Archives for July 2010

If you’d like to win a free copy of Tumbler, just tweet something about the book, with the hashtag #TumblerGiveaway. I’ll take everyone on the list at the end of the day, and ship a free copy of the book to a randomly-selected winner.

Update: The free copy of Tumbler went to Jeffrey Hite, of the “Great Hites” website, and assistant editor for Flying Island Press. Congratulations, Jeffrey!

We’ll have another giveaway next week. keep watching for it. And if you can’t wait, you can read the first few chapters, or even buy the book here.

After reading the Callahan Chronicles, I got it into my head to write a shaggy dog pun good enough for Spider Robinson. This was a challenge, as the man has been telling horrible puns for most of my life, and has refined the skill to an art.

When I had the chance to meet him at the Heinlein Centennial celebration, I had the honor of telling him my joke, and seeing him groan with appreciative pain. He told me later that he could not promise not to steal it. And now I share that joke with you.

No lie, this joke is 100 years old. It refers to the Mann Act of 1910. At the time, this law was summarized by the phrase “Transporting girls across the state line for immoral purposes.” It was a landmark, though vaguely phrased, law intending to curtail slavery and prostitution. So, anyway, here’s the joke:

Once, there was a scientist who discovered the secret to immortality. His formula required the bile duct of a seagull, which made reproducing the formula very difficult. As he was testing on mice and cats, he had to go out and get more and more seagulls. Finally, he had worked his way up to dolphins, which required more of the formula than any other animal. In order to prepare the formula, the scientist had to drive all the way out to the seaside to find as many seagulls as he could.