I’ve brushed on this here before, but it was on my mind recently, so I thought I’d speak about it.There’s an old XKCD comic floating around that summarizes starred ratings on the internet. This is it: Sadly, it’s quite accurate. As consumers, we want perfection. We want to love everything… Read the rest...

Late last month I finally completed the manuscript of a project I’d been working on writing for a very long time. We won’t talk about the time it took, but the copy of the manuscript I sent to proofreaders was the sixth revision. It’s hard to believe that I wrote… Read the rest...

What if the bad guy wasn’t really a villain?What if the good guy isn’t all that good?What if your enemies end up being heroes?The whole story is a little more complicated than that, of course, but those are just a few notions played with in this week’s feature, Grandia II… Read the rest...

One thing that can get me excited about a book like nothing else is artwork. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all. Any time I find a book that’s got illustrations or other artwork in it, I find it boosts my interest in the text considerably. It’s interesting… Read the rest...

Let’s be real, here. I write fantasy. How could I not have D&D; on my list of influences? Long regarded as a game for nerds, quite a few people overlook the fact that books set in the worlds created for D&D; often present fantastic stories and memorable characters. Dungeons and… Read the rest...

I have a very deep fondness for retro games. That includes newer titles that pay homage to games of old, though the classics will always hold a special place in my little gamer heart. One of my favorite games that’s not quite old enough to be retro, but carrying a… Read the rest...

This week’s entry is about another video game, one I first played twelve years ago. For a game as old as it is, Legend of Mana has aged gracefully, unlike many games from that time period. One reason for it is that the visuals in the game are created from… Read the rest...