Well, kinda. It's more like a contest that multiple people can win.

PRIZES

Grand Prize:
A 1 year subscription to DA!
A free hardcopy of the published book (once it's released -- if you live in the continental US.)
A cameo in a Cygnus War episode as a rig pilot or a warship officer.
You will be first pick if/when any book I write takes off and I need a full-time artist interested in real cash compensation.

Everyone whose work is used in the creation of the book (including the Grand Prize winner) will get:
A free PDF copy of the published book.
Their work featured in my journal.
Their name in the credits. (meaning you can add this to your portfolio -- the fact that your work has been picked up by a book publisher and used commercially looks great on a resume.)


THE PROJECT
An all-in-one game book that takes the universe of The Cygnus War and turns it into an immersive experience of strategy and action that you can play with any number of people, anywhere you choose, with little more than the book itself and a pair of dice. The system is done, but still in a playtesting stage, and the book itself is about half done.

THE CONTEST
I need simple, clean, black and white sketches of Cygnus War related things, primarily the rigs, the characters, space battles between Cygnus War ships/rigs, or anything else that strikes your fancy or comes to you. Anyone who has seen any of the kinds of black and white sketch art you tend to run across in game books (especially older ones) will probably know what I'm talking about. If something doesn't make sense, or if you have any questions, please feel free to comment here or note me. It is OK (even encouraged) to submit multiple entries. This contest is open to everyone who wants to give it a shot, so tell your friends! Hey, who can say no to a chance to win a free subscription to DA?

JUDGING
The best, most useful piece of art will win the grand prize, BUT if an entrant submits a whole bunch of good, useful sketches, he or she will definitely be in the running for first place and may win! Remember, I'm adding art to the inside of the game book, so the more you enter, the more chance you have of being in print! (I might even award two people the grand prize-- we'll see!)



As for my other projects:

As some of you may have noticed, I've started posting episodes of The Cygnus War again-- at first this was just a "Why am I letting these four episodes sit and rot?" moment, but then I wrote a new episode completely from scratch and have since gone NUTS into the TTC world again. I have no idea how long this will last, but who knows! Stick around and find out! (This is how I relax-- I write from a totally unstructured place and make no promises!)

Pink Carbide: Carbon Aria (book 3) is ISBN'd and ready to sell! But only on Lulu, for the moment. Once the ISBN people update their systems (about two months) it'll be available through all the usual channels, (Amazon, borders, etc.) and I'll be posting another announcement (and sending out a mass email) when that happens.

But Pink Carbide Lithium Liederkreis (book 4) is on hiatus again. It's made it all the way to Chapter 17 (out of a projected 40-45) meaning that It's about halfway done. So far it's awesome, but DANG is it rough to write. It's the backbone of the series (which is like a backbone for all my other writing, so the backbone of the backbone... eesh!) but it requires so much... stuff, that it's like trying to cram ten thousand years of humanity's most profound spiritual epiphanies into a single sentence. I'll do it eventually, but it's going to take more time than just the year I had originally set aside to do it in. Fans of Pink Carbide: It will be worth the wait!

And it's not like I'm going to stop writing or publishing books either. I've been working on putting together a collection of short stories tenatively titled "Our Vatgrown Future" (12 stories in all) and it's literally half a story (and a revision) away from completion. So there's that too! And the tabletop strategy game booklet! Yeah!

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For those who missed the update on Aluminum Opus: It's another wonderful 6" x 9", with 240 pages, ISBN number: 978-0-6151-7983-4. The paperback retails for $14.95, but you can download it for $0.99 from Lulu: [link] which is just plain awesome.

If you haven't read the first book yet, it's also available through Lulu, as well as Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. so stop in there and pick yourself up a copy! (And I think both books qualify for supersaver shipping on Amazon, so get both together and you should get free shipping! W00t!)

Proud Member of

Here's a complete list of my other accounts:
My photography account
My first novel, Pink Carbide
The sequel to Pink Carbide


Especially Awesome Deviants

Thanks, all of you, for always being there, and for all you've done!








Check it out and spread the word!

Pink Carbide art by others:





Current Episodes for The Cygnus War: (Weekly updates!)


Cygnus War art by others:
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Current Thunderune Publishing MicroBooks for sale:
Raining Chrome: Four dark short stories that push the boundaries of Sci Fi (Sold 68 copies as of 9-27-07)
Note me (or email) if you're interested in picking up a copy. I usually take them to signings as well.

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As always, my writing resume is continuously updated and can be found here: [link]

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Visitors!




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