The tour continues at Dan Brown’s London Free Press blog, Cool Blog Name to Come. You can find the posting and comments here. Dan’s on Twitter too — you can follow him at danatlfpress.

In case you’ve missed any of the other stops, here’s where I’ve been:

• Audio interview with PodioRacket at Blog Talk Radio
• Three stops at Name Your Tale, including this 100-word interview!
• A video trailer (thanks Webmonkees) appearing at Book Screening
• A two-part, absurd, interview with Mercury Falls author Rob Kroese at Mattress Police, The Skwib and you can catch then entire thing at When Falls the Coliseum.

And here’s where I’m going:
Five Rivers Publishing
Predator Press
Collecting Tokens
Neonbubble ….
with more to come, I hope!

If you’d like to host the Marvellous Hairy virtual tour, please let me know in the comment or email me at markarayner -at- gmail -dot- com.

I’m going to be spending the day at Museum London, attending and participating in the first of what I hope are many SMarts London gatherings. I’ll be joining in the panel discussion at 3 pm, titled;

Copyright, Content and Context in the Digital Domain
Are Social Media sites like MySpace, YouTube and Flickr helping or hurting content producers and artists?

This should be an interesting discussion, and it will no doubt touch on issues of digital rights management, corporate structures, and the nature of the culture of free espoused by folks such as Lawrence Lessig. I’m definitely excited to talk about the experience of sharing Marvellous Hairy for free via podcast, and how I would like to offer more free content to increase interest in my work.

I just happened to catch Cory Doctorow (who spends a lot more time than me thinking about these things) on The Agenda the other night. Here’s the clip:

Here is the SMarts London schedule.

And speaking of free

Just for today, and those attending SMArts London (either in person or virtually), I’m giving away five copies of my new book, Marvellous Hairy. Just join my newsletter or Facebook page, and I’ll enter you in the draw. I’ll announce the winners on Tuesday! (If you’ve already joined one, then shoot me a quick email at: markarayner-at-gmail-dot-com.)

And anyone can start listening to the podcasts for free right now. They’re on iTunes, Podiobooks.com or on my site here.

Congrats to the draw winners

• Titus
• Kevin
• Phronk
• Jennifer
• Brian

I’ll be kicking off my “virtual” book tour today (November 9th), with an interview on Blog Talk Radio. I’ll be chatting with Rhonda and Heather from PodioRacket.com about finishing the podcast of Marvellous Hairy, what projects I’ll be podcasting next, and hopefully, a little bit about monkeys. If you’re online, please join us at 5:30 pm (EST) at Blog Talk Radio here.

I’ve also started the tour on other blogs today, starting with the marvellous Name Your Tale. This is a blog where you write in your crazy short story title, and the bloggers write a 100-word story to go with it. Sound easy? I’ve done a couple and it’s not as simple as it sounds. I did manage to pen a 100-word blurb though, which you can find here. Later in the week, I’ll be sharing a short story based on Marvellous Hairy, and on Friday, I’ll do a short (you guessed it, 100-word) interview.

And I’ll be making some other Interweb appearances, at:

Mattress Police
Cool Name to Come
5 Rivers Press
Predator Press
…plus others as we figure out the details!

Please let me know if you’d like to host me for part of the tour. You could interview me, talk about writing, publishing, or anything else you want to try. I’m easy! (Seriously, soooo easy.)

Leave a comment below or send me an email: markarayner -at- gmail -dot- com

Just a few more days until the draw for the Go Tuck (erize) Yourself! contest.

Now, if you’ve entered, or think you will, this is an excellent time to start thinking about how you would like to appear in my next book. Actually, to say next book is to narrow it down too much. I’m currently at work on two books; both are satires (naturally). One is a speculative fiction, the broad theme of which is artificial intelligence, and the other is a historical fiction — or rather, a gentle send-up of the kinds of historical fictions that win Booker and Giller Prizes on a regular basis.

You can put yourself in either book. Almost anything goes. You can appear as yourself — with your name attached, or as a pseudonym. Or your cameo can be somewhat fictionalized. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to be a pirate. Or maybe a ninja. (I hope not, but there’s no accounting for tastes.) Maybe you’d like to be a character with an extra appendage. Almost anything goes, as long as we can work it into the story in a way that doesn’t completely destroy the structural integrity of the novel.

So, what do you imagine you’d like to do with this opportunity? Feel free to share here.

Still want to enter? Join my fan page or my newsletter (sign up for both to double your chances). You have until midnight, October 31st!

The prizes for the draw again are:

1. a chance to appear in a walk-on role in my next book
2. a chance to win one of ten copies of Marvellous Hairy, a novel in five fractals
3. a “mystery” item from my desk.

Thanks for the excellent pirate pic by practicalowl.

The one panel that I participated in at this WorldCon was called “Alternate Canadas”. The premise was that we were there to talk about alternate histories of Canada, or as it said in the program: “What would its jumping-off points be? How might Canadian history have gone differently?” I was participating with Mark Shainblum, S.M. Stirling, and Glenn Grant.

I am hardly an expert in Canadian history, though I am an enthusiastic dabbler, particularly the history of a certain period, and of a certain Victorian speculative fiction writer. But mostly, I think I was there for comic relief.

Both Mark Shainblum and S.M. Stirling are quite knowledgeable about Canadian history, and they did most of the talking, though the audience (the room was full), were also an important part of this session as many of the suggestions came from them.

Mark co-edited an anthology of alternate Canadian histories a few years ago called Arrowdreams and I’ll definitely have to get a copy so that I can read them all. This book covers some of the obvious ones.

The one alternate path that I suggested — at least, the only one which generated some real discussion — was what if Leif Erikson (Leif the Lucky) didn’t abandon his first colony in Newfoundland (circa 1005 AD or so)? What if there had been a Norse migration into Canada, settling in areas where there were few aboriginal populations, and a little more charitable towards the natives?

This is actually kind of a neat idea because if that did happen, the history of the colonization of North America would have gone quite differently. First, as Stirling suggested, the diseases which ravaged aboriginal societies in the 1500s would have had their run much earlier in history, giving the populations a chance to recover by the time the other Europeans arrived. And more importantly, giving those surviving populations immunity. It would have also undoubtedly led to more technological development in North and South America, as the Norse traded their metal-working and animal husbandry skills to their native neighbors. Who knows, the colonization might have been able to go the other way?

I think Stirling really liked this idea, so don’t be surprised if you see him do a book about it sometime, but remember, the notion came from me first!

I was much more prepared to talk about absurd ideas like how if Canada had lost the Summit Series, Canada would cease to exist. Nobody really wanted to talk about that, because the Summit Series is included in Mark’s anthology, but I think I’ve spotted the real divergences, and the absurd ones too. In fact, this panel inspired me to produce a little alternate history that I’m posting today at The Skwib, called: How Anne of Green Gables Destroyed the World.