When I was a kid, the UPS man meant one thing—comic books. My grandmother would wake at the crack of dawn and descend on garage sales like Ghengis Khan pillaging the Khwarezmid Empire. She’d strong-arm some poor fool into parting with them for pennies. Then she’d send ‘em my way. I loved getting those packages so much that if my mom had suggested I go as the UPS man for Halloween, I’d have happily obliged.

Now the UPS man brings me marked-up manuscripts, checks in big fancy business envelopes, and occasionally books. (Not mine…soon).

This week the Man in Brown brought me an Advance Reading Copy of Andrew Davidson’s, The Gargoyle. Don’t know if you heard about it last year but The Gargoyle made headlines when Davidson’s agent turned down a $1,000,000 preempt offer––because as Doctor Evil learned, one meeeelion dolarrrs just doesn’t go as far as it used to.

Davidson’s agent was revived with smelling salts shortly afterwards and negotiated a deal for $1.2 million, not counting foreign rights, movie rights, etc. Needless to say, it was big deal for a debut novelist, from Manitoba no less. (If you don’t know where Manitoba is, you go to the end of nowhere, turn left and it’s on your right. Can’t miss it. I’m joking. Put the hockey stick down, eh! I live in the hinterlands of Montana for Pete’s sake).

Anyway, since I've been given a free copy of a book that sold for a million dollars, I feel somewhat compelled to read it—the curiosity factor alone will drive sales. Kind of like the movie, Waterworld, now that I think of it.

So far I’ve read up to around the $300,000 mark and it's pretty darn good...