Bureaunauts, Two Old Series Renewed and More

Another week has come and gone. It has been kind of nice taking a break from the rigors of trying to finish off so many different projects. I’ll be getting back to that this week though, as I’ve had enough time to clear out my head and make space to continue working.

First I need to update about the Nanite undead issue. I mentioned that it was too short, so I had to write up new material. I’ve finished about half the new entries I wanted to work on and I’ll get back to it this week. I hope to have the additional material in Michael’s hands by Tuesday evening at the latest.

My friends over at Fox and Ox Creations have exactly two weeks left in their Bureaunauts campaign and they’ve reached the 75% mark. Way to go Todd and Allison! I can hardly wait to see this go into production!

That story, the Star Wars fan fiction I was working on stalled out completely. I’m going to remedy that starting today or even tomorrow. It shouldn’t be that hard for me to write, but then again it’s really the first time I’ve ever tried to write a Star Wars story.

And no – it does not involve Jedi.

Oh yeah… I’m six people away from breaking the 200 likes total on my personal author page. If you read my blog and you haven’t yet liked my page, please do so!

And since I’m on it… I’m just about at 1100 followers on Twitter now! And to think that for almost a year I had a whopping 5. Times certainly have changed. Although I am damn confused as to two aspects of Twitter. First… why do people who have so many followers and are following ZERO people keep adding me? Oh right… they believe I’m stupid enough to jump on their bandwagon. Nope – when they unfollow me, I instantly unfollow them.

The other thing is why in the hell do I keep getting followers who are dope smokers? I haven’t followed a single one of them and I won’t. It’s not my thing, at all.

Finished off one book last week, and just about finished a second novel. I hope that means at this time next weekend I’ll have two books to review. I finished ‘Survivor’ A Vicky Peterwald novel by Mike Shepard.

Vicky is dealing with the evil machinations of the empress, who is doing her absolute best to not only kill Vicki but tear the Empire apart. Vicky is dead set against this happening and like Kris Longknife, she has built a little team and is determined to undermine her evil step-mother and return her father’s empire to his hands.

Okay I know she’s not supposed to be Kris Longknife, but damn it really is annoying how often she likes to get laid. And her dual lesbian assassins / bodyguards are too cliché.

Does this mean I will stop reading the books? Of course not. It’ll be a few months before I get to the third in the series though.

I have never hidden the fact I love the whole post-apocalyptic genre.

Back in the 80's, when I was still in high school, I grabbed every book I could find and read them. There were a ton of series back then... Deathlands, Survivalist, The Last Ranger, Doomsday Warrior, CADS, Endworld, Blade, ‘Ashes’,  - just to name a couple.

They were garbage. Well, with the exception of the Survivalist, and that even had political overtones I did not care for in the least.

Some turned out to be great cannon fodder for the games I liked to play and create.

After all these years, the only one which survived up until recently, in fact celebrated its 30th anniversary was Deathlands.

Even that one was canceled when Gold Eagle ceased to exist. Although it was snatched up by Graphic Audio and new books will be released on Audio next month.

Two of the old books, however, have seen a resurgence. The Survivalist, and Endworld.

I was actually very pleased when I saw the Survivalist was coming back.

See... as a writer, I have learned a great deal and have even imitated the styles of my favorite authors and even books.

The one thing I learned from Jerry Ahern and his style was how important family, friendship and loyalty was when he wrote his prose.

So I grabbed a copy of the continuation of his venerable series. Since he passed away several years ago, penning the books has fallen to his talented wife, and a friend of theirs named Bob Anderson.

I could not read more than a third of the book. The writing was sub-par, I have to say. I had a very hard time following it, and it was too disjointed on how it seemed to jump from scene to scene.

Talk about being really disappointed.

Obviously I'm in the minority here, as several more books have been written and published.

And now David Robbins has breathed life into his Endworld series. They were easy to read books back in the day, with all manner of bizarre mutants and exotic ruined locations. They were fun, although it was really boring how many times the main characters ran into 'green eyed, blond' women, and even more annoying how often the phrase 'you'll find out later' was used.

These books I am tempted to purchase and read, just out of a sense of pure nostalgic longing.

I would dearly love to continue to read the Survivalist, but I just can't get past the poor writing. I feel bad for the writer, as it is clear he loves the series and the characters, but.... he just lacks the skill.

Oh yeah – nearly forgot. Last week I mentioned I was going to up the number of New Mutant Monday entries to three per week. As of this week I have thirteen more weeks to go, which is good. Funny by the time I’m back to writing only two a week it will be nearly December. At least by doing this I will have finally achieved my goal of starting a new volume at the beginning of every year!

Last week’s offerings: Nocbulea, Coastal Reaver and the Acid Hound. The latter was a conversion of one of Clint Staples Runequest Thursday creatures!  I will have three more linked in next week’s blog, and one of those will be Clint’s.

Another great show this week from the boys. This time they covered one of the greatest aspects of adventuring – loot!

Before I sign off for the week, I have two links to share. Both are for those of you who own 3D printers – something I plan on owning in the next year or so. Demons and Dragons, free downloads from RPGdrivethru.

So there you have it!

Next week the blog will be on time but the long weekend after that – don’t expect one. My wife and I are driving to British Columbia and then down to Seattle. It’ll be a nice vacation, starting on Friday with us home by Tuesday.

I’m looking forward to it, and I know so is my wife.

So continue to enjoy life and despite all the tension and turmoil taking place in the states, try to stay safe and happy.