Given recent “ambiguous FTC mutterings”:http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/ad-group-ftc-blog-rules-unfairly-muzzle-online-media.ars, it is probably no bad thing that I make it clear that I receive lots of free copies of forthcoming books (partly because of CT; partly because I help out the Book Salon people at FireDogLake), and that any reviews I do are likely as not of books that I have gotten for nothing. When I first decided to write this post a few days ago, I was going to talk about all the things that I’d like to get for free but don’t, starting with good f/sf books (nearly everything I get is non-fiction) and in particular _Unseen Academicals_, then moving rapidly through ever more preposterous requests for technology (the new Barnes and Noble e-reader looks quite interesting; I would _happily_ review one of the new Macs with the 27 inch screens), and finishing with the frankly unethical/completely implausible – books that didn’t exist but that I promised to review favorably if only the authors in question would get their arses in gear and produce them. I figured that I’d be prepared to trash my integrity for a complete and definitive edition of _Bloom County_, or indeed for an ARC of _A Dance With Dragons_ (my come-on – “George R.R. Martin Is Not My Bitch”:http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html – but _I’ll be his_ if only he gets it finished). But then I saw (via Laura) that “Volume I”:http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/59885/ of the complete _Bloom County_ has just come out _without any inducements whatsoever_ on my part. Can this be taken as a sign from the Fates that the GRRM logjam too is about to break …