| 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. |
| That’s all for this time. Stay smart. Stay safe. Jim |
