For this month, we will run the give -a- ways a little differently than before. We still want you to participate in the rest of the discussion forum, but to win the give-a-ways, you have to post here.

First let me tell you what the prizes are...

TWO GRAND PRIZES - (none of the prizes are autographed) **edited... I guess I cannot count...Should have looked more closely in the box.**

One copy of Fire

One poster for Fire



One set of Fire Audiobooks



One Fire/Graceling Bookmark



FIVE RUNNER UP PRIZES -
One Fire poster
One Set of Fire Audiobooks
One Fire/Graceling Bookmark

THIS CONTEST ENDS ON November 15th at midnight pacific time.
GAME ON!

ps... As much as I would like to give these away for free, I am going to have to ask the winners to pay for shipping. Using media mail, the estimated shipping costs would be around $5-6.


SO HERE IS HOW TO WIN....

This time in order to win a prize, you must post reply to the following prompt in THIS discussion thread....

In the story Graceling, the characters are graced with a certain talent or skill. We want to know what would YOU consider to be the ULTIMATE grace? In other words, if you could be graced with any skill or talent, what would it be? IN ADDITION to that, we want to know what you think would be the WORST grace?

Tell what the ultimate and worst grace would be AND tell why. The three "best" responses will win the "grand prizes". And four other winners will win the runner up prizes. The BOTM mods will be the ultimate judge of who wins.

I think the best Grace would be a toss up between being Graced in the art of survivial and the art of healing. to be greaced at survival is broad enough that encompasses alot of scenarios, from someting as mundane as a cut thats bleeding alot to being able to pull through a serious situation. I think the art of healing would be the Grace I would most want to have though, especially if that grace allowed me to care for both myself and others. To be skilled in healing would mean you could help so many different people in so many different ways.

The grace I would least like would be something mundane and useless. Like to be graced in penmenship. Sure I would be able to write beautiful letters and maybe I could get a job being someones secretary, but I wouldn't be actually, meaningfully helping anyone. Although I suppose awesome penmeship is better then say being graced in clothes washing

The best grace would be survival, IMHO. Obviously it helps you stay alove, but you could also help others, too. The worst thing I could be graced with would be cleaning. I hate doing it and if I was graced, everyone wuld want me to do it for them all the time. Bleck!

I think Po has the best grace. To know how the world revolves around you would be very cool and it gives you the upper hand in many situations. As it relates to the books, the fact that Po's mother and grandfather kept his true grace from his father shows how powerful it really is.

The worst grace would be the one the bearer couldnt or wouldnt control. A grace is only as good or bad as the bearer makes it. If they choose not to take control of the "power" given to them it can become VERY dangerous. Leck is a perfect example of this. He doesn't learn control, he allows his grace to take over and create his "moral" path instead of using his morals to create a path with his grace. So I dont think the're a worst grace, it all depends on how the grace is used.

I would think the ultimate grace would be mind reading but I can see how that would be really bad if people new about it and it would also be violating others privacy. I still think it would be a really good grace to have. The other one (and I don't think this is a possible grace) would be flying. How much fun would that be?

The worst grace to me would be not very useful ones like being able to climb a tree the fastest. You would be feared and avoided for having different colored eyes and yet you could only climb trees really fast.

I think that the best grace would be to be able to speak any language in the world. I've always wanted to be able to communicate with anyone I meet, so this would be awesome. You could make people feel at home and be friends with people from all over the world. Plus, it'd be awesome to hear someone talking bad about you in a foreign language and then be able to give them a witty rebuttal as you walk away, smirking.

I think the worst grace would be to always be compelled to tell the truth. You'd just end up hurting people's feelings (Your haircut *is* awful, actually!) And you couldn't tell a joke or use sarcasm or keep a secret. You'd ruin every surprise party you heard about. And then you would have no friends. So that would definitely be the worst grace.

Can I just say that I LOVE Fire and I was so excited to find this forum. I'm eager to hear everyone else's thoughts on the Fire-Brigan-Nash-Archer "love square." I had the same reaction when I read Fire as when I first read Twilight...which was to sigh and flip to the beginning to start again.

~Emily

I think it would be best to be graced with compassion and the ability to spread it to others. Having the ability to feel compassion toward others can be contagious, and I can't think of a better epidemic!

The worst grace would be the ability to read minds or thoughts. Can you imagine how painful it would be to know what everyone is thinking all the time? Ick! When I ask, "does this dress make me look fat?" I know what I want to hear!

Hrmmm...

Best Grace, or at least one I would like to have... is the grace of a good metabolism!!! I do not kid.

Worst grace... reading peoples minds, no thank you.

Have not read this series yet but it sounds so interesting!

The best grace....would be healing. To many I know suffer illnesses both chronic & acute, some have even left this world for the next...I would consider being able to heal those (who wish to be healed of course) the most wonderful gift someone could be blessed with.

The worst grace...to not be worthy of friendship. To be in such a state that you are unlikable, unlovable for your entire life...there for being unable to give to others as no one would be willing to accept anything from you and you would be forced to function alone...to painful to even try to comprehend.

It's hard to imagine a Grace more useful than Katsa's, survival. Nonetheless, I would choose to be graced in music or singing. I've always wished to have musical talent--especially to be able to sing. Music affects people in such profound, emotional ways . . . I would cherish that ability. And then too, maybe my DH wouldn't mind when I sing along with the radio in the car!

As for the worst Grace to have . . . what if your greatest gift was the ability to deceive others? Useful at times, but the temptation to use your ability would be compelling--would you choose to fight against your gift and only use it when absolutely necessary, or embrace it and the moral corruption that such a gift would entail? Or, even worse, with such a Grace maybe you would have no choice at all but to embrace it.

This series looks great - I haven't read either book yet!

So...the ultimate grace...this is really hard. I think the best grace would be the ability to care for others, to love other people. I think the ability to care about and for other people can get a person through so many things, as well as bring joy to their life. It seems like everyone should have it, but unfortunately the world is filled with people who don't seem to have enough of this ability. I will go with the ability to love/care for others as the ultimate grace.

The worst grace, I think, would be the ability to inflict pain. (Can you tell I'm revamping New Moon before the movie and I've gotten to the Volturi?) Hurting others would be awful...what a horrible way to have to go through life. Would you want to use it, or would you try to hide it? I think that would be a terrible "talent" to have.

Thanks for all the fun giveaways lately! :)

How awesome!! I LOVED Graceling!!!

I think the best grace is a toss up between survival or healing. Survival, because no matter what life throws at us, having the survival grace would allow you the confidence and the ability to know you could make it through any situation, which I guess we all kind of have that grace. Healing, because as a mother I never like seeing my children hurt or in pain and I would be able to take that pain or illness away from them quickly.

The worst grace would be mind reading or mind control. I don't think any one would be able to handle that, *coughs, except Edward*

There is still a little time to post your entry for this contest. I will not be able to lock the forum at midnight, but no posts will be counted that are made after midnight pacific time. I will pick winners asap.

So, to repeat, all entries made prior to midnight tonight, pacific time, will count for the drawing. : )

Thanks for playing!

Donna

Hmm -- well purely based on my current life situation, I would love to have the grace or skill of being able to control time! To be able to pause time when I needed more of it - whether it be to get more accomplished at work, or to be able to spend more time with the kids before other obligations get in the way!

The worst grace or skill? I do agree that being able to read everyone's mind would be too much for me to bear, but even worse than that, I think, would be to feel the emotional states or feelings of those around me (a la Jasper). To experience the highs & lows, the joy & the sorrow, but not always knowing exactly what caused the emotions would drive me nuts!

To me, the best grace would be knowledge/premonition. To know if you were making the right choice, how you and others around you would end up and why. Of course you would be able to turn it on and off so you don't ruin awesome surprises or book endings and stuff

The worst would be killing. To have a grace that is only used for something awful would be horrible. Your whole life would have to be based on that. *shudders*