It’s Like There’s A Checkbox or Something
More, please! Late the other night, I got sucked into a click-bait listicle about sci-fi shows that need a reboot. Never a good idea. You just know going in that it’ll be the same list you’ve seen a dozen times – Blake’s 7, Space:1999, Lost in Space – fine shows...
Coming Soon: Wyrm’s Bane
The second novella in the Five Dragon’s series should be hitting Amazon with the next few days. This one features an unlikely dragon slayer – Corbie, a mere slip of a girl who survived a childhood on the streets of a city ruled by vicious and conniving sorcerers. Her...
Pulp Romance
My last post touched on the deft touch Manly Wade Wellman used when writing romance in Who Fears the Devil. Today, I’d like to talk about it in a little more depth. First, let’s introduce the contenders. In the pink slime corner, the massively popular Magic Girl genre which features...
More on Manly Wade Wellman
Apparently I spoke too soon on the whole, “Who Fears the Devil” thing. Having finished the book, it’s far more than just a string of creepy Appalachian monster tales. For one thing, the book builds as it rolls along. Every few tales John Silverstrings gets a little more detail...
The Pulp Archivist
I shouldn’t be telling you this. It feels a bit like a magician giving away his secrets. Most of what I write here is a response to or inspired by other bloggers. If you start reading those bloggers, you might have less use for me. If that’s so, so be...
Who Fears the Devil
Caught up in too much work, too much writing, too much pulp revolutioning, too much wargaming, and too much fathering, what’s a man to do? Combine them as much as possible. I wargame with my teen son and tween daughter. (If you stretch the definition a bit, I even...
Chasing Rainbow Colored Unicorns
Visual representation of the perfect mediathat won’t be attacked by anyone If you write it, they will come. If they weren’t so vile, you might be able to actually feel some pity for the six major media companies. It’s easy to bang on major media production companies like Marvel,...
Rattenkrieg: Assault on the Tractor Factory
Through his excellent wargame podcast, Wargames To Go, Mark Johnson introduced me to the concept of postcard wargames. These are mini-microgames that make One Page Bulge look like Fortress Europa, but don’t let that fool you. They might not fill a table or a weekend, but the right mix of...
Most Writing Advice Sucks
The original purpose of this blog was to catalog a journey from the cubical farm to the easy life of a career writer. It seemed like a legitimate purpose for a blog, a way to take constant stock of my writing progress, and maybe give a little something back...
The Shallows: A Female Protagonist Done Right
The Seagull does not talk about movies very often. For the most part, he only looks at Hollywood through the rearview mirror. They clearly don’t like me. They’ve made that fact abundantly clear over the last few years. They might want my money or attention, but until they stop berating...