced the subject, I hope I can meet some of you if you’re in town. I’ll be at the LepreCon at the Tempe Mission Palms on Saturday, May 7, sittin’ on a UF panel with Seanan McGuire and Gini Koch at 2 pm, followed by an autograph session afterward. I also have a reading at 11 am that day. Then, as the picture says above, I’ll be having my own little event at Changing Hands on Monday, May 9, at 7 pm. Hope to see you there!

If you’re in northern AZ, I’ll be at the East-West Book Exchange in Payson on Sunday, May 15, at 12:30. Then during Memorial Day weekend, I’ll be at the Phoenix Comicon. See their website for details on my appearances.

Thanks again for all the support n’ well wishes! :)

Blog, Nerd Cred

Nerdscape Winners!

As I suspected, this was a ridiculously fun contest. I had a blast laughing over these and I can’t resist posting up a few o’ my favorites in case you missed them in the comments. I applaud your creativity and envy your action figure collection! And I am very glad you’re not too old enough to play with them! Thank you all so much for entering!

Check out this one from Hillary: I love the Mystery Science Theater stand-ins watching Terminator. “Have You Seen This Boy?”

Kristin over at My Bookish Ways, who is Three Kinds of Spiffy and has a Ninja Bird, sent in this Amphibious Nerd Assault:

Evie sent in two really beautiful photos and I suspect she Knows What She’s Doing with a camera. Here is her Nerdscape, and you have to check out the reflection in the sunglasses!

Click to embiggen

Synde sent over this beautifully dark photo with primo vodka, skull action, and a weeping angel (don’t blink!):

Click to embiggen

Random Winners Chosen Randomly from Randomizer Thingie

VVB for Zombies n’ Nutella on a copy of FEED

Braaaaains and Nutella (click to embiggen)

Candice J. for “Dwight’s Hike to Mt. Doom”

Dwight's Hike to Mt. Doom (click to embiggen)

Winner of the Kevin Thinks That is Balls Rad Award:

Teri C’s Dinosaurs and Disney. I don’t know why, but this just cracks me up every time I look at it. There are so many Disney characters I would love to feed to velociraptors. I admire the depth of field here. There’s bonus beer in the background, too!

Jurassic Attack (click to embiggen)

So! Teri C, Candice J, and VVB, please contact me using kevin at kevinhearne dot com with your snail mail address and tell me how you’d like to have your books personalized! Congratulations, and thank you for entering!

Please come on back on Tuesday, my release day (SQUEE!), for a rundown of all the shenanigans I’ll be up to—I’ll have, um, six or seven posts up? I think? And by the way, if you weren’t aware, I’m doing a Babel Clash thingie with Chris Wooding until May 9, and we’ve been talking about filling in the space between sci-fi and fantasy, Insanity Points, and so on. It’s a good time.

Thank you all again for your awesome nerdiness!

Blog

First con is even earlier!

I suppose I should be getting used to this by now: if I announce a date for something, it will change a few days later.

My first convention won’t be Phoenix Comicon anymore; it will be my second. I’m still going and I’ll be on the Urban Fantasy panel with Cherie Priest, and you can imagine the geekout I’m having about that since I love her work. But now there’s another convention I’ll be attending, and it’s just a sort of mind-blowing coincidence.

It’s called the LepreCon, and it’s being held from May 6-8 at the Tempe Mission Palms, right next to Rúla Búla. So let’s get this straight: there’s an Irish-themed fantasy convention being held the week I release a novel about an Irish Druid who likes to hang out at Rúla Búla, the best Irish pub ever? I can’t NOT go to that! There’s actually a scene in HAMMERED (book 3) that is set in the Tempe Mission Palms, so I’m kind of flabbergasted at the confluence of time and place for this convention.

I’ll be there on Saturday, May 7, participating in just one panel, and I’m seeing about setting up a reading too. If you can make it out, I’d love to see you there! But I’d really, really love to see you at the signing/reading I have set up at Changing Hands bookstore on May 9! Please see my Events & Appearances page for all the goodies.

Meanwhile, have you made a nerdscape yet? No? They’re EASY! You take one book (comic or otherwise), one action figure, and one item o’ junk food and arrange in a composition. If you wish to use more than one of any element, go right ahead! Take a picture. Mess with it in Photoshop or some other kind o’ software, then post with an epic title! Here’s one of mine:

Eomer Musters the Rohirrim to fight the Kindly Ones

One does not simply walk into Mordor and fight the Kindly Ones. Eomer sees Death coming for Dream and he tries to stave off the inevitable because that’s the kind of manly man o’ Rohan he is. Dream has that stubborn twinkle in his eye, though, that lets you know he’s going to keep on doing his thing and the series will eventually end. See? Nerdscapes are easy AND full of pathos. You should make one today and post it on your Facebook or something. If you haven’t “liked” me on Facebook yet, I do tend to post a bunch of wallpapers and stuff in there for people to have fun with. I’ve just started a Nerdscape album and will periodically add more as I make ’em. :) Cheers!