For Science! For Whimsy! And mostly for my friend Jay.
I count the inimitable Jay Lake as a friend, and I'm honored to count him as a peer. He gave me my best cover-quote ever, and he has fought cancer so many times he's been having himself tattooed to keep track.To keep SCORE.
Well, this time around he needs some help. Enter some of my other friends, Mary and Catherine, who have set up a fund-raiser to help Jay get his genome sequenced. The treatment is pricey, it's not covered by insurance, and it might just offer his doctors the information they need to let Jay beat cancer again. Because he needs another tattoo.
Your rewards for participating? Have a look! They include, however, Mary Robinette Kowal doing a reading in her notoriously wicked, infamously hilarious, and not-very-accidentally stimulating 1-900 voice. That reward, as of this writing, has already been unlocked.
But the big reward for you is science. If this treatment works, we have another data-point in the fight against cancer, and maybe another nail in its eventual coffin. Another reward? A healthy Jay Lake will write more books like these.
The big reward for me is that I get to keep my friend. It's not a sure thing, but it's what I'm in for, future novels and oh-so-tantalizing readings notwithstanding.