Bad Astronomy

New BABlog contest: win “The Saucer Fleet”!

[Update: my spam filter thinks a lot of the comments being sent in are spam for some reason. If you get a automated note saying your comment is spam, don’t worry! I’ll make sure it gets in the list.]

It’s been a while since I’ve done a BABlog giveaway, so it’s way overdue. And this time I have another extremely cool (in the geeky sense) book to give away to one BABloggee: The Saucer Fleet, by Jack Hagerty and Jon Rogers (Jack is the author of the also way-cool Spaceship Handbook).

Click to embiggenate.

This book is so incredibly cool: it’s all about flying saucers in movies, including War of the Worlds, Forbidden Planet, This Island Earth, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and many more. It’s lavishly illustrated, phenomenally detailed, and is simply totally awesome. It also has a forward by some astronomer who loves old science fiction movies. Oh wait: it’s me. And there’s more: Jack will autograph the book to the winner, too!

So, you like flying saucer stuff? You want this book. Don’t believe me? Then listen to scifi author Robert Sawyer, or the Hive Overmind blog Science Not Fiction. If you like saucer movies, this book rocks.

So how do you win it? Actually, it’s pretty easy.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. Just post something in the comments below, like “I’m a geek and I want this book!” It doesn’t matter what you post as long as you post something. On Friday, March 20 at noon Mountain time (UTC - 6), I will generate a random number, and the person who leaves that number comment wins the book. I’ll send the winner an email notifying them of their good fortune, and you’ll have until Monday at noon MT to get back to me. I’ll pick another commenter if I don’t hear back by then. That person will have until noon the next day to get back to me, and so one, until a winner is chosen.

Here are some rules for you. READ THESE. Violate them and you’re toast.

1) Leave a comment ONLY ONCE. I trust you folks, but I feel I must make this warning: No matter how tempting it is to followup on someone else’s comment, don’t do it. Anyone caught doing that (or cheating in any way) not only won’t win the book, but your comment will simply be deleted. Be ye fairly warned, says I.

2) Make sure that you enter a valid email address in the form when you leave your comment. If you don’t, you won’t win, since email is how I will contact the winner. I won’t try to figure out your address; if there’s no valid email, I’ll simply pick another winner.

3) Anyone is eligible. However, to be fair, if you’re an actual friend of mine IRL then please don’t leave a comment. I’ll leave it up to your own judgment if you fall in that category or not. I just wouldn’t feel right sending the book to a friend when the contest is open to anyone. Luckily, I have so few friends the odds are low anyway.

4) Once a winner is picked, I’ll forward their email to Jack Hagerty, who will send them a book. You can be anywhere in the world, so no restrictions there. Also, Jack has generously offered to give BABlog readers a 15% discount on the book: just go to Jack’s bookstore to order the book, enter “BABR” (for BABLog Reader) into the promotional code, and voila! A saucer will be on whizzing and whirring its way to your door.

Remember, you have until noon Friday!