The Name Game Contest
Want to see your name in lights? Fifteen winners will be given the chance to name a character after themselves or a friend in one of Jeff's upcoming novels. Here's all you have to do. Send an email to Jeff with the correct answers to both of these questions.
Easy, right? Wrong. Here are the questions:
“What is the name of Marianne O’Hara’s bodyguard in Nevada?”
and
“What is Nicholas Foley’s real name?”
Nevada? Marianne? Nicholas? What?
Well, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth it, right? Here’s your only hint. There is one faint clue to this puzzle in Jeff’s bio. Good luck. Winners will be notified immediately, but Jeff reserves the right to ask winners to give their character a different name if their first choice is too close to the name of an established character.
Winners So Far...
* Susan Tunis, California.
* Resonant Frequency, an anonymous online personality, has also answered the quiz correctly, and submitted the name Tanya Huff to use for a character.
* Micki Rezac, Nebraska.
* Lewis Bornmann, California.
* Elizabeth Kleier answered the quiz correctly and submitted the name of her daughter, Emily Flint, to use as a character.
* Joshua E. Morrison, California.
* Dirk Walls, another winner from California (I think this game must be rigged!).
* Matthew J. Harrington answered the quiz correctly and submitted the name of his friend, James Patrick, to use as a character.
* Rebecca Drayer, New York.
* Johnny Bowen, Arkansas.
* Sean Walsh, California.
* David Hoyer, West Virginia.
* Rick Fuelling, U.K.
Extra Characters Earned Creatively
* On their own initiative, superfans Jeff and Ashley Sierzenga created 3-D schematics and polymer scale models of the “archos bot” in Plague Year and were featured on genre portal www.io9.com. That was outrageously cool.
* Robert Macaulay won a charity auction to benefit the Solano Library Foundation and asked to have his friend and partner, a search and rescue K-9 named Orion, used as a character.
* Benjamin Metzler, superfan, surprised Jeff with fantastic cover art for both “The Frozen Sky” and “Long Eyes and Other Stories,” after which Jeff decided he’d darn well better surprise Ben back by writing him into a story.
* International superfan Rauno Pärnits designed an English language crossword puzzle featuring several questions about American sci fi writer Jeff Carlson, a fun and unique brain-teaser!
...And Where They Ended Up
* Marine PFC Susan Tunis in "Plague War." Killed In Action.
* NSA Special Agent Michelle Rezac in "Plague Zone." Killed In Action.
* Army Ranger Tanya Huff in "Plague Zone." Killed In Action.
* USAF Air Commando Lewis Bornmann in "Plague Zone." Killed In Action.
* Marine General Dirk Walls in "Plague Zone." Survives?
* Math teacher Josh Morrison in "Colony High." Face ripped off by freaky alien lizard hordes.
* Computational biologist Emily Flint in the Secret New Big Thriller Novel. Survives?
* Marine Staff Sergeant James Patrick in the Secret New Big Thriller Novel. Killed In Action.
* NSA Agent Rebecca Drayer in the Secret New Big Thriller Novel. Survives?
* National Guard Colonel Johnny Bowen in the Secret New Big Thriller Novel. Survives?
* National Guard Captain Sean Walsh in the Secret New Big Thriller Novel. Survives?
* David Hoyer is too similar in name to one of the Secret New Big Thriller Novel's heroes, ROMEO Agent Drew Haldane, so David has agreed to wait patiently for Jeff’s next novel. Since this will be something of a wait, David was also awarded a cameo appearance in the Secret New Big Thriller Novel as the USS Hoyer, an Aegis cruiser in the carrier strike group featured in the book. Destroyed in battle.
* Navy Captain Rick Fuelling in the Secret New Big Thriller. Killed In Action.
* Bob Macaulay and Orion, civilian USAR unit conscripted by ROMEO in the Secret New Big Thriller. Do they survive?
* Ash Sierzenga, ESA pilot in “Topsider,” a new story from “The Frozen Sky.” Survives?
* Ben Metzler, ESA exogeologist in “Topsider.” Disemboweled by Europan ice monster.
* ESA linguist Rauno Pärnits in “Topsider,” a new story from “The Frozen Sky.” Killed in hull rupture.