With each passing day Christmas grows ever closer. For some this is a magical time of year, for others it’s nothing but stress and headaches.

I sort of fall in between the two categories. I generally get my shopping done nice and early or just give out gift certificates to those I love and avoid the malls and stores.

After all, who wants to get into a fight over toys and electronics? I certainly don’t.

I do enjoy seeing the people who are into the holiday spirit though, it’s always nice to see people in their hideous sweaters or wearing red hats and generally being nice to one another.

That is what makes this time of year pleasant. I just wish that everyone could be like this!

Over the week I continued with the work on editing and re-writing ‘Familiar Bonds’. At the rate that I’m going, it will be 3 months before I am finished with the work. That is a slower estimate than I had expected when I discussed it last week.

Once the work is done the book will be a lot better and I hope that my readers will enjoy the effort that I put into it.

The monk magic items article for Labyrinth Lord is coming along quite nicely as well. Unlike Pathfinder (which I will probably have to convert the items to) I don’t have to worry about cost or how to construct them.

That’ll be another headache that I can deal with once the old school version has been written up.

It’s not very often that I get reviews for my work, especially for my older issues of Wisdom from the Wastelands. But earlier this week I received a new review for one of my first issues, Wisdom from the Wastelands issue 6: Factions. I’ve mentioned Eric Fabiaschi several times over the past year, as he wrote up quite a few little encounters to be used with the various conversions I created. Here is his blog in which he reviews issue 6 for me.

And here is his review for Wisdom from the Wastelands issue 47: Underwater Rules.

This week saw another new release by Skirmisher Publishing. They released 'Der Leere Blick' German-Language Script for 'Cthulhu Live'. I’m not into LARPing by any stretch of the imagination, but this is a pretty neat little product, especially for our German speaking readers.

Today I wrote several conversions for posting. Technically I wrote two conversions, one that was posted today and another I will be posting tomorrow. The one that I posted today however is in effect five conversions. They are all from the Spider Man comics. Spider man, all three versions of Spider woman: Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter, and Mattie Franklin, as well as Madame Webb. 

Tomorrow’s version will be the nasty creatures from the novel and movie ‘Odd Thomas’. If you haven’t seen it, check it out, I really enjoyed this movie and posted about it several weeks ago.

As I have done several times in the past, I will be discussing another company’s product today. Many months ago I discovered a book that was published via PDF from Kobold Press. Since I am constantly on the lookout for new books to add to my collection, I was interested in this particular book called Deep Magic. It is quite pricey and when I discovered that it was available in print format, I decided to wait.

Finally my local game store ‘Sentry Box’ got it in. Talk about a heavy tome! The book was about $60 Canadian but worth every penny. It is a hard cover book (which are the type that I prefer) and is filled with over 700 new spells for the Pathfinder game.

Not only does it contain spells, but far more, such as living spell books, runes, new bloodlines, and archetypes.

I’ve barely had a chance to skim the surface but I can already see that this particular book is going to be one of my favorites to use in my weekly game!

And for those of you who happen to use Hero Lab, you can download this book to be used in that program as well.

Three books I would like to mention as well, but neither are for Role Playing games. The first is an action heavy Zombie novel called Arisen: Fortress Britain written by Glynn James and Michael Stephen Fuchs. It is a little on the thin side but I listened to it and found that I was quickly drawn into the novel. Yes it is rather cliché with all the super tough special ops soldiers, killing zombies and dealing with personal demons and issues as well.

Still it was not even remotely dull and despite being so short, I am very eager to continue with the trilogy.

I was a little surprised that I even bothered with it, since the market is so saturated with the genre, but I did enjoy it and I can honestly say that I recommend it!

The second novel is one that I am almost finished listening to called ‘To Honor you Call Us: Men of War book 1’ by H. Paul Hornsinger. This is classic space opera in the vein of Honor Harrington and is your typical human empire at war with an alien species and getting its  ass kicked.

Again it’s sort of cliché but I have found that I am really enjoying the novel and the author’s take on the classic heroic commander taking over a less than stellar performing ship and whipping the crew into shape.

Worth reading.

Lastly I finished the latest in the Vampire Earth series by E.E. Knight called ‘Baltic Gambit’. This was written from the point of view of one of the lesser Characters Alessa Duvalier. I’ve been a follower of the series since the first novel came out quite a few years ago and have kept up with it as each novel has been published.

I found this one seemed to be a little lacking, it was as if it was rushed and parts seemed to have been cut out.

Still, it was good to read the novel from this characters perspective. If you’re a fan of the series it is still worth your time to pick up and read. 

The image that I am using this week is from another one of my short stories, this one called ‘Death and Life’. As always the art was provided by the very talented Alfonso Maesa.

No it’s not yet available for reading, not until my first novel is published.

And as usual that’s it for me this week.

Try to stay stress free as Christmas approaches and remember that it’s about being together with your family and those you love, not spending yourself into bankruptcy!

And if you’re religious it’s also about celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Stay warm, stay sane and enjoy life!

Peace!