A crazy Cyber Monday sale has ANCESTOR available for 99 cents for your Kindle or at the iBookstore for your iPad and iPhone. If you have an Android, Blackberry or Windows phone, don't fret because you can get the free Kindle eReader app and still snag it for a buck. 

Hey, know someone who would like the Sigler Stank? Then "gift" this novel to them for just a buck!

99 cents: Amazon for Kindle
99 cents: iTunes for iPhone & iPad
99 cents: B&N for nook

"They mostly come out at night ... mostly ... "

NOCTURNAL is the upcoming horror/thriller from New York Times best-selling novelist Scott Sigler. It hits you in your face on April 3, 2012. Pre-order now:

Pre-order autographed copies from Borderlands Books 

NOCTURNAL is an epic story of mayhem set in the heart of San Francisco, where a group of people live in the city's unknown, underground ruins. They come out at night to prey on the "won't-bees," the dregs of society that won't be missed. 

They've existed for hundreds of years, but are about to run headlong into Homicide detectives Bryan Clauser and Pookie Chang. It's a fight for existence as the police fight to stop a string of brutal, ritualistic occult murders.

NOCTURNAL is simultaneously a horror/thriller, a high-action comic book of a novel, and a throwback to classic 80s buddy-cop movies. If you're a child of the 80s, you'll love this one. 

I'm raising money for prostate cancer research through the Movember campaign. If you got a couple o' bucks, click here to donate.

Yes, I'm growing this glorious face foliage to help out a good cause. I was clean-shaven on Nov. 1, and now I'm rocking the Day 22 Trucker Stache. The Stache is starting to talk to me ... telling me to do things ...

Click here to download the video.

I was honored to be a guest on "Triangulation," a show hosted by TWiT superstars Leo Laporte and Tom Merrit. This is an hour-long interview covering lots of awesomosity. Leo and Tom ask me about the state of publishing, why my fan base is so important, and why I continue to give away content for free. Also? Feast your eyes on the Stache of Døøm™ in full video glory!

Finally, an Occupy Wall Street action with clear goals that makes perfect sense to me. "Bank Transfer Day" is Saturday. People are planning to transfer their money from big, national banks to local credit unions. Great info in this linked story.

This is the fundamental way consumers influence the market -- if you are unhappy with a company, take your business elsewhere. Don't like Netflix's new fees? Cancel your account. Don't like Facebook's privacy policy? Don't use it. Don't like runaway bank fees or the way banks do business? Put your money into another institution.

All the yelling, screaming, sky-is-falling protesting and, yes, even drumming (sorry, you world-changing Drum Circlers) won't have anywhere near the impact of consumers taking their business elsewhere. This isn't blocking a port and stopping hard-working people from getting to their jobs. This isn't a general strike that doesn't impact a specific industry or company. This isn't some millionaire actor making a photo op by protesting the same banking system that pays him to shill their credit cards. This is the free market at work -- vote with your wallet.

Yes, of course, there is often more to it than just not patronizing a company, but the main thing every company needs is customers. Lose enough customers, you lose revenue. Lose enough revenue, and companies make changes to get new customers.

Growing human replacement parts on a donor animal? Why, someone should write a book about that shit ...

Bioengineering to Generate Healthy Skin
ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011) — Scientists at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M -- Carlos III University) are participating in research to study how to make use of the potential for auto regeneration of stem skills from skin, in order to create, in the laboratory, a patient's entire cutaneous surface by means of a combination of biological engineering and tissue engineering techniques.

Skin is a tissue that naturally renews itself throughout our lives thanks to the existence of epidermic stem cells. "We have found that this regenerative potential can be preserved in vitro (in the laboratory) if the cells are joined and become part of generated skin using tissue bioengineering techniques," explains Marcela del Río, of UC3M's Bioengineering. The research group in which she participates, made up of scientists from the UC3M, from CIEMAT (the Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research) and CIBERER (the Center for Biomedical Research in the Rare Disease Network) of the Carlos III Health Institute, has been working with this type of adult stem cells for years, with the objective of using them to regenerate patients' skin.

Click here to read the full story.

A couple of hot events going down in San Francisco during the first week of November. Dare I say sexy steampunk author Gail Carriger? Dare I say Adam Freakin' Savage? On Tuesday, Nov. 1, come listen to me read with those stone pimps. And then Friday, as part of the San Francisco Science Festival, join me at my favorite bookstore Borderlands Books for a scifi throwdown with Brian Mallow and authors Mira Grant and Jeff Carlson.

What: Epic Fail: An evening of stories about ideas, experimentation and when it all goes wrong: 
When: Tuesday, Nov 1, 8:00pm
Where: SF Maritime Museum, 900 Beach Street, San Francisco 
Cost: $15
Bitchin' lineup of guests:
• Your friendly neighborhood FDØ™
• MythBusters host Adam Savage
• New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger
• Physicist and inventor Nicholas Sheridon 
• Machine artisan Kal Spelletich

What: The Science of Science Fiction
When: Friday, Nov 4, 7:00pm
Where: Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia St., San Francisco
Cost: Free! (What? Uh-what? That's right, bitches, free!)
Bitchin' lineup of guests:
• Your friendly neighborhood FDØ™
• Moderator Brian Malow
• Mira Grant
• Jeff Carlson

UPDATE 10/14/11: Junkies, what started out as a single copy of EARTHCORE pitched in for a good cause has grown to a serious heapin' helpin' of prizes. This is all to benefit Emma Hoolin, a very sick little girl who is a member of Wolfie's family (that's Coach Roark of Wabash Wolfpack fame). Emma's family is trying to raise money to send her to America for treatment. You can see the details of Emma's condition at the donation link below. Donation deadline is November 2, 2012.

1. Use the link to Guestford Junkie's team page (http://www.justgiving.com/AllforEmmaHoolin) to donate. Only donations through her team will count.

2. Be sure to put your Junkie name in the notes with your donation. That will help The Harveys (the family running this auction) determine who wins.

Look at this updated list of prizes. Some fantastic authors (and fantastic people) have pitched in some goodies, enough to make three prize packages. 

The highest donor will receive the Grand Prize, the second highest donor will get to chose between Runner up prize #1 and Runner up prize #2. The third highest donor will receive the remaining prize package. If we happen to have any ties, we will give the prizes in the order that the donations were received. These are all great prizes for a really good cause. Lets give Emma all the Junkie love we can.

Grand Prize:
1. Earthcore (original paperback) - signed by Scott Sigler
2. Fiends (trade paperback) - signed and personalized by Paul E. Cooley
3. Infected (galley proof)
4. A TBD book by Nathan Lowell
5. A reproduction of the winner's choice of a Scott E. Pond photo or graphic design (up to 5 hours)

Runner-up Prize #1:
1. Contagious (hardback) - signed by Scott Sigler
2. The Dreamer's Thread - signed by Starla Huchton
3. Earthcore (original paperback)
4. A 5-page, personal blog site created for you by Guestford_Junkie

Runner-up Prize #2:
1. Phoenix Rizing - signed by Tee Morris and Philippa Ballentine
2. Quarter Share (hardback) - signed by Nathan Lowell
3. Ancestor (original paperback)
4. Dark Øverlord Media thumb drive

Our boys at BackMyBook were invited to guest-blog by Jane Friedman, noted publishing and media exec, blogger, indie author activist and professor at the University of Cincinatti. There's some good info in here for all-y'all aspiring writers. Click and read!

3 Keys to Sustainable & Successful Indie Authorship

If you're in the Bay Area, come one, come all, to the Variety Preview Room at 582 Market Street for a free, five-author event called "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: Science Fiction in a Real World." Five authors who use real science in their horror and modern-day scifi. Andrew Dugas, Nick Mamatas , Michael Meloan, Steven Meloan and I bust out the spooky science goodness, live and free.

I'll be reading some bits from ANCESTOR, so come on out and say "hey."

This is part of San Francisco's fantastic LitQuake event. If you're in the area, you should check it out. It's literary and stuff.

There are several new uniforms in college football that are just flat-out awesome. We're talking a major break from traditional approaches. Maryland (in the video above), Georgia, Boise State, Arizona, and, of course, Oregon, have some flashy looks.

Could it be that the wild uniforms of the GFL are inspiring designers at Nike and UnderArmour?

Case in point: here is the description of the Grontak Hydras uniforms, taken from THE ROOKIE (podcast in 2007):
"The Hydras were 0-1, but drastically better than the Woo Wallcrawlers. The Hydras wore white jerseys with bright red numbers and yellow trim. The jerseys looked normal, but their leg armor was painted a bizarre red-and-yellow checkerboard pattern."

Check out this slideshow from the New York Times that shows new uniforms of nine teams. And, here's a related article from the Times that talks about this trend. 

When I wrote about the uniforms of the GFL, I thought far-future teams would stray from the boring, predictable styles we've had for decades. I didn't know the change would come this fast, however, and I am enjoying it.