The Ultimate Genre Crossover Challenge

[naominovik]

So as one would expect, I have been spending the last few weeks haunting google and blogsearch and feedster, and getting pointers from friends and the Del Rey and HarperCollins publicity folks, collecting all the reviews with much excitement, and here they are so far.

Online Temeraire reviews so far

• SciFi Wire by John Joseph Adams
  
• Aint It Cool News by Quint
  
• SFRevu.com review, plus interview by John Berlyne
  
• Emerald City by Cheryl Morgan
  
• Fantasybookspot.com by Jay Tomio
  
• MyShelf.com by Rachel Hyde
  
• plus a couple on Amazon.co.uk.
  
• And on personal blogs/LJs:
  
  • alg
    
  • Iain Clark - Musings on Books
    
  • Justine Larbalestier
    
  • rachelmanija
    
  • rivkat

Now, on to the fun part -- so I was reading the talkback on the AICN review (naturally), and this gem of a comment was posted:

by DocPazuzu, January 9th, 2006 02:20:34 PM CST
Dragons...
...are swiftly becoming the vampires of fantasy fiction, much like vampires became the Star Trek of horror about 15 years ago. Why not combine them in the ultimate genre crossover? A moody, goth vampire whose soul has been bound to that of an ancient, noble reptile that breathes fire. They could then pilot a Starfleet vessel together and send the hearts of a million female renaissance fair freaks into overdrive. Think of the fan fiction! The cosplay! The filking!

And, okay, this is seriously absolute gold, so here we go --

* The Ultimate Genre Crossover Challenge! *

Rules of the game:

• To play, you must write a story containing: vampires, dragons, AND spaceships.
  
  
• You score a point for each of the following that you *also* include:
  
  • cats
    
  • unicorns
    
  • elves
    
  • werewolves
    
  • zombies
    
  • ghosts
    
  • any other mythical creatures
    
  • time travel
    
  • murder mystery or romance (or hey, double points for BOTH)
    
  • alternate universes
    
  • historical personages
    
  • sword-fighting
    
  • psychic abilities (telepathy, telekinesis, etc)
    
  • soul bonding
    
  • magic spells
    
  • aliens
    
  • clowns
    
  • improbably effective drugs (truth serum, aphrodisiacs, etc)
    
  • any other element you can come up with and argue convincingly is a cliche
• Special bonus: five points if you do it in a drabble (100 word exactly). Just remember you have to get vampires, dragons, and spaceships all in there, and it must actually tell a story of some kind.
  
  
• Post the story anywhere you like, in your livejournal/blog or on a webpage, then comment to this post with:
  
  • A link to your story
    
  • A list of all your point-winning elements and tally of your total points (I remain the willful and arbitrary judge of the validity of points)
• You can enter multiple stories.
  
  
• Stories must be posted by February 1.
  
  
• If there are a lot of entries with similar high point scores, I will run a completely non-scientific poll among some number of them to declare the final winner.
  

You own your own story, of course, and are free to do with it anything you like. I have some vague idea that if this just goes brilliantly, wouldn't it be cool to do an anthology out of the top entries or something, but most likely this is just for fun.

The winner will be declared sometime in early February. And hey, I will even provide a bit of loot -- the winner will get a signed copy of the UK hardcover of Temeraire, plus a spiffy tote bag. All participants win bragging rights. *g*