Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Slader

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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Time Creeps

Hey hey, all!

Time creeps.

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.

And awesome.  Like this game.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Candice Quentra

Candice wants to leave her sins in the past.

Corsis won’t let her.

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.

James McGowan Reader Group- In Habiting

Hey, y’all.

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.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here for the original format.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Deva Falc

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.

James McGowan Reader Group- A Season of Experimentation

Happy New Year!

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.

Plus, it has some really chill music throughout.

Check both videos out.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Jasphir Iniv

Jasphir Iniv stands out in his family of conniving and abhorrent Demonic royalty.

He’s a decent person.

Naturally, they want him dead for that alone. 

His partnership with Ashe Stelfire and love affair with Nunaker only moved him to the very top of their hit list.

He’s a Human-like Sokenti who can see in all directions in his vicinity despite his race’s innate bleeding, eyeless sockets.  He covers this horrible aspect of himself with a white blindfold and white leather armor that never get stained with his viscera, or that of others.

Despite his affability, Jasphir radiates menace.  The assassin uses his panoramic natural sight to find weak points in the strongest of foes with his etherea-infused daggers.

But his many family members aren’t as easy to dispatch. 

They stalk him and his fortune hunter allies.

And their reach is long.

James McGowan Reader Group- Jumping Into It

Greetings of the Seasonal Variety!

To paraphrase an Elmore Leonard quote: You know that part of the story that no one reads?  Don’t write that part.

I’m currently working my way through a fantasy novel by a prolific writer, which I will not be featuring in Recommendation Corner.  That said, it’s gotten most interesting.

Eventually.

This story, like many other stories set in fantasy settings, suffers from pages and pages of “throat clearing” in the form of prologues with characters from ages past who aren’t part of the actual story.  Story elements that really only make sense if you complete the book and then revisit it.  Some readers dig that.

I do not.

My philosophy on world building and history in a sci-fi fantasy world is to reveal it as the characters encounter it.  Jump into it with a main character doing something interesting.  Getting in a fight.  Having a tense argument.  Anything to engage the reader with something interesting.

And then lead them into the larger world, with its lore and history showing up as a part of natural story progression.

Do I always succeed in that?  Probably not.  But it’s something that’s always my north star.

To loosely quote another writer, Kurt Vonnegut, this time. Start a scene late and leave early.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
One minor problem with not numbering your chapters until later and not having page numbers in Scrivener means that it’s very easy to lose track of productivity from one month to the next.

My estimate is that I got through revising or rewriting 12 chapters since last month, but it might be a little less than that. It’s less than last month’s 19 chapters.

I had some life stuff hit me with some work stress events and the sudden loss of a friend to a brain stem tumor.  Both made for a very blue first few weeks of November.

It’s my hope that December will be both full of happier life events, and also productivity.

Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:

“Watch.”  Corsis repeated his earlier command. “And hush.”
Recommendation Corner
Loki Season 2 on Disney+

I’m a little behind, and I still have one episode to go, so I hope this recommendation does not sour following the conclusion.

(Cough, Secret Invasion, Cough)

The big draw on this is Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson’s chemistry as work buddies in the TVA as the organization falls apart around them.  Jonathan Majors does a good job playing a nerdy Kang variant. 

Though, Marvel may just kill the whole Kang saga plan in light of the actor’s off screen behavior and the whole souring of interest in MCU phase 4 and early 5.  Odds are at least even that we’ll be seeing less Marvel output and a soft or hard reboot at some point.

Either way, Loki is a bunch of fun with Miss Minutes and Ke Huy Khan’s Ouroboros as stand out characters.

I like it (but perhaps less if I don’t like how they land the last episode).

Vox Machina on Prime

I’m also behind on this anime-inspired show.  I finished the 1st season, and still have to get to the 2nd at some point.

The Critical Role voice actors have created a fun D&D style show with all kinds of fantasy fun with dragons, vampires, dark magic, and even some steampunky artificing with an intense gun-wielding character.

But the tight writing, voice acting, and irreverent humor are the big draws of the show.

A certain montage where the characters go around the circle detailing the worst kill/victory they ever inflicted was hilarious, especially with the wood elf mage and the gnome bard character.

It’s been out a while.  And it’s still tons of fun.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

Players of the Game Character Spotlight: Nunaker

Nunaker finds sentient bipeds fascinating.  So much so that she usually takes the form of a woman in formfitting armor.

She has no true shape.  She is a Lokna.  A being of silvery liquid.  Capable of forming all manner of weapons upon her body.  Simple ones, like blades.

Or more… elaborate instruments of harm, such as her dual, barb-covered tentacle whips that can rip through flesh with uncanny ease.

She partners with Ashe Stelfire’s team of fortune hunters for the thrill of the raid.  It exhilarates her.

As does the love of another partner, Jashir Iniv.  Her romance with the Sokenti assassin is vibrant and intense.

And woe to any who might take away the happiness it brings her.

James McGowan Reader Group- Pinteresting… Very Pinteresting

Hey there!

I’ve decided to dip my toe in other social media pools for my author interests.

And I figured Pinterest was an intriguing avenue since I like sharing artwork of my characters and covers.  I wasn’t aware of this, but it’s more of a image search engine than a conversation/argument venue like X-Twitter.

So here’s a pin image I made for Repenter.
Clicking on the image will take you to my Pinterest page.  I’ll be adding images on a bi-weekly or monthly cadence, so feel free to check it out as time goes on.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I continue to plug away at The Game War’s second draft in Scrivener.  This month yielded 19 revised chapters.  Some needed to be completely rewritten.  Others needed only some polishing. 

I still don’t quite know how to measure productivity on this phase, but I’m getting words tappity-tapped, so I’ll claim victory on that basis alone.

Players of the Game Out of Context Quote of the Month:

Benefactor: “I’ve spent millennia with Corsis’s foot on my throat. If I get toppled from power, I’m quite close to the ground.”
Recommendation Corner
The Killer

I watched this latest David Fincher movie in the theater before it goes exclusively to Netflix.

Michael Fassbender stars as the multi-alias Killer, a sociopathic assassin who goes to great lengths to kill his targets.

And even greater lengths to protect himself when things go wrong.

It’s a tight movie that keeps you engaged throughout.  I didn’t like it as much as Gone Girl, Fight Club, and the Game, but it is definitely worth checking out on Netflix before it’s buried under other content.

Shardpunk Verminfall

Surprise.  It’s another tactics indie game that I’m enjoying.  I have my vices.  And turn-based pixelated combat is one of them.

This one takes place on an earth-like world where swarms of intelligent mutant rats have overrun the capital city, and your group of fighters have to make your way through the ruins with a little spherical robot that might be able to turn the tables on the rats.

It’s a little bit Darkest Dungeon with fear damage and camping between missions, and a whole lot X-Com with the cover and overwatch mechanics.

But the rats will never stop.  And you must ultimately flee or they will overrun you.

I hate rats.  Rats make me crazy.

But that’s okay, because this game lets me kill so very many of them.

They have to pay.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.