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Make sure you enter the contest for Even the Score (Knight Errant #3) by KD Sarge! Closes 7 pm CST, December 29.

Stop by and enter the contest for Dear Alex (2nd ed) by Clare London! Closes 7 pm CST, December 29.

Don’t forget to enter the contest for the Brit Boys: On Boys box set by Clare London, Ashe Barker, MK Elliott, Lucy Felthouse, KD Grace, Lily Harlem, Sarah Masters, & Josephine Myles! Closes 7 pm CST, December 29.

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Contest(s)

• Blodeuedd’s giving away a three ebook bundle of the Klaus Brothers stories by Penny Watson. Closes December 31.
• Blodeuedd’s also giving away ebook copies of You Think You Know Me by Clare Chase and Never Marry a Politician by Sarah Waights. Closes December 31.

Bookity

• New releases: Fiction Vixen (UF/romance)
• Book and publishing news from Dear Author.
• For ebook authors who sell books to customers in the European Union, Clare London explains the impact of the EU VAT changes taking effect January 2015.
• Becky Black on why writers should get organized.
• Amazon pulled a werewolf novel because it had “too many hyphens”.
• Have you been to the WTFBadRomanceCovers tumblr yet?
• How to name your literary magazine. (via Solarcat)
• Well, yeah.

Think, Do, Make, Learn

• Christmas on the International Space Station.
• 15 places you can tour virtually.
• Did the anti-vaccination movement cause the NHL Mumps Outbreak? (via The Hockey Writers)
• What if you made a lava lamp out of clear lava?

Cookity

• Star Wars peppermint Jawa brownies.
• Peppermint patties.
• Dairy-free Nutella.
• Cornbread cake.
• 15 satisfying breakfasts.
• Mexican chicken casserole.

Gluten Free

• Rice krispie treat chocolate chip cookies.
• Crunch brownies.
• Chocolate truffle cake.
• Gluten-free holiday recipes.

Crafty

• Crafty linkity from kmkat.

Cool

• Seattle’s mayor said he will allow Archie McPhee to keep a unicorn in their parking lot (should they manage to find one, of course). (via maderr)
• Godzilla Christmas tree. (via The Mary Sue)
• Merry Chthulhumas.
• The Pittsburgh Penguins’ tribute to Christmas Vacation. The Chicago Blackhawks’ retro workout video… The Washington Capitals Christmas video. (Yes, this is a thing hockey teams do for the holidays. No, I don’t understand it, either. Especially since there seems to be an inverse relationship between hockey abilities and singing/acting abilities. Probably the clearest proof of that is the Chicago Blackhawks Sing-Along Holiday Album from a few years ago…)
• Watch a stegosaurus skeleton being assembled.
• Silhouettes carved from the blade of butcher’s knives.
• There will be dinosaur LEGOs. (via The Mary Sue)
• LEGO medieval bobsled team.
• Linkity from kmkat.

Cool or Wha…?

• Star Wars landspeeder kitty bed. (via The Mary Sue)
• Gingerbread: Barad-dûr (from Lord of the Rings), Iron Throne (via The Mary Sue), the USS Enterprise (via aohatsu), Smaug (via Gizmodo).
• Flashback to the toys of 1982 (via Gizmodo) and 1985.

Wha…?

• “One person tests 18 different Oreos flavors, somehow survives“.
• Merry Christmas from Charlie…the Venus flytrap.
• Christmas carp.
• Flying remote control Christmas tree.
• If the televised Yule log is too passe for you, give the Yule Zamboni a try. (via Deadspin)
• Top 20 weird news stories of 2014.

LOL

• 20 Christmas autocorrects.
• Christmas Cake Wrecks. Hanukkah Cake Wrecks. More Christmas Cake Wrecks.
• The limitations of blind trials… (Hover/long-press for additional text.)

Teh Cute

• Snow leopard and babies! Black kitty! Baby red pandas! Wylla! Bilby and babies!

Reading Update
Ghost of a Chance (Ghost Finders #1) by Simon R Green. Made it to page 66, then put it down for a few weeks and have no interest in going back to it. Elspeth’s review nails it.
The Atrocity Archives (The Laundry Files #1) by Charles Stross. Good paranormal thriller about Bob Howard, a guy who works for a secret British intelligence agency, the Laundry, in a world where mathematics can open portals to other, far less friendly, universes. Inspired by HP Lovecraft and the Cold War-era British spy thrillers (and acknowledges such). This edition also contains The Concrete Jungle [The Laundry Files #1.5].
The Jennifer Morgue (The Laundry Files #2) by Charles Stross. Good paranormal thriller as Bob teams up with a partner from another secret agency and is caught up in a very specific hero archetype geas… This edition also contained the short story PIMPF, which I’d subtitle Bob Gets an Intern and Almost Lets Said Intern Die…Whoops. (Because of the book’s title, I had “27 Jennifers” by Mike Doughty stuck in my head for a few days.)
The Fuller Memorandum (The Laundry Files #3) by Charles Stross. Good paranormal thriller, leaning toward horror as Bob learns an awful lot about his boss after his boss goes missing. And then he has to deal with fanatical Elder Gods’ cultists, leading to Bob’s Very Bad, No Good, Completely Horrific Day.
The Apocalypse Codex (The Laundry Files #4) by Charles Stross. Good paranormal horror thriller in which Bob, our computational demonologist, heads to America to check out an evangelist who’s taken an interest in the British Prime Minister.
Hockey Confidential: Inside Stories from People Inside the Game by Bob McKenzie. Good collection of true stories about an assortment of Canadians related in some way to the NHL, from Karl Subban (PK’s dad) to Connor McDavid to a skating coach.

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“…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” -Mayhem