1) Author Jim Hines matches the poses of women on urban fantasy covers.
2) Read this fantastic metafilter comment about libraries.
3) Twelve Creative Business Cards
4) The setting of Word of Warcraft recreated in Minecraft.
5) Comics need fewer creators and more owners.
6) How Pilot Season ensures that the right actors aren’t cast in the right TV show. Via
So much ado, in fact, that Forbes Magazine even did a piece on the new “crowd-sourced” rule set.
Me, I was disappointed that this was the big news. For a long time now, I’ve been waiting to hear that Wizards would work out a licensing deal with Lego to create a Dungeons and Dragons line of figures, with swappable accessories and armor. Hell, they already have many of the humanoid creatures. How hard could it be to create a few Yuan-Ti, amirite? And everyone would buy a Lego beholder, just because.
I mentioned this to my son, and he immediately began to put together a tableau. Here are some high-level heroes taking on a red dragon and its minions.
Skeleton kebob!
1) 20 Amazingly Weird Pieces of Classic Video Game Box Art.
2) AZ school officials ban “ethnic studies.” No racism here, folks, just move along.
3) What a comic script is for, by Warren Ellis
4) Cop or Soldier? I could only get 12 out of 21. Can you do better?
5) Meljean Brooks’s Diary of an Author Reader, I LOLed.
6) A comic script, from conception to finished product.
7) A funny video about breast cancer self examinations. No, really. Also features hot dudes with their shirts off. Video. Via +Kat Richardson
1) For folks who are still waiting for the Twenty Palace prequel, I have already self-published a number of short stories and novellas. None of them are in the 20P universe, but one is a historical fantasy set near Seattle in 1879, and the rest are second world fantasies. Some have never been published anywhere else: Kindle | Nook
2) Note for folks who visit that B&N page: I’m not the photographer, and I’ve never published scraped text through Hephaestus Books
3) Today is my tenth anniversary. The traditional gift is an ebook, right?
4) Last night we had our anniversary dinner. We ate steaks from Don and Joe’s, roast beets, green beans, and fingerling potatoes, a fancy cheese that I lost the label for and can’t ID right now, a delicious tiny lemon cheesecake from The Confectional, and a bottle of Beringer Cab from 1997 that we bought for our wedding. Thumbs up to all of it.
5) My son read a D&D comic and now wants to play the game. Do I have time to run a fantasy campaign? Shit to the no.
Skyrim releases today, of course, and I was really taken by this article about it: Things I Ate In Skyrim.
See, I buy games used and play them after they’ve been out a while. I never go online, preferring single-player exploration of the world. I always play on easy.
There have been times when I tried online games, usually through my buddy Jim’s account. He’s tried to get me hooked on Dark Age of Camelot (has it really been ten years?) and City of Heroes. The latter almost worked, but luckily my home life is antithetical to online gaming; if it wasn’t I’d never do anything else.
I’m not exactly Mr. Moderation here.
But I sometimes buy used games and put them in. Recently I played LEGENDARY, which was an amazingly stupid game. I bought because “Call of Duty with monsters instead of Nazis” but yikes.
Lately I’ve been playing FABLES: THE LOST CHAPTERS (I think that’s the title, anyway). It’s sort of interesting and sort of dull. When I’m not playing it, I want to be. When I am playing it, I keep thinking about how much time I’m wasting. And I’m annoyed at the traders who keep clustering around me while I fight bandits and hobbes, when they should be clearing the fuck out. I’m getting devil points with my area effect attacks, assholes! Back off!
Anyway, I’m mentally comparing the epic fantasy novels I’m reading with the “story” in the game, and trying to figure out what I can learn from it. Not much, apparently.
Jeez, that book is slow.
Yesterday I sent a short story for an anthology over to the editor. It’s a little long, but maybe it will work for them anyway. At the moment I can’t see what else to cut from it, but in about two weeks I’ll probably think it’s twice what it should be.
Anyway, the story is called “Don’t Chew Your Food” and as I mentioned before it’s set in the world of Don’t Rest Your Head an indie horror rpg by the folks at Evil Hat. If you play with character sheets and dice, you should check out their site. My story is about a celebrity chef and… well… eating. Can you tell I’m reducing, as they used to say?
I was also paid for a short story I wrote for a different anthology, although I’m not sure if it’s meant to be talked about in public. It’s a shared world anthology with a growing background, and my story is about a mage who specializes in love magic.
Fun! Short fiction, it was nice to hang with you for a while. Don’t be such a stranger, okay?
Today I’m walking across the bridge to work on the new newest book, an epic (hopefully) fantasy with the working title A Blessing of Monsters (aka “Fantasy with gate magic”).
No, it’s not a Twenty Palaces book, but I can’t sit around doing nothing until I hear the official word, right? Must work work work.
Anyway, I’m turning off the internet for a few hours so I can get a long walk in, plus writering. And today I’ll remember my house keys. Happy October.
1) Interview of a One-Year-Old Child. Video. Way funnier than it sounds.
2) Moebius did concept art for the movie WILLOW. Check out the art design that could have been.
3) Astonishing bike stunts in abandoned industrial facility. Video. Music’s nice, too.
5) Everything you need to know about the video game industry in one graphic.
6) The 10 Most Brutal Moments in ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’!
Card Kingdom. It’s a new board/card game store in Ballard, and I didn’t even realize they were opening. It’s big, with lots of space, and not only do they have Pokemon tournament events that my son can take part in, they have an attached coffee shop where I can do some writing while he turns his toxicroak loose (or whatever).
Cool place, which a big family game section. I foresee many trips in my future.
Thank you, you beautiful fucking geniuses. Honestly, Dominion is a blast, and my board-game-loving wife was pleased as hell when we played it. She was a little uncertain when she unwrapped it, but it took no time at all for us to be having a blast.
Thanks for helping to make her birthday extra awesome.
