Shopping for presents for my wife, Denise, isn’t easy. She usually just says she doesn’t need anything, and leaves you to guess. This year she unwittingly helped me out. In late September she was semi-randomly pushing buttons on the TiVo remote while I was getting ready for bed (as she often does) when she came across the description of Sharktopus (2010):
Genetically engineered, a monster that is half-shark and half-octopus goes on a killing spree.
“Why can’t it ever the good halves of things? Why can’t it have a big smile and wave to eight people at once?”, she asked. After thinking about it a bit more she, rather sadly, commented on how the outcome would probably be the same with people killing it out of fear when it tried to hug them.
The next morning I woke up and found I couldn’t shake the image of a happy, friendly sharktopus, smiling and waving. My thoughts immediately went to Natalie Metzger. I though she might also find the idea humorous, and as we already have some of her art and photography hanging in the house I figured I’d see if she would be willing to take a commission based on the idea.
Natalie responded positively, and send along her (very reasonable) price sheet. I looked it over, and my brain exploded. There at the end of the list was “(~1ft.x1ft) stuffed animal”. Stuffed animal! How awesome would that be?
I asked if an 8×10″ and stuffed animal could be done in time for Christmas. About a week later I received a sketch. It was better than I imagined. Perfect. Well,almost. It only had one tooth, which gave it an amazingly cute smile, but knowing Denise I was pretty sure she envisioned it having a very toothy shark grin. I managed to bring it up again in conversation and confirm my suspicions without awakening hers. I let Natalie know and she quickly made the change.
Soon after this arrived via email:
The stuffed animal took a little longer, but when I saw the photos Natalie sent I knew Christmas couldn’t come soon enough. Luckily the box came on a day when I was working from home and alone in the house. I opened it, took a quick peek at the awesomeness it contained, then packed it back up and hid it just as I heard the garage door opening.
I wrapped the print, and the stuffed animal separately and made sure Christmas morning that these two particular presents were the last left under the tree. I gave Denise the print to open first, and she understood at once what it was (and even recognized the artist on the spot). I could see she was pleased. When I handed her the big giant box she had a bit of a “how are you going to top that one, and what in the world is this giant thing?” look on her face.
Then she opened the box:
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Kiddos spent dinner planning Godzilla theme park. Ride the "Flying Mothras" and "Ebirah's Lazy River". Have lunch at "Destroy All Hunger".
Available August 25th: Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps in Print
Friday, August 22nd, 2008Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Next Monday, August 25, Mur Lafferty‘s Playing for Keeps will be available in print1 from Swarm Press. I’m really psyched about this one.
Playing for Keeps does a great job of showing what it might really be like to live it a world where some people have super powers. It does this not by focusing on the heroes and villains, but on the folks with lesser powers. But it’s not all “I wish I had a cooler power and people liked me” angst (although there is some of that). It’s about friendship, about the dangers of seeing things as black and white. It’s also an action packed romp that’s a whole lot of fun.
But wait, there’s more!
The Podcast
Playing for Keeps was first release as a serialized podcast (in both audio and PDF form). The unabridged audio version is available from Podiobooks.com where it currently has five star ratings across the boards. This is how I consumed the book, and I recommend you check it out.
The Theme Song (now with video)
The audio version also featured the books theme song, written and performed by Beatnik Turtle. Mur recently held a contest where fans sent in video clips of themselves dancing, or lip syncing, or acting out a scene, or whatever to make a music video for the song. The results can be seen here.
Stories of the Third Wave
One of the most interesting thing that was done to promote the original podcast, was Stories of the Third Wave, a companion podcast featuring fan created content2 . For the print release Mur has started a new season of Stories of the Third Wave featuring short fiction and in-universe radio programs. You can get them all by subscribing to the feed at PlayingForKeepsNovel.com. So far it’s quite the line up:
The PDF
Want to give the book a read right now? Then head on over and download the entire book in PDF, including a all new short story Parasite Awakens, not currently available anywhere else3 .
Still Not Convinced?
Look, Playing for Keeps is an awesome book. You should buy it, next Monday, August 25th, from Amazon.com. But you don’t have to take my word for it…
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