between the rock and the cold, cold sea

I'm giving a paper at Swords, Sorcery, Sandals and Space: A Science Fiction Foundation Conference, Liverpool, 29 June- 1 July 2013. My paper's on the reception of Minoan civilisation in science fiction. I had a fun time writing it, and putting together the slideshow. I think it's an interesting paper - even if it is rather tangentially related to my thesis.

I applied for my university's postgraduate travel funding to help with the 600 euro it's going to cost me to go, stay, eat enough to stay on track, and get back. Yesterday, I got a message from the travel fund administrators: they're giving me one hundred euro.

I can't afford to go.

This isn't hyperbole. My mother's been on sickleave for a year, first with a broken bone, then with surgery to remove precancerous tissue. She's going be on sickleave for another three months at least. We share household finances, and it's a damn good thing I was awarded a scholarship last year, otherwise we'd have hit rock bottom already. As it is, my scholarship will have to cover the mortgage this summer. Unless a miracle happens. We are waiting on a miracle.

(How, you might ask, could I afford to go to Greece? Simple. In the end, I couldn't. That's why I'm home two weeks before I'd planned to be. Rebooking my flights cleaned out my reserves, but staying would have overrun them entirely.)

If the travel fund had awarded me 300 euro, I'd be able to attend secure in the knowledge that the month of July wouldn't involve a diet of beans and an embarrassing inability to leave the house. (Two hundred euro! A lot of money when you haven't got it...)

So, it's come to this. After talking it over with some friends, I'm swallowing my pride and appealing for donations. If you can spare a few pence to forward academic intercourse, I'm asking.

The done thing is to follow the Kickstarter model and offer rewards. So here goes.

REWARDS.

If donations reach E50.00, I will write a 500-word review of a book chosen by the person who donated most.

If donations reach E100.00, I'll write a 500-word review of Lucian's True History as though it were an SFF novel written this century.

If donations reach E150.00, I'll write a 500-word review of G.W. Bowerstock's The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars On The Eve Of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2013).

If donations reach E200.00, I'll write a 750-word review of Mary Renault's The King Must Die.

STRETCH REWARDS

If donations exceed E250.00, I'll write up every session I attend at the conference.

If donations exceed E350.00, I'll review with as much detail as possible Paul Roberts' Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Oxford University Press, 2013).

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Thank you.

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UPDATE 1200 June 14.

Your generosity has humbled and overwhelmed me. The cost of attending the conference has been more than covered: I will write proper thanks as soon as I am able, and follow up when I am slightly less gobsmacked, humbled, and overwhelmed.

Yesterday's exam went about as expected. To whit, unpleasantly. Today, I was supposed to go read books in the library, but I had a bit of an avoidance episode. I went to the bookshop, bought Laura Anne Gilman's Curse the Dark and spent the day reading that instead.

My climbing date cancelled, I have overcaffeinated my stomach into queasiness, and my social anxiety seems to be back again. Ah, exam season. You remind me so much of why I much prefer essays, and the whole rest of the year.

Tomorrow, if I'm a Good Student, I'll go into the library and read Real Books. And then make for the gym to try to get rid of some of this pus and bile.

If I fail Virtue, well. It's a bank holiday weekend, so I'd better not fail virtue. Library won't open again until 9 AM Tuesday.

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I'm not reading any more of Shadow Unit: Refining Fire until Sunday. My stomach doesn't need more stress, and I need my sleep too much.

Yeah, that situation? Contributed a little too much to my exam stress dreams and queasy illness.

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I'm going to be away for the summer blockbuster season in books. I've ordered them from Amazon, but. They won't arrive until I'm back.

So help me, my friends, I'm going to be out of range of an English-language bookshop for eight weeks. But I'm bringing the laptop. So tell me, where do I go to get free ebooks these days? Because I'm signed up to Tor, I've visited Cory Doctorow's website, and (thank heavens, I think) I've mostly grown out of enjoying the stuff Baen produces.

Help?