NO JOHN CARTER - NO STAR WARS, NO FLASH GORDEN, NO FIREFLY

THE LAST DAY TO GET YOUR FREE BOOK!!

http://www.amazon.com/LET-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE Before STAR WARS, before STAR TREK, before FLASH GORDON,

before SUPERMAN

there was

JOHN CARTER OF MARS

written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

100 years ago, science fiction was still in its infancy, and a hero named John Carter enjoyed the sort of popularity that characters like Luke Skywalker and Captain Kirk do today.

Love knows no bounds for science fiction heroes, even across the cold depths of space. A major focus of the first Barsoom novel, A Princess of Mars (and the upcoming movie adaptation), is the growing bond between Earthman John Carter and Martian princess Dejah Thoris.


John Carter/Dejah Thoris relationship most reminds me of the romance in James Cameron's Avatar. As in Avatar, it's a relationship that builds from two strangers

(one of them a soldier from another world)

attempting to understand one another, and it grows during the looming threat of war. Various physical and existential divides threaten to keep the two apart, but in the end, love prevails.

Decades earlier, Burroughs wrote of an Earthling who found himself an alien on another world, gaining strength from the lower gravity.

Even as Burroughs was doing his part to build the science fiction genre, he was also becoming the first author to merge science fiction and Western elements.

John Carter is a hero who wouldn't be out of place in a Wild West movie. He's an ex-Confederate soldier who headed west after the Civil War to seek his fortune as a gold prospector. He even battles a tribe of Apache warriors before his fateful journey to Barsoom.

A number of popular films and TV series have sought to blend science fiction with Westerns. Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly features a crew of space-faring heroes who live in a very grungy, lawless galaxy. The popular anime series Cowboy Bebop follows a similar crew of rugged bounty hunters who seek fortune and adventure as humanity slowly begins expanding throughout the solar system. They'd have found a kindred spirit in the rough and tumble John Carter.

It wasn't long before John Carter began to inspire similar sci-fi adventures.

Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were two heroes who debuted in the pulp era and who were direct results of Carter's popularity. Both men hailed from Earth, with Buck even being a war veteran like Carter.

In the case of Buck Rogers, exposure to a gas caused him to fall into suspended animation for almost 500 years and awaken to a very different sort of civilization. Flash Gordon, meanwhile, travels by rocket ship to the planet Mongo and battles the evil emperor Ming the Merciless.

So keep all this in mind when you go to see John Carter on March 9th the debt we owe Burroughs' creation for the sci-fi we all enjoy today.

For more see :

http://movies.ign.com/articles/121/1219006p1.html

If Neil Gaiman ever wrote this about me or about you, we could die happy writers :

http://www.jonathancarroll.com/about/introduction.html
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WIN A KINDLE FIRE!

Before getting on to my new contest :

Elana Johnson has a great article on how to edit well. Don't miss it!

http://elanajohnson.blogspot.com/2011/10/tips-from-edited.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MindlessMusings+%28Elana+Johnson%2C+Author%29


Talli Roland has a fasinating article on why she decided to go the self-publishing route ...

and with what novel. And what a novel it sounds to be!

Check out her post now :

http://talliroland.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-next-novel-and-why-im-publishing-it.html

WIN A KINDLE FIRE!


WIN AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ROSE MADDER BY STEPHEN KING!

{IF YOU GUYS HELP ME PULL OFF A MIRACLE ...

THERE IS EVEN A double-sided AUTOGRAPHED MOVIE POSTER OF

HARRY POTTER & THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX SIGNED BY EVERYBODY

INCLUDING

J. K. ROWLING!}


AND EVEN MORE PRIZES!



HOW MANY MORE? THE NUMBER DEPENDS UPON YOU AND …



JOHN LOCKE!


What does John Locke have to do with anything?

We’ll get to that in a minute. Like with Bella & Edward, delayed gratification is the key to holding someone’s interest.



But now on to …

THE FRIENDS OF VICTOR STANDISH contest.


As with every epic journey, it begins with the mandatory first step :


FIRST STEP :

To enter the contest, you MUST post a review of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH and hit the “Like” button {After all, this is called “The FRIENDS of Victor Standish contest”} on the Amazon page for the novel.

This gets you FIVE entries into the contest.


AFTER this step, there are many ways to get more entries into the contest.

OTHER WAYS :


1.) Introduce a pudgy enemy to a hungry Alice. (She made me put this one in -- but it will win you the contest.)


2.) Write a post about Victor’s contest and his YA urban fantasy. This will get you FIVE entries. {Just send me a link to make sure you get credit.}


3.) Each following post on your blog about Victor’s book, his contest, his world, his genre will get you FIVE more entries. Please send me a link to that post as well.


4.) Twitter about Victor’s contest. Each tweet will get you ONE entry. But you can tweet many times about different things :


which villainess you think is most evil, who you like more Alice or Victor, how great you think I am (this will get you two entries – ouch! Alice just kicked me.) The only limit to your Victor Tweets is your imagination.


5.) Facebook about Victor’s contest – this will get you ONE entry. But you can make many Facebook comments, using your imagination to spark interest in Victor’s book and his contest. (Please send me a link so that I can give you credit for each time.)


6.) It is to your interest to get as many people talking about Victor’s contest and buying his book as you can. Each person saying you got them to buy and post a review of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH gets YOU another entry.


7.) Visiting the FRIENDS OF VICTOR STANDISH Facebook Page

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Friends-of-Victor-Standish/146105295486155

and leaving a comment gets you ONE entry. Starting discussions and debates there gets you another entry.

8.) Placing Victor's button with a link to this post will get you ONE ENTRY. TWO if you make up your own colorful one. Just send me the link to your page.

9.) Coming up with a new great way to fan the flames for Victor’s book and his contest will get you FIVE entries.


NOW ABOUT JOHN LOCKE’S ROLE IN THIS CONTEST :


Mr. Modest (he says he writes 7,000 words a day when he is writing a novel) writes :

“Your book doesn’t have to be first-class. It just has to sell.” Well, duh!


He further writes that 1,000 people buying your book and getting one other person to buy it will propel you into the Top 100 list – after that, your novel will gather a momentum of its own.


I’M PUTTING JOHN LOCKE TO THE TEST.

You and my other friends make up over 900 followers of this modest blog. If only a fourth of you get just two friends to buy Victor’s book, I should, according to John’s math, be nearing the Top 100 list.

If just a fourth of that group gets one friend to buy – I should HIT the Top 100 list


AT WHICH POINT I WILL DRAW FOR THE


KINDLE FIRE and STEPHEN KING’S autographed ROSE MADDER.


BUT ALONG THE WAY – LET’S HAVE SOME FUN!!!


When Victor goes to the 100,000 level,

there will be a drawing for an AUTOGRAPHED MEGAN FOX PHOTOGRAPH



When Victor hits the 75,000 mark,

I will have a drawing for an AUTOGRAPHED BRAD PITT PHOTOGRAPH

(there’s also a Cate Blanchett autograph on it, too).



At the 50,000 mark,

I will have a drawing for an AUTOGRAPHED ANGELINE JOLIE PHOTOGRAPH.



At the 30,000 mark,

I will have a drawing for a 16 X 20 limited, numbered fine art print, MOONDANCE, AUTOGRAPHED by the stunning artist (in two ways), OLIVIA DE BERADINAS (#1650 of 4000)



At the 20,000 mark,
I will have a drawing for THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by

DANIEL CRAIG

NICOLE KIDMAN

SAM ELLIOT



At the 10,000 mark,

I will have a drawing for THE COLOR PURPLE movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by

STEPHEN SPIELBERG (director, producer),

QUINCY JONES (composer, producer)

KATHLEEN KENNEDY (producer) and FRANK MARSHALL (producer.)



At the 5,000 mark,

The drawing will be for the AVATAR movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by

JAMES CAMERON

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

SAM WORTHINGTON

ZOE SALDANA

STEPHEN LANG {Listen up, marines. Pandora will eat you up and shit you out like little ju-ju beans.}


At the 1,000 mark,

The prize drawing will be for THE ROCK movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by :

SEAN CONNERY

NICK CAGE

ED HARRIS



At the 500 mark,

The prize drawing will be for FROM DUSK TO DAWN movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by :

QUENTIN TARANTINO

GEORGE CLOONEY

The beautiful SALMA HAYEK

HARVEY KEITEL

CHEECH MARIN

JULIETTE LEWIS and the most of the rest of the cast.



After that, the prizes will keep on coming with different ceilings being reached until THE TOP 100 is reached!

Oh, you're waiting for the miracle prize?

Should you guys help me pull off a miracle and get Victor to #10 in the Amazon's TOP 100 sellers ...

J. K. ROWLING'S AUTOGRAPH on the double-sided movie poster of HARRY POTTER & THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX will be given to some lucky entry!


Yes, Victor’s Contest is brass, crass, and rash – hey, it came from the minds of John Locke and Victor Standish. What else did you expect?


LET’S HAVE SOME FUN WITH THIS!


THIS IS MY KIND OF CONTEST! ROLAND
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