Category: Reader Group Archive

Faux Praise from Faux Hosts of a Faux Podcast

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Hey there!

AI news and new services are inescapable these days. 

Scary stuff like deep fakes attempting to sow disinformation.  Anxiety with the implications of fast generated art and writing.  And uncanny interesting things.

I’ll be talking about the last one.

Google recently launched a new service called Notebook LM.  Authors or other users can upload stuff from Google docs or PDFs into a local/private instance.  You can do it with anything like emails or even bank statements.  I, of course, loaded up the PDFs of my three novels and three bonus content novellas.

You can then ask it questions about the aggregated content.  And it will come back with something that’s kinda right some of the time. 

It’s experimental and it shows.  Here’s an excerpt example when I asked it to give me a list of named characters from the series:

“Svithe: A mysterious peddler who deals in rare and valuable items. He is shrouded in secrecy, his true face concealed by bandages. He possesses extensive knowledge of Trojis’s history and political landscape, and often uses his knowledge to manipulate events to his advantage. As revealed in our conversation, Svithe is a guise of Corsis, a powerful, god-like being who orchestrates events for his own amusement.”

Not bad.  It doesn’t mention Sufrinzon.  But it’s decent.

“Avril: A skilled warrior and the daughter of Iuar and Zirva. She is introduced alongside Svithe at the docks. She is fiercely independent and possesses a strong moral compass.”

Misspellings abound, and Avril is introduced well before she meets Svithe.

“Gnorok: A red-skinned Merfenar (a race in Trojis) who is initially partnered with Rasphir and Runanker. He is interested in acquiring the “Ruul Kand,” a powerful artifact hidden by Uraulings.”

The misspellings completely screw this one up along with confabulations like Merfenar instead of Murdrake.

Yes, definitely not ready for prime time.  Very fascinating, even at this nascent stage.  However, there’s something that’s even more interesting.

A podcast summary hosted by two incredibly realistic-sounding AI hosts. If you want to give it a listen, the link is below.  It lasts about 10 minutes.  PLEASE NOTE: You’ll need to log into a Google account to listen to it.  Also, I might be having it try another iteration by October 18, 2024, so the link might be broken if you listen after that.
Check Out the AI Podcast if you have a Google account
I have a fact check commentary in the post below. But here are my big picture thoughts. 

You know that scene in Billy Madison where he completely BS’s his way through an oral test asking about the Industrial Revolution?

“The industry, my friends.  That was the revolution.”

And the moderator’s response: “I award you no points.  And may God have mercy on your soul.”

I kinda feel like that.  It deemed the heroes of the second book as the villains.  Epic fail.  And much of the praise was generic “what does it mean to be human” stuff that you could say about just about any story.

But I can’t award it no points.  The quality of the back-and-forth with the hosts, and some of the stuff it got right like the kliosts.

This is something that might be able to help out a lot of people writing large projects.  Not yet.  But it might.  I’ll be most interested to see where it is in a year or two.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I’ve got a good flow going with Secret Fronts.  I’m up to page 112 with 31,600 words.  So that’s 41 pages with 12,000 words this month. 

I had a few off weeks this past month, but I’m still happy with the progress of the first draft.

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

“I should have listened to him.” The Master of the Game slapped his hand on his chair’s leather arm. “I’ll rectify that mistake. And a few others while I’m at it.”
Recommendation Corner
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2

This is the softest of recommendations.

Yes, this show is overblown.  Some of the plot lines are borderline or beyond borderline pointless.  I’m still not sure I’m sold on feisty warrior Galadriel.

But by golly.  This show did something I didn’t think was possible.  (Minor spoiler ahead.)

It got me to enjoy a story line with Tom Bombadil.  His interaction with the Stranger was cool.  As was the test that ultimately yielded him the name I wanted him to say.  And the song they sang on the season finale.  I just liked it.

I thought Sauron’s manipulation of the elf blacksmith and later coercion in crafting the dwarf and human rings was decent, but a little plodding.

But dang, that Battle of Eregion was pretty cool.  I took a look at the LOTR Appendices, and I’ll be most interested to see how they finish out the Numenor plot line and the founding of Gondor beyond it.

This show is aggressively mediocre.  But I’ll watch the next season.

Unicorn Overlord

Oh, my.  I love this game.

An anime-style Ogre Battle homage.  Shut up and take my money.

It has squad based real-time movements with battles that occur based on the squad formation.  Promoting units.  Expanding the squads.  Liberating a continent town-by-town.  It is sublime.

It’s not completely perfect.  The writing is a little generic and the lack of an unhinged howl for the werewolf characters is a gargantuan missed opportunity.  But these are minor quibbles.

This is one of my favorite games of the 21st century.  It’s right up there with Symphony of War from a few years ago.

So 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.

An AI Podcast of the POTG Series with My Commentary

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Hi, all.

This is a rare website-only post on October 6, 2024. I’m mentioning the date, because there’s a decent chance the link below will be broken after a few weeks. I’ll likely update the podcast again sometime later this month, and I doubt the link will work following that. Or it might be talking about different things if the link keeps working as I iterate the podcast. Either way, it might be nothing or it might differ from my commentary.

In this brief window, I’m sharing an AI podcast from Goggle’s Notebook LM that talks about parts of my six books (three main, three bonus content) that are publicly available, which you can see on the sidebar. A bunch of fact checks on the confabulations of the two synthetic hosts does not make for compelling reading on a newsletter, and perhaps not in a straight blog post. But this experimental AI service is incredibly interesting to me. And I’m betting others may find it interesting too.

PLEASE NOTE: You must login to a Google account to listen to this recording.

Click or tap here to listen to the AI podcast.

And here’s my commentary on the artificial discussion. I’ll also have another newsletter entry above where I discuss it further in a day or two, which will summarize my thoughts and the general uncanny vibe, even if the link no longer works if you’re looking at this later in the future.

Minute 0:

False: The POTG series has no prophecies.

False: No summoning the dead with pyromancy. That’s necromancy with Durduun’s cultists and the struggle to possess the Mosul Flute, not Ashe.

Minute1:

False: Ashe doesn’t bend time. Tempes does that.

SO FALSE: The Brigands are not villains. They’re initially distrustful of each other, but they are Ashe’s allies.

Interesting: The AI hosts will insert laughter and insert verbal ticks. It’s very realistic.

Minute 2:

False: Nirva and Svithe are not part of the Brigands.

True- ish: Frulgrath is the only antagonist who was a former member of the Brigands. He’s not really a force of nature. More like a poisonous weed that keeps popping back again and again.

False: Ashe doesn’t serve Corsis

False: “No one knows all the rules.” There are multiple conversations in all three books about the Game’s rules.

Minute 3:

True ish: The kliosts emerge as a big threat in Book 2.5. Ashe and the other Brigands don’t deal much with the kliosts, though ViRauni does. This podcast version doesn’t talk at all about Ed, Harry, and the other Book 3 characters, though previous iterations of the podcast did.

Interesting: The female AI’s mumbled “exactly”. Again, that is very realistic.

True ish: Unseen force of kliosts. Sort of. It’s either airborne or imbibed. Their effects aren’t exactly visible, but they aren’t unknowable.

Interesting: Million dollar question. People do speak in cliched sayings like that.

False: The question of who’s wielding this thing in reference to the kliosts. It’s plainly Hekati, as shown extensively in Book 3.

Minute 4:

False ish: The specifics of the Game are mysterious. It’s not immediately apparent why Corsis is playing the Game. But it’s no mystery that he’s the one in control and the Rules are told in each of the main three books.

False: Another mention of Ashe using time bending. That’s Tempes.

Minute 5:

False: There are ZERO mentions of destiny in my novels. I hate that “chosen one” stuff. My characters earn their greatness.

True: I like their discussion of the Battle of the Two Cities, though they keep it vague to defending a city.

Minute 6:

True: Talk of mancy’s versatility is accurate.

False: Ashe never looks into the future. He cannot see future possibilities. Avril looks at the past and jumps through the time hole. Nirva looks in her painting to see possible futures, which might be the source of the confabulation.

False ish: Nirva is utterly lost by her obsession with her painting, which makes Avril sad. But Nirva is consumed with bringing Avril to heal. Her love for her daughter, if it exists, is utterly twisted by madness, fear, and hate.

Minute 7:

Interesting: The AI hosts mention layers. I really doubt they actually detect narrative nuances. I think that’s just verbal slop they put together through ingesting thousands of hours of people doing reviews.

Minute 8:

Interesting: The mention of “It’s still our choices that matter.” Very generic. You could literally say that about any story.

Minute 9:

Interesting: “Oh, man. That’s tough.” Again, very realistic dialogue.

Interesting: “In a world where the lines between wonder and horror are blurred… what does it even mean to be human?” Again, a generic statement you could say about any sci-fi or fantasy novel where the characters have powers.

I’ll have more thoughts above, but all-in-all, while Notebook LM clearly has some miles to go, I’ll be interested to see where those miles tread.

James McGowan Reader Group- Periodical Lament

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Hey, hey!

While I very much enjoy ebooks, video games, streaming shows, and all things electronic.  I have a soft spot for media composed of actual molecules, Blu-ray disks, actual books, and of note for this topic, magazines.

I think magazines are among the top ways to consume news on broad or niche topics.  And one of my all-time favorites suddenly ceased publication last month.

Game Informer.

I loved their in-depth articles and previews.  GI reminded me of Electronic Gaming Monthly in its early-mid 90s heydays.  Reviewers that called out good and bad games.  Long form interviews and feature articles.  The writing was also topnotch.  Accurate and articulate.

My wife, who’s not really a gamer, really loved reading Game Informer too.  It was that good.

But the writing, good though it made have been, was also on the wall. 

GameStop published GI.  And the company has been circling the drain for a decade with the ongoing transition from physical media.  The meme stock craze from a few years ago has since lost its shine on GME (their stock ticker symbol) and moved on to stupider investment opportunities.

GamesRadar makes an expensive magazine called Edge that I might try out.  But I’m still on the fence with it.  $10 an issue is a bit steep.  If anyone knows of any good video gaming newsletters or other media, please let me know.

In the meantime, let us raise a glass, or a lighter, or a phone screen in a dark room to Game Informer. 

The world may move on.  But I shall remember their excellence in niche journalism.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I’m still working on setting up a marketing campaign and getting the cover design for The Breakers.  I’m hoping to release it before the end of the year, but the odds are probably about 50-50.

But it’ll be released soon.  Just a little less soon.

And I’m plugging away at the Hidden Fronts bonus novel.  I’ve reached page 71 with about 19,600 words.  So that’s 37 pages with around 10,650 words for this month.

Not too bad for a month ish of output.  We’ll see if I can dial it up as the months go on.

The tappity tap of words on the page/screen shall continue.

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

Valanis then cracked a smile that brought out a glimmer of the wry woman he knew. “Gath, dear gods. Trim that beard.”
Recommendation Corner
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

This video game is about 10 years old, but I’d never encountered it until my recent visit to my cousin. (Hey, Nick!)  He found it on a list of especially good couch co-op games.

And, oh my, is this little indie game a metric ton of fun.

You’re part of the League Of Very Empathetic Rescue Spacenauts (LOVERS).  The galactic civilization is powered by love.  But something goes awry.

The forces of Anti-Love tore through the love reactor and scattered its pieces through the cosmos.  And it’s up to the LOVERS to recover the components in their Gumball spaceship and save their imprisoned bunny, frog, kitty, and bird fellow citizens along the way.

The Gumball has a bunch of gun, shield, piloting, navigation, and super weapon stations, and your skeleton crew has to displace and operate whatever has the most pressing need.

Communication, job specializing, and improvisation are key to success.  It is a fantastic game where you and your friends fight all manner of goofy baddies while you save cute animals.

We had a blast.

Hundreds of Beavers

This slapstick black-and-white movie from 2022 is both epic and hilarious.

It’s mostly silent with grunts and hums and 1920s-style still frame dialogue boxes.

Following a rip-roaring opening drinking song with cartoon patrons, a 19th century applejack seller sees his livelihood destroyed when beavers wreck his two big vats of applejack hard cider.  He must survive in the cold and fight his way through the treacherous winter wasteland.

This sounds serious until you realize the world is basically a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon where all the rabbits, raccoons, dogs, wolves, and beavers are all guys in mascot costumes.

The quest to rebuild the main character’s life is full of goofy and over-the-top humor, but you really get a sense of progression as he claws his way back from starvation and shivering.

His interactions with a hard-nosed trader and his mischievous and amorous daughter are especially funny.

This is one of my favorite comedies of the 21st century.  It’s available on Amazon Prime for pretty cheap to rent.

Highest possible recommendation.
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.

James McGowan Reader Group- We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Newsletter…

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Howdy!

So. I’ve had an interesting week.

My area in the middle of the US got hit by what I’ve been calling a 30-minute land hurricane. It shredded through a bunch of mature trees in my city, many of which broke a lot of power grid infrastructure. And it resulted in a whole lot of houses being without power for days. Mine included. In 90 and 100 degree F heat. With stagnant, nigh-windless air, which made opening the windows an empty gesture.

I do not subscribe.

Thankfully, while widespread, the storm didn’t knock out the majority of the city’s power. So we’ve both helped other family members and leveraged help from others. We have a pretty friendly community and neighborhood, so we’ve not had to worry about jerky behavior.

This is sadly not my first rodeo with a lengthy power outage, though the last time was 16 years earlier. My wife and I slogged through a few days reading analogue media using daylight and then nice flashlights. But we tapped out yesterday. I’m currently writing this in a hotel room, leveraging my new Nord VPN service.

I’m counting my blessings on this. It’s miles better than it could have been. We suffered no property damage. It’s not winter, where we’d have to worry about snow, freezing pipes, hypothermia, and more. And we are hopefully closer to the ending than the beginning based on the last robo call I received from the public power company, which has been most impressive in their transparency and competent management of the crisis.

It knocked out my writing productivity for several days, but I’m back at it.

And immensely grateful that I can do so in a place where disasters are met head on by many helpers.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
Despite the lack of electricity curveball from the past week, I’ve made lots of headway.

I finished the fourth draft of The Game War and sent it off to beta readers. It’s easily the most epic thing I’ve ever written with multiple POVs and some big status quo changes. It clocked in at 1102 pages with 295,240 words. Not as big as some of the Sanderson, Martin, or Jordan yarns, but definitely not a breezy read either. As I said earlier. It is epic.

I then finished outlining Secret Fronts in Scrivener and made use of Scapple to map out some longer term plot points with some of the later books.

PLUS! I’ve started the first draft of Secret Fronts in trusty plain-old Word with its infinite page-after-page of text. It remains the best way to get maximum words on the screen for me. I’m up to page 34 with 8942 words. It’s fun to get back into the saddle of first-draft creativity. It’s equal parts planning and improv.

I love it.

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

Gath toasted his shot glass to Nadia. “Wait till you get to the aftertaste.”
Recommendation Corner
Chosen of Chaos by Benjamin Medrano

This one is a softer recommendation, but I enjoyed it enough to call it out.

Evelyn Tarth is an ultra powerful elf warrior mage in a sci-fi fantasy setting where the characters use magic along with tech in space-faring adventures.

It kind of feels like she’s a new game + character who’s hanging around in the beginning stages of a video game. Nothing in the story challenges her. Nothing. She and her Irish-accented djinn friend swat down any who attempt to harm her.

Strangely, I didn’t get bored by it because of a few important things. Evelyn is kind when people aren’t trying to kill her. She frees a bunch of enslaved women and offers them help to get back on their feet. Some of them end up joining her crew. And there’s a lot of witty, lighthearted banter throughout that’s well-performed by the narrator, Abby Craden.

It’s breezy with low-stakes, but give it a try if you want a fun sci-fi fantasy romp.

The Ultimates by Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri

I’m really digging this latest round of the Ultimate Universe that Jonathan Hickman set up with the Maker, a younger evil Reed Richards, who altered another reality of the Marvel universe. Preventing heroes from achieving their destinies.

The Ultimates focuses on the Avengers characters put together by that universe’s good Reed Richards, who wears the Doctor Doom mask and just goes by Doom. And a teenage Tony Stark who goes by Iron Lad.

The second issue’s focus on Captain America was poignant, especially with his learning that the US was dismantled in the 1960s by the Maker. As was a kid’s reaction. “Mom, what does that letter on his head stand for?”

Heart wrenching and compelling stuff.

The art is well done and I look forward to seeing how this alternate-reality Avengers team succeeds or fails during this run.
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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Curses!

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Howdy, folks!

All of us have encountered situations where something you really didn’t want to happen comes to pass, either in the slow-motion disaster way or the out-of-nowhere way.

Stubbed toes being a prime example of the latter.
 
And there are a few ways to approach voicing your frustration with such events.  Suck it in.  Voice an edited exclamatory phrase like “darn it!”

Or you let loose with something worse involving f bombs, s bombs, other fill-in-the-blank bombs, taking names in vain, or combinations thereof.

Speaking for myself alone.  My philosophy is it’s sometimes best to not let the curse words fly if you’re at work, in a public space around strangers, or around kids.

Other times.

Other times, rightly or wrongly, I will indeed vent the curses with abandon.  It’s how I talk.  And it’s how most adults talk. 

And in fantasy and sci-fi worlds, authors will often take two different approaches.  The made up curse word route with “frak” being a notable example from the newer version of Battlestar Galactica.  “By the abyss” also being a go-to for D&D novels.

Or authors just use the actual curse words.  Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series is a good example of that.

I fall into the camp of actually using the curse words.  Even if that loses me readers who don’t like it.  It just feels more authentic to me.

More visceral.

I always drop an F bomb in the first 5-10 pages of any of my POTG novels.  I want the reader to know early on that these words exist in my series, and if that isn’t a reader’s bag, then they can pull the eject lever early on without investing too much time.

And for readers who don’t mind language amid the violence of my stories.

I’m deeply thankful that you strapped in and took the Players of the Game ride!
Players of the Game Works in Progress
Woof… 

The Windows Magnifier’s read aloud function is incredibly helpful at finding typos, grammar mistakes, and awkward sentences.  But my goodness do I wish Microsoft would use the more natural sounding voices from Outlook and Word 365 with this function. 

I will be most happy to be done with its flat monotone and mispronunciations.  ViRauni is my new favorite one.  It pronounces is as “Six-Rauni”, reading the “Vi” as a Roman numeral six. The robits are ridiculous at times.

I am nearly done with The Game War’s fourth draft ultra grammar run-through with the triple check of ProWritingAid, Google Docs, and the Magnifier Reader.  I just finished Chapter 95.  I’m hoping to finish up in a week or so with Chapters 96-109.

Then on to a spell check and sending off the draft to beta readers and the editor.

I’ll need to switch mental gears after that and start outlining Book 4.5 and possibly use Scapple to do more macro plotting with the back half of the POTG saga.

I’m looking forward to putting the pieces together.  I’d quote Schism by Tool, but I don’t plan on watching them fall away.
 
Great song, though.

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

“I was planning on sending up a giant flare to signal them,” Ashe said.

Celsis scoffed out a laugh. “Along with everything else on the field of battle. My way was smarter.”

Ashe sighed. He really wanted to do that for purely childish reasons. “I guess you’re right.”
Recommendation Corner
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

It is a tragedy that this movie didn’t do better.  But they can’t unmake it.

So, HAH!   I still got to see it.

No, it wasn’t as good as Mad Max: Fury Road, but that earlier movie is a modern masterpiece.  This prequel is still a 9 or 8 out of 10 in my book.

I love the chapter format and the far more expansive timeline.  The young girl Furiosa gets far more screen time as she is unlucky enough to cross paths with Chris Hemsworth’s very un-Thor-like portrayal of Dementus.

Dementus’s motorcycle chariots, verbose monologues, and fake-it-till-you-make-it incompetence are well done.

When Anya Taylor-Joy finally shows up as the young adult Furiosa, she does a fantastic job of conveying the stoic intensity of the character.  She ably mimics Charlize Theron’s voice.  I’d put it up there with Ewan McGregor’s imitation of Alec Guinness.

Tom Holkenborg’s (aka Junkie XL’s) score music is more of the same frantic and slow burn of deep chords with fast tempos.  It totally fits the flick’s post-apocalyptic vibe.

It’d be nice if this movie finds more popularity on streaming, but if it doesn’t, c’est la vie.

I’ll still be getting the Blu-ray.

Othercide

I got this game on Steam after looking at a Reddit thread for games that are like XCOM2.

I’ll admit that it took me a little to get into after a few months’ worth of false starts.

It centers on a neo-goth steampunky world where weird monsters hunt the city streets.  And the Red Mother dispatches her many white-haired, grey-skinned clone daughters to combat them.

All of them with posh hairstyles and leather armor.

There’s lots of turn-based tactics I like.  And it has the Darkest Dungeon mechanic of perma death.  So it’s more about filling in gaps in your A and B teams with class types rather than specific characters.  But you can resurrect the daughters if you spend the resources to do so.  And you can also have the daughters absorb/consume one another to power them up. 

Not at all disturbing.

I’m having fun with the game and really dig its black, white, grey, and red color palette.
Promo Corner
Smash Words is running a month-long promo.  And all the Players of the Game books are part of it.

They’re all free for the month of July.

Tap on the image or the button below starting on July 1, or you can save the link: https://www.smashwords.com/she…

Please share this promo with friends and family. You can even forward this email to the avid readers in your life.

Check ’em out if you’re a Smashwords reader, or even if you aren’t.
Happy reading!
Smashwords July Promo
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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Jimifying

  By
Hey hey!

I’m reasonably sure every novelist out there at least partially writes their books because they haven’t read a yarn that has the specific ingredients they crave.  A particular character, or strange place, or weird power, or whatever else, a storyteller yearns to craft something unlike the stories that have come before.

I am no different.  

I’ve always wanted to read an epic story that’s equal parts comic book visuals, high fantasy politics, space opera interpersonal relationships, and video game kinetic action.  I’ve not yet come across a story with such a combination in the wilds of Audible and various bookstores.

So I write those stories.

It’s like the ultimate Choose Your Own Adventure story, where the options are limitless.  Though it does take a considerably longer time to craft it than it does to consume it.

And to the surprise of no one, I exercise such customization in all aspects of my life.  My wife and others call it Jimifying.

Is there a chicken casserole recipe online that calls for a set group of ingredients?  Then I’ll definitely be swapping French onion soup and adding broccoli.

Is my ISP offloading my old email address to some other subpar outfit?  Well then I’m not just going to take their shoehorned solution.  I’ll make my own domain and set up my own email.  I used Hover, in case you’re wondering.  No complaints so far.

And if my 25-year old key chain finally gives out?  I used that opportunity to get a new customized black leather key chain with a Grellish Claw on it.

Along with a Boulevard bottle cap opener that’s still going strong.
Whether I intend it or not, I often end up Jimifying most things in my life.

Including artwork I commission of my story’s characters. 

As is the case with Thebes above.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
Well, The Game War’s third draft ended up being more of a full-on read through to make sure the plot is coherent throughout and adding in a lot of the chronology time stamps I put at the beginning of each chapter.  I had to include time zones this time, because the action is spread out across Jeea with events occurring simultaneously.

And the fourth draft is combines both typo hunting and making sure plot holes and character interactions are patched up.

It’s a three step process of using ProWriting Aid in a chapter on Scrivener, then pasting it into a Google doc and seeing if it can find additional grammar problems, then using the Windows + button combo to bring up the magnifier which reads the text in a stiff robot voice.

That last part is a little rough with its mispronunciation of Crystala as CRY-STALA and Celsis Kri as CHEL-SIS KREE, among many other proper nouns.  But it totally catches a lot of contextual typos that both PWA and Google Docs miss.

I’m up to Chapter 35.

Of 109.

I hadn’t been numbering the chapters in the earlier drafts because I knew that I’d need to jumble them around.  It’s epic.  But nothing worse than other similar fare in the epic sci-fi fantasy genre.

So I’m about 1/3 of the way there with the fourth draft.  I’ll export it to a Word doc following that and do a quick spell check.

Then it’s off to the editor and beta readers.

And I’ll start plotting book 4.5 after that.  Hooray!

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

Ed blurred to Candice and held out a metal-clad arm. “I can’t tell. Is this cool enough to touch?”

She held a hand over it, feeling warmth, but nothing scalding. She wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s divine.”
Recommendation Corner
Fallout on Amazon Prime

I’ve not actually played any of the Fallout games. They’re on my list. Just haven’t gotten to them yet.

You don’t need to have played them to enjoy the show. The retro-future 1950s backstory. The vaults. Ghouls. Knights. Pip-Boys. All of them are well explained in the show’s narrative.

Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul/Cooper are all well fleshed out.  Walton Goggins in particular does a fantastic job both with nose and sans nose.

And for a show about the apocalypse, it does have a lot of humor.  Especially with the characters played by Chris Parnell and Fred Armisen.

I look forward to seeing where the story goes in season 2.

Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 3 by Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto

The quick backstory: An evil version of Reed Richards called the Maker went back in time and created an alternate reality where he prevented the Marvel heroes from gaining their powers or otherwise diverting them from their heroic destinies.

Peter Parker was among those who were denied.  He grew into adulthood, married Mary Jane, and had two kids.  He’s happy, but he feels like something’s missing in his life.

Then an a younger version of Tony Stark shows up.  And gives him a vial with the altered spider that should have bitten him in it.  And he must decide whether to take the plunge.

This is one of the more interesting takes on Peter Parker I’ve seen in years.  A guy who’s going through an early-mid-life crisis.  One who has zero experience with powers, but much more experience being an adult.

I look forward to seeing where this goes.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

James McGowan Reader Group- Just. Weird.

  By
Hey, friendly folks.

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.

Give it a watch.
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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Breaking the Streak

  By
Howdy, all.

CHOO-AH!

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:

Fittingly, it’s Xax again: “You forgot marshmallows!”
Recommendation Corner
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.

I gotta.
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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Time Creeps

  By
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.

James McGowan Reader Group- In Habiting

  By
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.