1) Become a Jedi in 10 easy steps.
2) The Magic of a Good Manuscript Title.
3) The Great Gatsby, as an NES video game.
4) Stonehenge directions via IKEA.
5) Some of you guys like Firefly, right?
6) “Bread Goes In, Toast Comes Out” The Bill O’Reilly meme.
7) This is an important one: Is your favorite Borders closing? Check this list for a nearby indie alternative. via Genreville.
So! Chad Underkoffler read my books, liked them and contacted me through Twitter to ask if I wanted a free copy of an rpg he designed: Truth & Justice.
Now, while I am usually too uncomfortable to accept free things from people, this is a superhero game we were talking about, so I bucked up, said “Yes,” and dl’ed my copy.
I should mention that I used to game all the time. Back in Philly and when I lived in L.A., I gamed pretty much once a week, like any self-respecting gamer. Personally, I like horror and superhero games, but maybe you already guessed that about me.
In Seattle, not so much. My wife is not interested in gaming at all and I just didn’t have the time to find/make friends to create a new group. (I still don’t, really). But that’s why we have kids.
My son, looking over my shoulder as I downloaded the files, started to become a tad excited. We had tried gaming once before: When he was about…6? 7? and really into Scooby Doo, I designed a kid-friendly Chill adventure for him. It was basically a haunted house without a lot of actual danger.
He loved it. His favorite part was at the end, where I showed him the drawn-out house with the key numbers written inside, and the second page with the description of each room. He looked up at me with eyes as big as golf balls, and he said the 11 words I’d been dreading: “Dad, now I’m going to make up an adventure for YOU!”
What followed was two and a half hours of the most random, incomprehensible adventure I’ve ever played. Continue reading
You know how you are stuck on something, so you sit down to blog about it, and in the process of complaining that you can’t figure something out, it suddenly comes to you in a blinding revelation?
That’s me.
Several folks have righteously mocked the post at serial liar Andrew Breitbart’s website “Big Hollywood”. It was written by one Leo Grin and here’s the link, with a “rel=nofollow” tag added: The Bankrupt Nihilism of Our Fallen Fantasists.
Omnivoracious responds sensibly and links to several other comments, (also: Nick Mamatas) so there isn’t much for me to add. Still, I want to do a little examination of the original post:
Here’s a list of the authors Grin mentions in his post:
J.R.R. Tolkien
Robert E. Howard
Robert Jordan
Joe Abercrombie
Matthew Woodring Stover
Steven Erikson
Michael Swanwick
Robert Bloch
Hmm. I wonder if something is missing from that list. Hmm. Something about the fantasy that’s been written in the last century. Hmmmmm.
Nope! Not seeing anything!
In all seriousness, someone should aim Grin at Holly (“I riff on the idiocy of the global warming theory” “… I dare you to find a white male on Sesame Street now that anyone could point to as a role model for a son.“) Lisle’s work. Of course, he’d probably have to put on a dress before he read it.
My new post is up at Antipope: It’s about the (just passed) 80th anniversary of the premiere of Legosi’s Dracula. Did you know that Universal made a second Spanish language version of that movie at the same time as the Legosi version? English-speaking actors did their scenes during the day and Spanish-speaking actors used the same sets at night.
I compare them and discuss revision. Check it out, if you want.
Borders has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I didn’t realize they’d been working with lawyers to restructure their debt since 2009, but that makes sense–they were already having troubles when we went into the economic downturn. I’m not sure if this story about the lawyer they hired to handle their bankruptcy should be alarming or not. Is it cronyism allowing the new CEO to enrich his friends or is Borders engaging someone well-versed in the tactics of the creditor’s side?
In any event, Borders is likely to survive and I’d be surprised if my favorite store in downtown Seattle will be closed. They’re pretty busy there and have a great location.
And it’s too bad. As I mentioned before, Borders used to be a great store. Their revolutionary inventory system kept books on the shelves in ways other stores couldn’t, and you had to take a lit test to work there. Of course, other companies have leapfrogged their inventory software and I’m not sure their recent CEOs could have passed their literature tests; they sure didn’t seem to know how to sell books.
I’m glad they won’t be going away completely, but I can’t imagine how they’ll catch up.
Update: via Matt Staggs on Twitter, a document purporting to list the stores that Borders will close.
Charles Stross asked me to guest blog on his site while he is traveling across the Atlantic to attend Boskone and accomplish various other things. (True fact: the first time I heard about it, as in: “How was your weekend? I heard Boskone was great!” I assumed it was some kind of pastry).
Anyway, my first post is live over there. It’s an expanded discussion of low and high thrillers. Check it out.
1) What it costs for a best-selling ebook.
2) Screwed-up versions of the Star Spangled Banner down the years.
3) The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator. Just click “Generate New Bestseller.”
4) The Rocky Horror Batman Show. Heh.
5) You know what party cat likes? Parties.
Last night (date night!) I ate the David Lynch movie of cheeses. It didn’t taste good, not at all, but there were so many flavors going on and they were so complex that I was fascinated. I mean, yeah, chief among those flavors was Old Feet and French Armpit, but there were others, too, and I kept picking up new one. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but it was compelling enough that I ate my full share.
Don’t ask what it was, though. There were no labels, and even if there were (and they came in the shape of the cheese’s country of origin, with little pictures of the dairy animal the milk came from and phonetic spellings of the name) I still wouldn’t remember the name.
The rest of date night was terrific–my wife and I wandered around our neighborhood shops–sampling wine at one place (and buying a nice bottle of port), sampling desserts at another, browsing the little local bookstore. Fun.
And even before that, I had a full day of work on the Project I Can Not Yet Discuss. (Everyone has a Sekrit Project–I want something of my own) Today will be more of the same. Lots of revisions to handle and I’m already getting a late start.
Mac Freedom… Engage!
“My fellow citizens. In this difficult time that the country is going through, President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak has decided to relieve himself of his position as president and the Supreme military council has taken control of the state’s affairs. May God protect us.” — Omar Suleiman
The Egyptian people have managed a (mostly) peaceful revolution. The path ahead will be difficult for them, but this is a moment for celebration. Good luck.