Winning a Hugo is great but getting it home if you're not a local can be a pain — they're not well-sized for carry-on, and good luck convincing TSA that the rocket is not a bomb. Shipping was in order. LoneStarCon 3 offered to ship my Hugo to me, but I am an anxious sort , so I splurged and paid for overnight shipping (which meant it would arrive Wednesday, because Monday was a national holiday). Well, it's arrived!
I've noted before that this particular Hugo has an amazing base, created by Vincent Villafranca. But I don't want you just to take my word for it, so here's a gallery of images to capture the details on the base. Click on the pictures to bring up a larger image. Enjoy!
The Hugo, in its natural habitat, i.e., the back deck of my house.
The star in the Texas there represents San Antonio. This is the front of the base.
Here's the back of the base. The base itself is meant to look like a book.
You only need one eye to see the words!
This guy is my favorite. I like to think he's reading my book.
Peter F. Hamilton Has a Charity Auction For You. Yes, YOU.
Peter F. Hamilton, of course, the writer of awesome epic science fiction like Pandora's Star and The Great North Road. He's helping a friend out with a charity auction, and I think you're going to like what you see. Here he is to give you the details.
My thanks to John for letting me borrow a few paragraphs in Whatever.
I'm here to announce a global charity auction for a signed proof copy of The Queen of Dreams; volume one in the Books of The Realms trilogy, and my first children's book (age 7+). This event is starting on September the 1st; it runs for 10 days, and is open to everyone no matter where you live. The book is published by Doubleday in the UK on 1st January 2014.
I'm sure everyone's used to author-signed proofs, so in order to make this a little different, it will also be signed by the four main characters as well as myself. But wait –this is a work of fiction, how can the characters sign it? Well, two of these characters, Felix and Sophie, are my children, and the other two, Taggie and Jemima, are their school friends. This is going to be the only proof copy signed by all of them, so it will be unique.
Taggie and Jemima are summer holidaying on their Dad's farm. They know just what to expect –a tumbledown old cottage, sunshine and strawberry picking. But then Jemima sees a white squirrel wearing glasses… And that's before their Dad is captured and whisked away to a faerie world that's fallen to Darkness. But why would anybody want to kidnap their boring old Dad, especially the dreaded King of Night? Could it be their family isn't quite as ordinary as they believed?