So here now, I present the five winners of signed copies of Infoquake. Winners are being notified by e-mail.

1. The poet: Liz Burgess.

There were lots of good limerick entries, and I had a tough time deciding on a winner. But in the end I had to award one copy of the book to Liz (last name pending her e-mail response) Burgess, whose entry made me laugh out loud for its skillful use of Beyond Linux from Scratch:

There once was a young man named Natch
Who read “Beyond Linux from Scratch”
Pushed code to production
Had poor QA function
And jonesed for a nicotine patch.

Honorable Mention goes to Thom Stanley, who certainly wins on tying in the limerick to the plot of the book:

There once was a young man named Natch
Whose program was more than a patch.
It is called MultiReal,
Which allows you to seal
A fate even God cannot match.

Honorable Mention, but Disqualified for Reasons of Nepotism: Cindy Blank-Edelman, who managed to squeeze three glossary terms into her entry:

There once was a young man named Natch
Whose enemies sent him a batch
Of code very black –
Programs Natch couldn’t hack,
Not even with Doc Plugenpatch!

And the “I Like the Way This Guy Thinks/Somebody Please Lock This Guy Up” Honorable Mention Award goes to Izyk Stewart:

There once was a young man named Natch
Who had quite the problem with Flatch-
ulence in his car
He never got far
But he never ran out of gas

2. The detail-oriented reader: Andrew Albert J. Ty.

I received several correct entries (and a few wrong entries) for question #2, which was to name the city that is the seat of centralized government in Infoquake. The answer is Melbourne, which is evident to anyone who’s read through to chapter 5 of the excerpt on the website. I used the Random.org True Random Number Generator to determine a winner among the correct entries.

3. The fan of quality literature: Dan Geiser.

This contest hit a little snag early on when a certain gentleman posted the first line of page 95 of Fiona Avery’s The Crown Rose in the blog comments rather than e-mailing me… thus potentially giving away the answer to everyone. I amended the rules to allow anyone to submit page 100 of The Crown Rose instead. Being a just and forgiving Dave, I decided not to penalize said gentleman for his faux pas. But alas, the True Random Number Generator chose to award the book to someone else.

Mr. Geiser was one of several people who correctly sent the first line on page 95 of Ian McDonald’s River of Gods (“inevitability. It is as if he knew from the moment the ticket arrived on”), which is only one of the many quality SF offerings from my publisher Pyr. There were also several correct entries from works by Justina Robson, Joel Shepherd, and Fiona Avery.

4. The lecher: Lisa Mantchev.

I was a little disappointed that I didn’t receive more entries for this one. Really, you almost could have won this contest by being in the audience at WorldCon when Harlan Ellison grabbed Connie Willis’ boob. What happened to all those women you see late at night at cons wearing spiked heels, overflowing corsets, and/or the t-shirts with the crappy drawings of Kirk and Spock making out? Maybe when they get behind closed doors, they really are just playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Here’s Lisa’s entry:

It was my own fault; I purchased the item in the Dealer’s Room at LA Con IV and then proceeded to become known as “The Amazonian Redhead in the Black and Silver Corset”. I strutted, I preened, and I wore it that first night on the party circuit.

Enter a certain Hawaiian-print shirt wearing Campbell Award winner (who happens to be a friend; never fear that this will turn into Harlangate Revisited…) who looped his arm around my waist more than once that evening. He gives excellent hugs, but I digress.

At one point during a conversation I realized his fingers had found the spot on my back where the lacings of the corset crisscrossed my lovely pale flesh. And that’s when I turned to him and loudly announced:

“(Name deleted to protect the not-so-innocent) kindly get your fingers out of my crack!”

Thus was born the question: what is the fundamental difference between a crack, a cleft and a gap?

We didn’t answer it to anyone’s satisfaction, and plan to revisit the discussion at World Fantasy Con in Austin. It promises to be a lively debate!

All I have to say about Lisa’s story is: Ted Chiang, you sleaze.

5. The kiss-ass: Izyk Stewart.

I had a tough decision on this one too, but finally settled on an entry by Mr. Stewart (of Natch/Flat-ulence infamy, above). I’m not entirely sure his entry qualifies as kissing ass, but the thought of someone making a musical of Infoquake in Idaho starring Hugh Jackman singing “Another Natch in My Gun” made me giggle too much to not award him this one. His entry:

I am playwright from foreign country (Idaho) and am of no little reknown in ways of writing music and even words for speaking on stage.

Presently I write musical for science fiction book Infoquake. You are writer of, yes? However, I have small problem. Only small piece of book is online. My tiny problem then is, How to make musical of Infoquake when plot is not all known to me?

Already Director casts Hugh Jackman for lead role of Infoquake. You know him, yes? Personal friend of me. Songs written for him are including “Another Natch in my gun.” You know of this song?

Already, also, friends of mine in Theater mafia give Infoquake musical pre-emtive Tony award for best of best.

You can solve problem if sending me Infoquake. You will, yes?

I’m not sure exactly what Mr. Stewart is smoking out there, but he can fire up another bowl of it when he sits down to read his signed copy of Infoquake.

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Thanks to everybody who entered the contest! Keep an eye on this blog for more cheap ploys for attention soon.