Players of the Game Book 4: The Breakers will be coming soon. Still working on a few behind-the-scenes items with formatting and cover stuff.
But I got the back cover blurb description done. And it was a voyage in the weird future of using AI tools.
I tried out ChatGPT with writing the back cover blurb. It was a… process.
First, I typed up a summary of the book’s plot, which comprised a page and half of madly typed text on my part. Then gave it parameters of how to sound: an excited marketing professional speaking to an audience of sci-fi fantasy fans.
It spit out something that I’ll describe as “neh”.
Then I gave it a prompt of pretending to be a prompt engineer and give me 10 suggestions of what else I could ask it to keep working with the information I provided it. It gave me ten questions.
And I typed up another two pages of context, plot, and character info. And it spat out something less “neh”, but a little better.
I tried having it try doing it like a movie trailer. It, of course, gave me something starting with “In a world…” Sigh.
But it did have some nuggets that I used to write something on my own. I put it in and asked for 5 ways to improve it. It gave me a few more concise sentences than what I typed.
Finally, I wanted to make this opening line shorter: “Hope got the tattooed goddess imprisoned in an unbreakable ice dungeon. It just might also get her out.”
It refined it to this: “Hope once imprisoned the tattooed goddess, but now it may set her free.” I like it!
So, here is the version I’m currently planning on using, mostly from me, with a little AI feedback:
“Hope imprisoned the tattooed goddess for 1600 years, but now it may set her free.
Amid a world war spanning across a supercontinent, Ashe Stelfire and his allies embark on a quest to liberate her. But first they must battle the dark empire pounding on the door of a beleaguered frontier city with an arsenal of dark magic and bleeding-edge technology.
From the old soldier god’s forgotten lair, to the toxic red haze of a forest of madness, to the forgotten subterranean sea, to the icy depths of an extra-dimensional fortress, their journey treads on the precipice of disaster.
Knowing that their struggle is all part of Corsis’s Game, their only hope is to break its rules.
And to break out the tattooed goddess from her dungeon of unbreakable ice.
Prepare for an epic saga of redemption and courage. Join the fight against tyranny and dare to hope for better tomorrows in The Breakers.
Get it now.”
So I typed pages upon pages to boil it down to 157 words. Writing is indeed rewriting. And AI tools are going to make that…
Just. Weird.
And also, far more important. I would rather write tens of thousands of words in a novel, than 200 words of marketing copy.
Neh.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
Due to other goings on in my life, this Reader Group email is a bit later this month.
And my last batch of second draft chapters is also bigger as a result with the added week or so. I finished The Game War’s second draft with last remaining 22 chapters. That’s better than the 13 chapters from last month.
I’m expecting the third draft to go faster with a bunch of chronology checking and last coats of paint for the story. We’ll see how much I get in between now and my next update.
Scrivener did indeed make it much easier to split, move, and add scenes. I expect to keep using it as a tool for editing and outlining. I’m still leaning toward Word for first drafts.
But we’ll see how I feel when I have an actual first draft blinking its cursor at me.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Hekati: “They’re all calling it the Game War now.”
Corsis let out a silent chuckle. “It does have a ring to it.”
“Hush.” She flicked a finger against his knuckle in reprisal.
Recommendation Corner
System Collapse by Martha Wells
Murderbot is back for more introverted awkward adventures. It’s still dealing with the fallout from its encounter with alien invasive organisms from the last novel. Including a panic attack induced by its organic parts, which it redacts from its retelling of the first half of the novel.
It and its humans from a research and education enclave must engage in a PR struggle with a devious corporation as both try to win over an isolated community of colonists at the contested planet’s pole.
And Murderbot’s love of all things entertainment media will come into play.
As will copious amounts of violence.
It wouldn’t be an installment of the Murderbot Diaries without it.
The Fall Guy
I dimly remember watching the old Lee Majors show as a kid with the “stunt man fighting crime” premise. And of course the theme song.
This new movie with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt basically just takes the name Colt Sievers and makes a whole different character and story out of it. But they keep the stunt man investigating and fighting crime aspect of it.
And it’s pretty fun.
The stunts were great of course. And the humor was really well done. Especially a bit where Blunt and Gosling discuss their estrangement over megaphones in front of the whole crew subbing in the movie-in-movie characters for themselves.
It celebrates stunt people and all they do.
And its a fantastic date movie with both action and a compelling love plot between the two main characters.
Yes. Xax gets an exclamation point for his long pending introduction.
Xax is something that looks like a robot with a ridiculously disproportionate smile. But he’s actually something… weirder. Something he is hesitant to tell the new people he just met.
He has bounced through history. Showing up in the years since the Eruption. Sometimes working alone. Sometimes working with others like the Burnhelts.
Or the Bucklers.
His depleted Irreality energy blasts and fist cones grant him immense power. Enough to coldcock a Dragon God with a lucky shot. His fighting style looks sloppy, like a rag doll tossing itself around. Yet, more often than not, he lands devastating hits either up close or from afar.
However, the silver brawler is just as likely to talk his way out of a fight. His jokes and strange maxims range from terrible to crudely humorous to prescient.
His stiff grin doesn’t move when he talks, though its expression will sometimes change.
He’s been sighted in the frontier city of Findenton of late. And he will certainly encounter a certain fort master and certain reluctant assassin sooner than any of them think.
If anyone ever tells you that sneezing isn’t normal, try doing it backwards, as my brother and I did as kids. I can’t remember for certain, but we were plainly bored and likely dealing with colds or allergies.
Once you try doing it backwards, you will quickly come to appreciate sneezing forwards as quite normal indeed.
Why do I open up with commentary on the “sneezing is not normal” / “Never Sneezer Scrooge” ongoing joke from the Green brothers, you ask? I recently had a bout with the bodily function when I caught a minor cold back in mid-late February.
I hadn’t had a respiratory illness since well before the pandemic. Likely sometime in 2019 or maybe even 2018. It was a little leaky, coughy, and yes, a little sneezey. But it wasn’t the flu or the vid, so I’ll count myself lucky.
Especially because I hate getting respiratory infections. They sometimes turn into laryngitis for me, and I despise that dry and raw feeling in my throat even more. And this cold thankfully stayed in my nose where I smote its ruin with copious numbers of Kleenexes.
Blessings. They are counted.
That made me think of other personal streaks I’d like to keep going. My overall mental and physical health. My deep relationships with my family and friends. And, of course, this little thing I do with writing a buncha epic science fantasy novels.
Everything comes to an end at some point, but I plan to do all I can to keep the ball bouncing in the game.
And speaking of the Game…
Players of the Game Works in Progress.
I totally forgot the end/beginning of the month was coming until I sat down to type the missive you’re currently reading. How did that lack of me thinking about my “accountability deadline” affect my output this month?
Uh. It didn’t. I revised and rewrote 13 chapters in The Game War this past March, which is the same number I wrote in February.
I’ll try for more next time around in the interest of not indulging complacency. I’m close to the end of the second draft, having just started the epic climax section.
So the end is in sight!
Until I start over again with the third draft.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy – Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer
There was a Natalie Portman movie that adapted the first story. I haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet.
But I heard about a weird creepy bear.
And yes, that’s in the novel series. Annihilation is cold and antiseptic by design. It’s written as a journal entry from a character whose name has been reduced to her function: The Biologist. But she has another name. A term of endearment given to her by her deceased husband.
Ghostbird.
She is part of an all-female expedition into a section of the South called the Forgotten Coast that’s been overrun by alien flora and fauna. It’s now known as Area X. And the very land has changed.
There’s an organic tunnel. Or is it a tower? With glowing, living biblical language out of a nightmare written upon its walls. And then there’s the old lighthouse.
This series honestly feels like it’s neo-Lovecraftian, with an alien presence so pervasive, that it alters perceptions and the very sanity of those who enter it.
Bronson Pinchot does a standout job of the three narrators, starting on the second book.
If you’re looking for something creepy and weird, this book will check off those boxes.
Nacelleverse 0 by Melissa Flores and various artists from Oni Comics
So the guy who produced The Toys that Made Us, Brian Volk-Weiss, bought the licenses to a bunch of 3rd tier 80s toy properties.
And his production business, The Nacelle Company, is making a bunch of cartoons involving the Rock and Ryan Reynolds. They’ll be re-releasing new versions of the toys along with a series of comics from Oni.
And I used to have toys for a lot of these rebooted properties.
RoboForce, Sectaurs, and Power Lords in particular.
My brother and I used Hun-Dread from RoboForce as a makeshift Decepticon. Same for Prince Dargon from Sectaurs. And I integrated Adam Power into our limited stint with Masters of the Universe toys. I remember all of these “also ran” action figures fondly.
I have no room for new toys. But this comic. And probably the cartoons. They totally hooked me with nostalgia. The comic’s story with the character re-introductions was fine. As was the art. But the premise of restoring all these old properties in a shared universe, it’s just too interesting for me to ignore.
Even if it sucks. I gotta see what they do with this stuff.
Slader just wants to get through the crazy. Get on the other side of it. That’s all.
The rot infecting his city has other ideas.
The Lan Thedin marine sergeant watches reports of grey-skinned mutations in the megalopolis’s subterranean sections. And they’ve started coming up to the surface. And they’re tougher than even his cybernetic arms can handle.
His boss wants to bring in some team of hyper-powered Grells to combat the horrors creeping into the streets. Normally, Slader would have a problem with bringing in outsiders.
But right now, he’ll take help in any form he can find it.
Read more about Slader’s interactions with the Burnhelts and their allies in The New Players.
I speak not of evil time-traveling stalker guys, but of the tendency of one’s temporal existence to pass slowly in the moment, but quickly in retrospect.
During a conversation with my wife yesterday, I realized that I’ve resided in my current home longer than any other place in my life. Somehow, my stints in a various childhood homes seem longer, likely because I’d experienced less time as a kid.
The passage of days, months, and years feels a lot more compressed now.
And that very much applies to my Players of the Game series. I’ve been working at versions of this since the mid-90s.
One iteration was an adaptation of a couple of campaigns from a little known RPG called Rifts. Another was my first stab at a story world with the boring-sounding title: Gifts and Curses.
Then I realized the story didn’t work with what I wanted to do with Repenter, and I made the tough call to scuttle elements of the book and put them in The New Players, The Breakers, and The Game War.
That scuttling undid years of effort. Let us just say that it took me a little to come to terms with that decision.
But I think my saga was better served by it with the current version. Time did indeed creep up on me, but as a certain villain likes to say, “The Game progresses.”
I’m about halfway through writing the vast thing, and I love how it’s unfolding.
Hopefully, you do as well. I can’t wait to share the newer books with you.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I revised and rewrote 13 chapters this month in The Game War. Not quite as good as last month’s 15 chapters. I caught a cold for about a week, so that hampered my productivity.
I shall keep at it with both the second draft of the latest WIP and get the last tweaks in place for The Breakers for its release later this year.
The fight shall be powered.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Xax: “Gimme a sec. It’s wiggly.”
I promise the context for Xax’s statement is far less icky, and much more weird than whatever you’re thinking.
Recommendation Corner
Dune Part 2
I recall a similar feeling in watching Dune Part 2 that I felt watching The Two Towers more than twenty years ago.
It’s a great movie that returns to the story after the prior one ended, with the protagonists walking toward a scenic vista. And I miss the feeling of “newness” from the first movie, but love where the familiarity takes me.
I liked all the changes from the book. Chani is far less of a cipher, and has the important altered POV of, “Uh, maybe using my desert Spartan people for a space jihad is not a great idea.”
I also loved the visuals. Especially, the color-drained sequences on Giedi Prime with its black star. Black fireworks are a special effect I never thought I needed to see. But I needed to see them.
My biggest criticism is incredibly nerdy. There was not a clear explanation of why some non-drilling distance attacks could bypass shields and others couldn’t. There were also laser attacks on vehicles which could possibly have shields, which risk a nuclear reaction in the book’s lore.
Yes. Nerdy criticism. I know.
Picking of nits aside. This movie ruled. Paul is simultaneously triumphant and tragic. Jessica’s plotting with her hidden confidant was the best kind of creepy. The sound effects and score were epic, especially on a certain wrangling scene.
I want to see this flick multiple times. Get out there and enjoy it with a sand worm popcorn bucket.
Or not.
Pathway on Steam
I played the heck out of this Indiana Jones meets Shining Force and XCOM tactics game while I had the minor cold.
It was mental chicken soup for me.
You guide a group of adventurers in the 1930s in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East while you try to beat Nazis, cultists, and zombies to a wide array of ancient artifacts. All while riding a Jeep to each location.
Its pixel graphics have Chrono Trigger vibes. They have a few ridiculous characters, like a scientist with a sci-fi disintegrator ray gun and a sniper priest. Naturally, I employed both of them on more than one adventure.
Sometimes, you just gotta lean into all things silly.
She is a parasitic life force entity called a Draqu. She can siphon away all aspects of life from those upon whom she feeds. Strength, powers, memories, consciousness, a victim’s very will.
And she relished this power in her a century ago under her original name. Mary Night. She terrorized a megalopolis, stoking the simmering resentment of its many inhabitants. It culminated in a citywide riot and murder spree. And she was confronted by a quartet of champions of that era. The Bucklers.
Mary did not survive the encounter.
But death is not permanent for a Draqu. And Corsis hastened her respawning years sooner than it would have naturally occurred. He ordered her appearance altered. And threatened to send her back to her hellish between life torment unless she continued to work for him.
And he gave her a new name.
And so, Candice Quentra infiltrated the Demonic spies of the Horrinshal. Started a working relationship with a certain fort master named Harry Mang.
A partnership that will certainly lead to her crossing paths with the Burnhelts and their allies.
All while she struggles to free herself. Her time of torment in between lives changed her. She wants to atone for crimes for which there is no atonement.
That will not stop her from trying. Candice wants to be better.
She just needs the right opportunity.
Find out more about Candice starting in The New Players.
This is the first reader group email after all the authentication rule changes with Yahoo mail and Gmail recipients. I already had much of that set up, so I expect it should be a non-event. But if something goes off the rails, I shall fix it before next month’s missive. (This is a non-issue for anyone reading this on my stelfire.com blog.)
I’m in the habit of sending these after all.
While I like to think I mix in some spontaneity in my day-to-day activities, habits also play a significant part in my behavior. From morning tea, to banana and apple breakfasts, to listening to podcasts while I exercise, I try to establish good habits. Though bad ones like doom scrolling do occasionally sneak in.
Writing falls at the top of the good column.
It’s very inertia driven. It’s sometimes hard to start, especially after a long day. However, once I push through the resistance and get started on a daily session, each subsequent word has a little more mental grease on it.
This very intro section is an example of pushing through that mental blockage. I only had a dim idea of how it would flow when I sat down, but it got progressively easier with each word. And I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t in the habit of creating these monthly emails/blog posts.
Habits also sneak into my writing style. Bad ones like focusing way too much on a POV character’s breathing, which I strive to minimize. And good ones like ending a session mid sentence so it’s easier to start again by finishing the sentence next time.
And inane habits that I cannot and will almost certainly never change. Two spaces between sentences. I grew up with the two space rule. Once I’m done with a manuscript, all I can say is yay for find/replace to remove the extra space.
Like a certain rule in Zombieland, my thumbs cannot stop themselves from double tapping between sentences.
Can. Not.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I’m pleasantly surprised with the second draft progress this month. I had a few off days, but I appeared to make up for them.
This month clocked in at 15 chapters revised or rewritten in The Game War. That’s better than last month’s 11, so I hope to maintain that pace.
I also am likely going to switch from YWriter over to Scrivener for putting together an outline for the next bonus content novella, tentatively titled The Game War: Hidden Fronts. I watched a few videos on Scrivener’s capabilities, and I want to give those a try.
Also, I’m still aiming to get Book 4, The Breakers, released sometime this year. Just need to get some coats of paint on the cover and the description blurb. And perhaps some collected ebooks of the earlier novels too.
Irons. They are a glowin’ in the fire.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month
Arwith: “They tricked us into sending the right people to the wrong place.”
Ashe: “Maybe. Or maybe we’re right enough to get the job done.”
Recommendation Corner
Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall by Zeke Faux
I read nonfiction books every now and then when the topic is especially interesting to me. This book fits the bill. Perhaps more so because it got vastly out shined by Michael Lewis’s book “Going Infinite” that came out at the same time. However, I got the gist of Lewis’s take from his Judging Sam series on his podcast.
This book does indeed speak of the same central character. I especially loved the deadpan humor with the beginning sentences:
“I’m not going to lie,” Sam Bankman-Fried told me.
This was a lie.
Faux’s reporting goes way beyond the whole thing with SBF, though. From chasing the Tether white whale, a dollar-pegged crypto currency that will not reveal where or how it’s keeping its dollars. To countless Filipinos who got caught up in a speculative crypto game that led to financial ruin. To literal compounds of enslaved people in Cambodia forced to engage in “pig butchering” scams that leverage crypto for their payments.
Let us just say that this book’s accounts reinforced my ongoing skepticism of the actual utility of crypto currency as a store of stable value.
Very compelling stuff.
The Iron Oath on Steam
And surprise, surprise. I am not Lando in disguise.
That is in reference to a decades-old Kenner Star Wars commercial. A deep cut for the two of you who remember it.
Instead, I speak of yet another turn-based tactics indie game on Steam. The Iron Oath.
This one focuses on a group of mercenaries who are betrayed by one of their own at the beginning. And also must deal with a death mist breathing demon dragon who periodically sprays a random city with death mist, mutating inhabitants and creating a bunch of rifts that demons pour through.
Naturally, I love the premise of this.
I ended up naming my mercenary crew the Storm Riders, and we had to hop to it to earn money, get clues about the traitors, and help out whenever the demon dragon sprayed death some place.
I liked the hexagon grid and all the unique character classes like Pyrolancer fighters with their flaming pole arms and the kung-fu monk Pugilists. I also liked the skill trees, especially the overwatch mechanics for the Huntresses, which repeatedly saved my team’s bacon.
I’ll admit that it gets a bit repetitive with identical dialogue for the random contracts. And I wish they’d put more of a resolution for the demon dragon’s plot in the main game, rather than relegating it to a later update.
Even so, I had a bunch of fun.
So I say, give it a whirl if you are a tactics-o-phile like me.
Deva Falc once despised Nirva Iniv. In the early days of the War of Reunification, the Arch Demon Baroness of Barithania led an army against the Palle Empire. Before its ascendance gained momentum. Had things gone differently, perhaps Deva might have claimed dominion over her own empire. She held all manner of dark ambitions.
No more.
Nirva used the dark language of Hrolish to negate Deva’s will. She is now Nirva’s dispassionately loyal bodyguard. The enthralled baroness only wants what the Empress of Palle wants.
That includes transforming her mind with an immaterial creature, giving her artificial psionics. And perhaps even altering her body into something stronger, something worse.
Whenever it finally tatters her mind, no matter. Nirva cares not, and neither does Deva. Because she can’t.
If any hint of the true Deva remains, it is buried deep in the darkness of her fraying psyche.
And if someone should find that lingering shred, then Deva may just speak her mind.
The calendar has flipped. And I belatedly wish that I would have sent this a couple days ago on the 123123 date if you’re using the month-day-year format. Oh well.
It’s also time for a new season of something, in which I apply a yearly theme that Grey and Myke often discuss on the Cortex podcast. Rather than stating a specific goal or resolution, you apply a broader theme or season.
It’s a Season of Experimentation for me.
I’ve already been doing that for the last couple of months. Some of it has been inflicted on me, as in the case of recent reorgs at the day job, which necessitates new ways of doing things, and new tasks as well.
And in my personal life with making the switch from Evernote to Joplin for my various recipe notes and media lists. I also tried out a mustard marinade for turkey tenderloins when my wife and I hosted a holiday meal for the family. Extra tasty.
I’ve also added a new phase to my drafts, using the WordTalk free extension to read back my text. I have an older version of Word that doesn’t have the built in read back, but WordTalk definitely does the trick. I’ll be using it for the new books and my back catalogue to help catch more typos and grammar errors.
I might go with something else for notes and read back tech. Maybe something using AI with a voice that sounds less robotic. We’ll just have to see.
I’m experimenting after all.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I revised and rewrote 11 chapters of the Game War’s second draft this month. One less than last month’s 12. However, a particular chapter from this month was a little longer, so I’ll call it more or less even.
And Scrivener continues to be most handy for tracking down descriptions of settings and people that I need to reference later. It’s great for the revision phases of a novel.
Onward and offward. Or words to that effect.
Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:
Ramansa: “Ah. Ben. You clever, furless bastard.”
Recommendation Corner
The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North
Claire North’s novels often feature characters with esoteric, non-obvious supernatural powers/conditions. Reliving your life again and again in a time loop while retaining your cumulative memories, being a body swapping ghost, and being forgotten as soon as you leave someone’s line of sight.
This story features a foppish doctor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, William Abbey, who is cursed by a grieving South African mother after he stands by and watches the lynching of her son. This act compels the son’s ghost to pursue him as a shadow that shambles after him anywhere he goes, including over oceans.
If the ghost touches him, it teleports to whomever he loves most, wherever they are in the world, and stops their heart. Then it shambles back to him to do it again to the next person he loves.
And as the ghost gets closer, it allows him to know the truth of people’s hearts. When it gets too close, he’s unable to stop himself from blurting out a litany of truths of anyone nearby.
This gets the attention of the British government. Things do not go well.
The unreliable narrative tells a dual tale of William’s conscription as a concert-of-nations era spy and a later time with a Nun who listens to his story in a front line hospital of the Great War’s (WWI) western front.
Peter Kenny again does a fantastic job with the audio reading, especially the motor-mouthed desperation of his compulsion to tell the truth as his pursuing ghost gets nearer.
A fascinating yarn.
CGP Grey and Kurzgesagt Big Numbers Videos on Youtube
Youtube creators often put out lots of longer content at the end of the year for monetization reasons. These two channels really did something interesting with big numbers.
CGP Grey did a Rock, Paper, Scissors video that ended up being a choose your own adventure of probability. I initially just played through it once, because I thought that I’d be cheating if I just clicked through everything.
Then I heard him talking about it on the Cortex podcast and I learned that you’re supposed to click through all of them.
What follows was a vast journey through the varying iterations of “anti-luck” of constantly losing and the ultimate good luck of winning so much after 25 rounds that the odds are in the trillions. And what that actually means if you truly need one person in a trillion to win.
It soon delves into heavy existential territory.
Kurzgesagt takes a different aspect of large numbers. Its “All of History- 4.5 Billion Years in 1 Hour” video starts right after Theia collided with the Earth to both enlarge the molten early Earth and create the moon.
Each second equals about 1.25 million years. The earth is a molten hellscape for about 10-15 minutes, showing the vast length of the largely unknowable Hadean period.
It takes even more time for multicellular life to show up. And multiple extinctions occur in the blink of an eye. Primates literally show up in the last second.
It’s probably the best demonstration of the scale of geological time versus the relative snap of the finger on which biological life operates.
