August 2014 Book Club: The Mothman Prophecies + Shin Megami Tensei IV Giveaway

August 2014 Book Club: The Mothman Prophecies

If you’re not familiar with our book club posts, please read the explanation here. To summarize, each month I will select a book for the community to read in order to broaden horizons and foster inspiration and creativity. We do this in the hopes that expanding the Creepypasta writing community’s frame of reference when it comes to all the creepy, paranormal, exciting, and just plain weird stuff in the world will result in less of the Mad Lips-esque copypasta submissions and more new, fresh stories for everyone to enjoy.

This month’s selection is The Mothman Prophecies, by the late and beloved John A. Keel.

First off: this book was turned into a relatively successful movie starring Laura Linney and Richard Gere. It’s actually pretty enjoyable and, if you haven’t yet seen it, I do recommend giving it a shot. However, please don’t use it as a replacement for reading the book – the storyline in the movie is A) only loosely based on the book and B) only features a very small part of the much larger narrative in the book. The book touches on related events, Men in Black (Keel is actually the one who named the concept of MiBs as such!), a much larger focus on the fascinating “Indrid Cold” entity, other cryptids, and much more that clearly could not have fit in a simple feature film.

Disclaimer: It should be said that these books were chosen with mature readers in mind. If you are under 18, please do check with your parent/legal guardian before reading these books. I’d really prefer to avoid a pitchfork-mob of angry parents who find this topic inappropriate for their kids. I’d also like to say that the opinions expressed in the books are, of course, the opinions of their authors and the people profiled only – I’m not advocating or co-signing any of the groups covered in these books.

So how does this work?

THIS POST is your book club. The comments here are where you should air out all your thoughts and ideas that spawn from reading the suggested books. There’s no requirement for how fast you progress through the book, or even if you finish it at all, so please feel free to jump in and discuss the book whenever you’d like.

This book is “nonfiction” so many things can be discussed without fear of spoilers (after all, the main story arc does cover something that truly happened and it’s a big strange to consider history as a spoiler), however – feel free to use spoiler warnings in your comments if you feel like you’re about to bring up a certain twist or turn of the book that might come as a shock to someone who just started reading.

As before, since the winner has been contacted and payout is in process, the raffle is going under a cut.

Shin Megami Tensei IV Giveaway

Just like last month, I’m also running a related giveaway! Now, in order to make this giveaway available to people outside the US without driving myself nuts dealing with international shipping, this raffle will require one very specific entry. Please make sure that you read and follow through with this rule, as if the RNG selects you and you’ve not provided the necessary info, you’ll simply be disqualified.

This month’s prize is one new copy of Shin Megami Tensei IV.

Those of you familiar with the series can probably figure out why this ties in with a cryptozoology book, but for the newbies to the series (like myself), here’s a very, very basic explanation: the SMT series is basically the proto-Pokemon, but with mythological/legendary creatures like our friend the Mothman in the place of Pikachu and his ilk.

Here is a subbed version of the game’s trailer, with thanks to bobrossfreak. I am giving away the English version of the game.

[fvplayer src=”http://youtube.com/watch?v=50wulf9wLAs?version=3″]

Rules & Instructions

In order to enter this contest, you will need to create an Amazon Wishlist and add this specific product listing for Shin Megami Tensei IV to your list. It doesn’t have to be a new list, you can add it to your current wishlist if you’ve already got one. You just need to ensure that it is public – you can do this by clicking “manage your lists” and changing the selected wishlist to “public” via the window that pops up. Additionally, you MUST add a valid shipping address to this wishlist, otherwise you won’t be able to receive the game if you win!

Once you’ve done this, you can select any of the “share” functions to get a direct link to your Amazon wishlist. This link is what you MUST place into the Wishlist field when you enter the raffle – if you don’t give me that link, well, I can’t find your wishlist, now can I?

I will purchase the game for the winner using their Amazon Wishlist – this way you can receive the game without having to give out your personal address (it will be visible to Amazon, but not to me) and Amazon will deal with shipping rates/customs if the winner is international. Obviously, you must first ensure that you live somewhere that Amazon ships to and that this game is not banned or restricted in your country. Any region locks should also be kept in mind; please don’t enter for a game that you can’t play due to not having the correct console!

This contest is open to anyone as long as it’s legal to enter such a giveaway in your country (if you have doubts, please look this up before entering) and you are 18 years of age or older, as this game is rated Mature.

I will choose a winner and contact them within 48 hours of the raffle’s end. Since I don’t want to send the code to an invalid or typoed email address, I will need the winner to reply back and confirm their email address before I send the code. If I don’t receive a response within 48 hours of my email, that person will have forfeited their prize and I will select a new winner. So if you enter, please make sure you give a correct email address and whitelist “Creepypasta” in your spam filter.

You can enter via the widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck, everyone!