This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Hello everybody,
Stuff I’m Working On
It’s been a productive few weeks here in the armpit of the Midwest. Here’s what’s been happening:
The Red Witch of Chapel d’Angoisse is now available as a print book in softcover and hardcover.
The Kickstarter page for My Name Is Hood is ready to go. You can click the “Notify Me” button to get a notification when the campaign starts in a couple weeks. Clicking “Notify Me” also ads to the visible count of people interested. Since RPG Kickstarter seems to operate mostly on FOMO, I’d appreciate a click even if you don’t need to notification.
I’ve also gotten a good start on writing My Name Is Hood. The game will use a light version of the QAGS 3E rules and I’ve mostly finished the pared-down version of the character creation rules. I’ve also written a little about Nottingham County, have a rough outline, and have a bunch of Dumb Tables partially written.
I finished the new City of Ten Thousand Daggers map and it’s live on World Anvil now. Click the white square in the upper right corner to toggle different views and turn groups of marker icons on and off.
Since the map turned out so well, I decided to submit it and some other articles to the World Anvil Worldbuilding Awards. There’s a voting element to the competition, so expect to hear more once voting is live.
Stuff I’m Reading
The Asylum of Dr. Caligari by James Morrow: An art therapist, some asylum inmates, and former somnambulist Cesare attempt to stop Dr. Caligari’s attempt to use a magical painting to inspire bloodlust in WWI soldiers. Not one of my favorites by Morrow, but it’s enjoyable and fairly short.
The City Inside by Samit Basu: My standard complaint about William Gibson is that he routinely comes up with really interesting futuristic ideas that would completely change the world, then uses them as a MacGuffins in fairly formulaic action novels. I’m beginning to suspect the problem might be something that affects the whole cyberpunk novel. The City Inside suggests a world of hellish surveillance capitalism, but unless there’s a big shift in the last 80 pages, none of that’s really explored. Instead, you get a low-key girl boss story about a future Youtube star’s manager. It’s not bad, but I’d much prefer to see the stuff that’s only hinted at.
Stuff I’m Watching
While I was working on the C10KD map, I watched movies I’d already seen in the background, so I’m going to keep the reviews very brief:
A Scanner Darkly: I remember not liking the animation the first time, and it has not improved with age.
Marlowe: You’d think movie where Liam Neeson as Philip Marlowe would be hard to screw up, but this is very boring and generally not great.
Mystery Men: As those of you who’ve read All-Stars already know, I love this movie.
Hot Tub Time Machine (1 & 2): Just dumb fun.
The Fall Guy: It was fine, but Gosling is no Lee Majors.
Hellbitch: Kind of slow but weird. I probably need to watch it again before I can decide if it’s good weird or bad weird.
Drive Angry: Sometimes you just need a movie that lets you know when cool things happen with a guitar riff.
Green Room: A punk band stumbles across a murder in a neo-Nazi club and gets held hostage while the bad guys (led by Patrick Stewart) plot to kill and frame them. I enjoyed it, but there is a bit of gore if you’re not into that kind of thing.
TV Shows
Eureka: Way back before streaming when I watched whatever shows the library had on DVD, I watched a couple of seasons of Warehouse 23 and there was a Eureka crossover. It’s been on my “to watch” list ever since, but I could never find the first season on streaming. The whole show was on Prime, so I watched it and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Plus it’s got Felicia Day and Will Wheaton—so it’s just a Jim Beaver away from a nerd show trifecta—and the first season has Matt Frewer as a gonzo Australian cryptozoologist.
Paper Girls: Four 1980s paper girls get caught up in a time war. I enjoyed it, but it’s only 8 episodes and the 2nd season never got made. There’s at least a season ending, but it’s clear it wasn’t supposed to be a series ending.
Man on the Inside: This isn’t the kind of show I’d normally watch unless someone recommended it, but I heard that some of the people who made The Good Place were involved so I gave it a try. Danson’s great and backed up with a cast full of people you recognize even if you don’t know the actor’s name.
Discussion Question: Is the waitress from Always Sunny the Felicia Day of non-nerd comedies?
That’s enough for now. Click the links, buy the stuff, support the Kickstarter. See you soon.
TYTYVM,
Steve
©2024, Steve Johnson