Category: Reader Group Archive

James McGowan Reader Group- Breaking the Streak

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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

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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

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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.

James McGowan Reader Group- A Season of Experimentation

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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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Jumping Into It

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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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Pinteresting… Very Pinteresting

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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.

James McGowan Reader Group- Ultimate!

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Howdy!

A few months back, I chronicled the glory of my bar trivia team, Beerpaw.  This is not the only group that I’ve rejoined with the worst of the pandemic behind us.  My pickup Ultimate Frisbee group again resumed its casual night.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Ultimate Frisbee, it’s kind of a mix of basketball where each defender covers someone, or plays zone defense against small passes of the offense, and American football where you can also throw the frisbee way down the field like a quarterback to a receiver in a rectangular end zone.  You also do a “kick off” after each point where you either yell “Ulitimate!” and/or the score and throw it to the other team.

Or you just say 2-2, no matter what the score is.  That’s an ongoing joke with one of my good friends.  (Hi, Dave!)

I usually tell people it’s like playing frisbee with a dog and you’re the dog.  I’m always drenched in sweat after I play, which is exactly what I want.  It’s fantastic exercise.

I’ve been playing with this group since 2007.  Originally, we played one night a week.  However, it eventually proved popular enough to expand to a second night that gradually became for the people with kids and older/slower people sub-group.

I am firmly and proudly in the latter group.

And it contracted to just one night per week with the higher octane group for a few years during the worst of the pandemic.  Until this past spring.

And how did I do after a 3 season gap?

Not terrible!  Which is a win as far as I’m concerned.  Minimal soreness and stiffness mixed with maximum fun.

I LOVE that we’ve been able to get back at the disc flinging.

I not only go for the cardio, but it’s also a great excuse to see a bunch of friends I wouldn’t get to see as often otherwise.

We stop on or around when we lose daylight saving time, so the season’s coming to an end.

But I have faith that the casual pickup Ultimate Frisbee group will return with all things green next spring.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
This past month had a longer than expected session of pasting the Game War’s first draft from Word into Scrivener.  And something interesting took up a good deal of my time.

I discovered I needed to summarize the chapters in each chapter folder, which became a second, far more defined outline.

With that done, I’ve edited the first three chapters, and am working on a brand new fourth.  Some of the formatting in Scrivener is hinky compared to Word, especially with tabs.  Scrivener’s value is the ability to shuffle sections around, so my anticipation is that I’ll mainly use it for second and possibly third drafts.

As far as productivity tracking goes with the second draft, I’m going to try going with the total chapters edited or written.  It’s a little more qualitative than quantitative, but I think it might work.

So 3.5 chapters for this month.

PLUS: I’ve started working with a third artist with the handle of Moonarc.  They did the illustration of Ricardo Alterv, and I’ll be rotating their art on future newsletters.  Check out their stuff on Deviantart.  It’s nifty.

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

Hekati gestured to the circular opening. “Cheaters first.”

Corsis winked at her. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Recommendation Corner
The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North

Of the three Claire North sci-fi fantasy books I’ve read thus far, this one is the most melancholic and tragic.

The main character, Hope, has a condition that makes everyone she encounters to forget her after she departs from sight and sound.  Kind of an inverse Memento where everyone is like Guy Pierce when they interact with her.

This includes her parents when she was a teenager.  The scenes depicting this were both subtle and heartbreaking.

Hope becomes a thief because much of any legitimate career requires other people to remember her.  To build trust.  In the absence of trust, she’s able to steal valuables with impunity.

Jewels in particular.

And following a theft royal jewelry at a posh party, this brings her into the crosshairs of the host organization, a company behind a dystopian app called Perfection that encourages people to become more “perfect”.  A company that will go to great lengths to silence those who don’t agree with their shallow definition of the term.

Including a thief no one can remember.

Compelling stuff.

Arcadian Atlas

I do love me a good tactics video game.

And this one pushes many of my buttons.

It’s a pretty standard JRPG style game where there’s political intrigue that soon gets side tracked by magical forces that are unleashed by short-sighted warring factions. The main characters get caught up in the middle of it, and find that no side can be trusted.

I’ll admit that the user interface could have used a few more layers of paint.  The inability to rotate the screen to click on a character that’s clumped up with a bunch of other characters is vexing.

However, the Final Fantasy Tactics vibe with the character designs, the strangely chill jazz music, and Poncho the racoon make it fun for me.

All media is improved by the inclusion of a racoon.  It is immutable fact.

And I also enjoy this game despite its UI flaws.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

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James McGowan Reader Group: Unorthodox Cartography

  By
Hey, hey!

During my summer of revising and rephrasing, I’ve realized two things.

One: The preceding sentence had far too many “re” words.

And two: I needed to make a few new maps for novels and novellas that are in the hopper, like The Breakers, Jagged Pieces, and The Game War.  I also need maps for plotting and outlining purposes as I figure out the story beats of the next swath of novels.  The Players of the Game saga will expand beyond Trojis and Sufrinzon.

I’ll detail the process of making one map that will be showing up in the fourth main novel.  I fully admit the method I used was on the ridiculous side.

I magnified and printed a section of the existing map of Jeea, the main super continent of Trojis. I laid it on top of a glass coffee table, placed a blank sheet of paper over it, the shined a maglite underneath it, and traced the land masses, seas, and rivers with a pencil. Then I scanned it and added all the proper noun names in Photoshop.

My wife found the flashlight part most amusing.

It reminded me of my childhood days of watching teachers present things on overhead projectors.

The other maps were way easier, as I just needed to make them up from scratch. However, all of them will need a whole lot digital beautifying by my graphic designer brother. (Hey, Tony!)

It shows an atypical, non-text component of my creative process.

And it’s a sneak peak into things to come in Book 4: The Breakers.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
The great ProWritingAid edit-o-rama has reached its end.  Penciled maps are made.

The next big thing begins.

The second draft of The Game War is in progress.

To start, I’m pasting the chapters from Word into Scrivener with summary descriptions.  Once that’s finished, I’ll start the revising the prose, cutting out parts, adding others, and rearranging their order.

I’ll need to determine a better way to track productivity stats than the word/page count I used on the first draft.  Maybe how many chapters I revise.  Maybe something else.

The nose is back on the grindstone.

Players of the Game Rephrase Quote of the Month

“Hey, lounge lasagnas,” Fernallus said. “Keeping saucy?”
Recommendation Corner
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

This book has an interesting premise. A small minority of people actually live their lives over and over in cycles.  They die and are born again in the same year and their memories of the past lives emerge around age 3 or 4.

Jonathan Hickman did something similar with Moria MacTaggert in X-Men when he retconned her into a secret mutant a few years back.

In this book, Harry August continues to be born again and again in 1918 and usually lives to the 1990s or so.  But not always. 

There is peril. 

A way exists to kill these immortals.  Other time-looping immortals can kill their parents before they’re born.

And someone starts doing just that as the course of history starts to change.  Advanced tech starts coming decades too early, and the accompanying environmental problems come with it.

Harry determines that it’s another time-looping immortal, and he must do something to stop it. In this life or the next.

Very well written and Peter Kenny did a great job narrating it.

Oppenheimer

This is one of my new favorite Christopher Nolan movies.  I put it up there with Memento, Dark Knight, and Inception.

Chronology is again played with, but I think it works well with the three focal points of the Strauss Senate hearing in the late 50s, Oppenheimer’s infamous security clearance meeting in the mid-50s, and the buildup to Los Alamos and Trinity in the 30s and 40s.

Cillian Murphy shows Oppenheimer as a flawed man who’s a genius, but also a reckless womanizer.  Everyone does a fantastic job.  I didn’t even realize Robert Downey Jr. was Strauss until the credits rolled.

Really heavy stuff with the implications of theory colliding with reality at the advent of the atomic age.  Highly recommended.

(And I did get my Barbenheimer bingo card checked a week later when I saw Barbie.

It was a fun and silly movie, but a bit preachy at times. 
Still, America Ferrera’s monologue in the third act was good fodder for discussion with my wife.  Yes, women do feel everything she described.

And that’s valuable to know.)
Promo Corner
Get a Bunch of Fantasy Books on the House
Get a Bunch MORE Fantasy Books on the House
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- Into the Great Wide Open

  By
Hey, hey!

I’m wide open. And almost certainly a rebel without a clue, but never mind that.

The Players of the Game saga is now wide on Ebook format, not just on Kindle. So if you prefer to read on Nook, Kobo, Apple, Smashwords, or Scribd, I have you covered.

I’ll be expanding paperbacks to wide distribution in the coming months as well.

In the meantime, if you didn’t want to use “the smile” in favor of alternative eBook marketplaces, please check out the books below. 

And as always, you can get the Repenter and the Hidden Chapters on the house through my Book Funnel links.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on eBook and Paperback
Get Repenter on the House! Get The Hidden Chapters on the House
Players of the Game Works in Progress
I’m still engaged in the great ProWritingAid edit-o-rama. 

I have finished my way through The Breakers and will move on to the Jagged Pieces novella next. Then I shall leverage Scrivener to re-arrange all the rough draft components of The Game War and get on with the second draft.

The editing machete is sharpened, and it shall be time to cut and edit all kinds of affronts to man and Vurg.

Players of the Game Rephrase Quote of the Month:

Frulgrath and Xax:

Frulgrath’s shoulders tightened. Xax sensed something. He sensed the trap.

“Well, that’s just–” Xax whirled around and punched the hidden Shulinkarv in his beaked face with a fierce crack. “Ducky!”
Promo Corner
Get 50 Fantasy Books on the House
Get ANOTHER 50 Fantastic Fantasy Books on the House
Recommendation Corner

Secret Invasion on Disney+

It started off a bit slow, but I love the paranoia this series emulated from the comic series.

It’s much more of a spy thriller than a behind-the-eight-ball fight against aliens, but it’s well done. Samuel L. Jackson’s Fury is great and weather worn. I won’t spoil any twist here, but I’m pleasantly surprised on this one.
 
Give it a try.

The Forged by Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann

I generally don’t like magazine-sized comics, but this one just hit all my buttons.

It’s a little bit Warhammer 40k and a little bit Inhumanoids (a lesser known Sunbow cartoon and toy series from the 80’s).

It focuses on a squad of super tough women soldiers in power armor who have to deal with clones of their empress and an agenda that involves Cthulhu-esque aliens that really, really want all of humanity to expire.

Great military sci-fi if that’s your bag.
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

James McGowan Reader Group- Beer Paw Prevails

  By
Hey, hey!

I have at last gotten back- BOOM!

Ahem, excuse the fireworks.  They are quite prolific in the US during the Fourth of July, at least in my neck of the woods.

As I was saying, I have once again returned to doing bar trivia with my friends on our team, Beer Paw. 

How did that gloriously silly name come to be?  Well, as legend has it, there was a sock monkey with a hand dipped in an empty cup atop a friend of a friend’s desk at their shared workplace.  And… yeah.  That’s it.

We’re named for the team’s mascot: A sock monkey that I’ve never seen.

We comprise meteorologists, an IRS specialist, and a financial risk manager.  Our knowledge is trivially expansive.  Which is exactly what you need to excel in bar trivia.

Though we are generally pretty weak with any biology or physiology questions.  But we more than make up for it with any sports, geography, or geek culture topics.

Three times a year, we test our mettle in city championships.  And do mental battle against other teams with names like “Suck it, Trebek!”, “Cats, Cats, Cats”, and the “Blockheads”.

We even win on occasion.

And what do we do with our winnings? Buy more beer and bar food for the team.  It’s an awe-inspiring cycle.

Beer Paw Prevai- BOOM!

Sigh.
Players of the Game Works in Progress
My ProWritingAid re-edit-o-rama is going much faster than I thought it might go.  Many typo fixes, minor plot corrections, and rephrasing updates abound.

I’m already through Repenter, Hidden Chapters, The Brigands, The Favor, and the New Players.  I also have them reformatted in Atticus.

I’ll be looking at releasing hardcover “ultimate” editions and eBook omnibuses for Books 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 in the coming couple of months.  With The Breakers, Book 4, to come soon after that.

Players of the Game Rephrase Quote of the Month:

Thebes and Ashe from The Brigands:

“Gimme another few minutes.” The Imp pressed more virtual buttons on the array of holograms in front of him. “These clouds are adhesive, trying to pull us in. It wasn’t as hard last time.”

Ashe’s stomach tightened. “Why?”

“What am I, a weather guy? I got nothing.”
Recommendation Corner
Across the Spiderverse

This is my favorite movie of the summer so far.

Miles deals with both his relationship to his parents and juggling his double life as his universe’s Spider-Man. And Gwen, who’s very much the co-lead of this movie, has to deal with a far more adversarial relationship with her father, also a police captain.

Then there’s the Spot. A seeming joke character who steadily gets more and more dangerous in the background.

The foreground deals with a whole lot of Spider people trying to keep their dimensions from collapsing.

This movie has so many different art styles from punk, to washed out impressionist, to overly muscular 90’s comic art. It looks like nothing out there and is just thrilling to behold.

Highest possible recommendation.

Seal of the Worm by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Wasps have won. But their empress knows she wrecked the world to do it. And she’ll wreck it worse to “fix” it.

The Beetles in exile and their Ant allies must martial their forces under the command of the Ants brilliant and cruel Tactician.

And under their feet, the horrid evil of the Worm and its many humanoid “segments” rises. And Cheerwell and her banished friends must fight them with their aptitude and magic negated.

The over world’s chances of beating back the Worm’s advance is fleeting.

I’m not going to spoil a horrid plot element in this. But let’s just say that I will be shocked if it’s kept “as is” in any adaptions to other media. Really, really unsettling.

But also a satisfying conclusion to the Shadows of the Apt series.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on Kindle and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.