Newsletter Week of 28 August 2020
My book review column from the Sept/Oct issue of Analog is now available to read for free.
Thomas and I spent most of yesterday with our gaming group. We're in the middle of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and having a wonderful time. I thought I'd share some of the background of my character, a Dwarf called Thruf:
For a time in Thruf's forties, his older brother Bhaldrik moved in with him. Bhaldrik, who was a popular actor and bard, suffered a nervous breakdown and took a sabbatical from the stage. Thruf adored his brother, and the few years they spent together in Rhin Boldhivr were among the happiest of his life.
Two years after his triumphant return to the stage, Bhaldrik was killed in a stampede of shrieking, adoring fans during his one-Dwarf show “The Vanadium Monologues.” Thruf was inconsolable, and took a full year off from his schooling to mourn.
When he was 40 Thruf graduated from Holy Naldryn. For the next ten years he did graduate work at the University of Ebonmere. For his work on metamorphic rocks, he earned a GeD (Doyen of Geology) degree.
- Ripped 8 more DVDs to mp4
- Legion of Super-Heroes website: Cataloging November 1998 comics
- Added 300 words to my memoir
- More work on the next gay erotic short story
- 200 words on Hunt for the Dymalon Cygnet
- Subtantial progress on new paperback edition of The Leaves of October
- Started working on Rule of Five episode 2.24
Here's something to help beat the heat: from January 2020.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (arguably the best Disney moive that wasn't actually a Disney movie)
Linthicum Market, 421 S. Camp Meade Rd (Shipley Shopping Center), Linthicum, MD 20190 (try their chicken salad especially)
I'm currently working on edpisoe 2.24 of The Rule of Five. This is a signifcant episode: It closes out the second season, which I'll realease in a little while as the second book in the Rule of Five trilogy. This is a particularly fun episode to write. There's a couple of big reveals that have been building for the last two seasons (four years).
Over this time the story has unfolded like an onion being peeled, layer after layer taking the plot to new levels. This kind of thing is very satisfying to write; it's always fun to pick up elements introduced long ago and reveal that they have unsuspectd meanings. One of the things I love about science fiction is this experiencve of seeing familiar things from a different angle.
The final two years of The Rule of Five, Season 3, will be more straightforwatd. After episode 2.24, both readers and characters will know clearly the nature of the threat they've been working against all this time. There are still going to be a few surprises and reveals, but on the whole it'll be a somewhat different process.
To find out more about The Rule of Five, check here.