And now for our fabulous Fat Cat giveaway!

I'm happy to announce the beginning of yet another book giveaway here at LRG,especially for such a great book as Robin Brande's second novel for teens,Fat Cat. Not only will this be one of the longest contests ever held at this blog,it will have five winners who will receive a specially made bonus with their book.

Before I get into that,let me tell you about this wonderful book. It's the story of Kat Locke,a brilliant high school student who has personal as well as intellectual motivation to come up with a topic for her AP science project that will not only win the annual science fair but show her former friend and imagined enemy Matt McKinney that she can beat him at his own game.

Kat's experiment uses her as the guinea pig for a radical lifestyle change;she takes on the habits of hominads(cave people,in layman's terms)by giving up such things as make up, TV and junk food and limiting her use of modern technology(computers,cell phones,riding around in cars).

All of the exercise from walking everywhere and eating more of a vegetarian menu causes her to lose some extra weight and make Kat more attractive to guys,which launches another experiment that may lead to some interesting revelations about her and Matt and what really happened that caused the break between them.



Another positive result of Kat's experiment is her taking up old interests that she abandoned after the situation with Matt like cooking. Kat becomes a pretty great chef,so much so that she's recruited by her best friend(and budding poet)Amanda to take over the kitchen at the Karmic Cafe,a vegan restaurant with the good taste to hold open mike nights for local poets but bad tasting dishes.

As part of your Fat Cat prize package,you will get a "Karmic Cafe" T shirt along with your signed copy of the book(winners will be asked to provide their shirt sizes upon e-mail notification of their prize). Hopefully,the photo on the right hand side here gives you a good idea of what the shirt looks like(it's my own Karmic Cafe shirt which I'm wearing right now).



The Fat Cat Giveaway starts today and ends on October 6,with this contest being open to both U.S. and Canadian residents. All you have to do to enter is just leave a comment at this post,naming your favorite fictional scientist. Since science plays an important part in Robin's work,I thought that it would be the most fitting theme.

"Uh,Lady T,that's kind of hard,isn't it?" Not really,folks. Turns out there are scientists all around us in pop culture land,both heroes and villains alike. They're not just in sci-fi books or film(which you can chose from,of course)but in other ends of the entertainment spectrum.




For example,most of the crime fighting shows these days have a team of crack experts ready to use chemical analysis and technical details to catch the bad guys. One of the best is Bones,based on Kathy Reich's series of mystery novels featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance "Bones" Brennan.

Dr. Brennan(played by Emily Deschanel)and her super smart staff work with FBI agent Booth(David Boreanaz)to solve unusual murders but it's the connection between Booth and Brennan that makes their professional(and potentially personal)partnership work:



Another odd couple pairing on the crime scene is the brother act in Numb3rs,where Special FBI agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow)often relies upon the off the wall but accurate insights of his genius mathematician sibling Charlie(David Krumholtz)in hunting down potential threats to society:



If you look to silver screen,there are plenty of savvy scientists to choose from such as Contact,where Jodie Foster's determined astronomer puts herself on the line to make possible mankind's first contact with extraterrestrial life:



Scientists have a sense of humor,too as 1985's Real Genius shows,with it's amusing arrogant Chris Knight,who never fails to make a memorable,if not always appropriate impression on others:



My favorites,I must admit,are the villains,those builders of death rays and manipulators of biology who scheme to rule the world or at least a part of it. Tops on my list is Dr. Pretorius from The Bride of Frankenstein. Played by the delightfully wicked Ernest Thesiger,this charmingly ruthless mentor is one of the best elements of the film and my only weakness when watching it again and again:



All right then,let's get this party started,shall we? I look forward to seeing your picks for favorite fictional scientists(yes, Dr. Horrible counts)and to announcing our five fabulous winners as well. Good luck to one and all and hopefully this contest gives you something to celebrate,one way or another: