{"id":16625,"date":"2012-12-28T11:37:40","date_gmt":"2012-12-28T16:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=16625"},"modified":"2012-12-28T11:39:13","modified_gmt":"2012-12-28T16:39:13","slug":"the-final-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2012\/12\/28\/the-final-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Final Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Blackbirds<\/strong> is in the Ranting Dragon Cover Battle 2012<\/strong><\/span><\/a>! Round after round it fought —<\/span><\/p>\n

And now?<\/p>\n

It has reached the final round<\/em>.<\/p>\n

*crash of thunder*<\/p>\n

*timpani boom*<\/p>\n

*a distant wolf howls*<\/p>\n

It is up against the mighty cover of Seanan McGuire’s equally mighty\u00a0Discount Armageddon<\/span><\/a><\/strong> — Seanan is, of course, my spirit animal and the profane yin to my vulgar yang, and she is a damn fine writer (sweet Sid and Marty Krofft, have you read her\u00a0Feed<\/span><\/a><\/strong> series under the name Mira Grant? Do yourself the favor and read, read, read).<\/p>\n

So, were\u00a0Blackbirds<\/strong> to lose this battle — it would be a glorious loss.<\/p>\n

BUT WE AIN’T GOING DOWN WITHOUT A LOT OF KICKING AND FLAILING.<\/p>\n

When I saw Joey Hi-Fi<\/strong><\/span><\/a>‘s cover for\u00a0Blackbirds<\/span><\/a><\/strong> (and the follow-up,\u00a0Mockingbird<\/strong>), I about fell over, dizzy.\u00a0I’d won the cover lottery<\/em>. It is a truly incredible cover, a cover that sells the book far better than my own writing ever could — I cannot tell you how many people told me they picked the book up to check it out by dint of that cover. It is a single image that contains myriad images: dozens of little scenes and snippets from the book.<\/p>\n

So, I beseech you here today — pleading eyes searching, sweaty palms turned heavenward, manly tears streaking my gore-caked beard. I ask you to go and place your vote<\/strong><\/span><\/a> for your favorite cover of the year. If that cover is\u00a0Blackbirds<\/strong>, then I shall high-five you when we both arrive in Valhalla. If it’s not, then so be it. I mean, I might drive over you with my car if I see you crossing the road, but that’s the way it goes. No harm no foul, right?<\/p>\n

The vote is close! Split down the middle! Hurry!\u00a0Hurry!<\/em><\/p>\n

Congrats, of course, to Seanan and her cover artist, Aly Fell!<\/p>\n

(The contest is open until December 30th.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Blackbirds is in the Ranting Dragon Cover Battle 2012! Round after round it fought — And now? It has reached the final round. *crash of thunder* *timpani boom* *a distant wolf howls* It is up against the mighty cover of Seanan McGuire’s equally mighty\u00a0Discount Armageddon — Seanan is, of course, my spirit animal and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-4k9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16625"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16637,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16625\/revisions\/16637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}