The most immediate danger had been dealt with -- now comes some more long-term planning! Chapter 3. "All right," Madeline Fathom said, her voice just slightly amplified by the walls of the common room of Munin. "Now that we're all reasonably safe for the next few days, we need to evaluate the entire situation and come up with a real schedule of action." "Were you able to contact Dr. Glendale, Madeline?" Horst Eberhart asked. "I was. He relayed a quick acknowledgement of our message [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing
January 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment
The Gundam series is one of the longest-running and most successful anime/manga franchises in Japan. Starting with Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979, the Gundam franchise spans multiple television series, OAV series, movies, video games, novels, manga, and virtually any sort of merchandise one can imagine (and probably some you can't). Gundam itself is credited with changing the old "giant robot" genre from stories about a boy with some inexplicable and often personified superweapon to a story of war and politics which happened to feature [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Nero Wolfe
December 28, 2012 By 7 Comments
In a timeless brownstone in New York City, on West 35th Street, there lives a very unusual man. He is moody, arbitrary, arrogant, quite rotund (over 300 pounds) and highly eccentric. He is also the best detective in the world ("Probably not. The best detective in the world may be a rude tribesman with a limited vocabulary.") – all right, one of the finest private detectives in the world… if you can afford him. He's expensive; has to be, as his fees must support his world-class gourmet lifestyle and the upkeep for the brownstone, his [ Continue reading... ]
PORTAL: First Chapter Teaser
December 26, 2012 By 12 Comments
Portal will be coming out in May, 2013. Some time before that, the eARC will become available. Thus, the full-bore snippeting will begin not TOO long from now. I thought I'd give you a first taste! PORTAL By Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor Recovery, N: 1. the act or process of returning to a normal condition, especially from sickness, a shock, or a setback; recuperation 2. restoration to a former or better condition 3. the regaining of something lost 4. the extraction of something useful from materials or a [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Jules Verne
December 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Jules (Gabriel) Verne is a household name throughout the Western world, and a well-known one even outside of it. Versions of his stories have been turned into movies, TV series, video games, anime, and any other form of entertainment imaginable. For me, he was one of the original sources of wonder. I first encountered the work of Jules Verne in a hardcover abridged (probably for children) version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Even the abridged version was fairly heavy going (I think I was [ Continue reading... ]
Musings on Fanfiction Part 2: Fanfiction/Fanworks and Creators
December 12, 2012 By 4 Comments
Prior to becoming an author and interacting with people on Livejournal and some other sites where fanfiction became a major force, I was only aware of "arguments" about fanfiction in a pretty narrow set of senses – whether it fit with canon or not, and whether it was well done, or not. I had really never heard any serious arguments about whether it was right or wrong to do, and the few times I'd heard it I thought these were minority (and very silly minority) opinions. I was … mistaken in that impression. [ Continue reading... ]
Musings on Fanfiction Part 1: My Experiences
December 10, 2012 By 3 Comments
The creations of fans of various media have gained more and more exposure and recognition – both good and bad – over the last several years. It isn't uncommon to see an author or other creator bemoaning the fanfics written by various fans, or even threatening legal action to stop said fanworks from being spread. Here I'm going to talk about fanfic, mostly, but touch on some of the other fan-produced material, giving my view on it as both a long-time fan of many things and as a published creator of such things – an [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Isaac Asimov
December 3, 2012 By 2 Comments
The First Law: A robot may not harm, nor through inaction allow to come to harm, a human being. The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders of a human being, where those orders do not conflict with the First Law. The Third Law: A robot must act to protect its own existence, where this will not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Isaac Asimov was the only one of the Big Three (Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke) that I ever actually saw in person. It was at a talk whose subject I don't even really recall, but I do remember [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Eric Flint
November 28, 2012 By 1 Comment
I've described elsewhere on the site how I managed to end up getting published through the clever strategem of insulting the editing skills and moral choices of Eric Flint in his editing of the James Schmitz reissues. Here, I want to talk about the influence Eric has had on me outside of that specific sequence of events. People who read some of my older postings (in the 90s and before) would likely see, at some point, my mentioning that I wouldn't detail some particular idea because I intended to use it in my [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: The Arduin Grimoires
November 23, 2012 By 12 Comments
Back in the ancient days of roleplaying games, Dungeons and Dragons was pretty much the only game in town, a game consisting of three little booklets: Men & Magic, Monsters and Treasures, and The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, followed a bit later with the supplements Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Eldritch Wizardry. But one day, I joined a game with a GM – John Robb – who was using a new book: like the others, it was a staple-bound pamphlet-style book with a sort of buff-colored cover, on which was a warrior [ Continue reading... ]
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