Survivalist, Destroyermen, and more!

So here we go again. At this point in time it’s been nearly six months solid since I started to write a weekly blog. Back when I started this project, I was not sure how long I could keep at it, I figured a month or two and then I would start slipping, missing the occasional week until at last I stopped writing a blog entirely.

As had been the case back in early 2013. I stopped writing a blog around March, if not earlier. So the fact that I have managed to keep it going for so long as proven that if I put my mind to the work, I could accomplish what was required of me.

Last week I mentioned the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. As of tonight it’s only four days away! Really starting to get excited now, and really looking forward to it and meeting the various people. Especially the actors from Aliens. It does appear that the gentleman at Spatcave Studios will get my armor to me this week. I kind of doubt that I’ll see it Thursday, but I am really hoping to have it for Friday.

Best thing is other than having my son and wife with me on Sunday; Gary will be there for part of Friday and Saturday as well. And my best friend will be coming as well, although he does not think he can make it for Friday, which is cool.

Work this week was – well, it was entertaining. I don’t know if people would consider it to be a good entertaining, but it was just that. The downside is that I was not able to finish ‘100’. It’s so damn close to being finished! I only have three days this week that I will be able to devote any time to the story, so I will try and finish it. I only managed to write a few thousand words this week, so it’s currently sitting at 14,400.

And with it being a long weekend, I spent the time on Friday playing and relaxing. It was crappy weather (again!) but at least the past two days turned out nice. So I did not go on a writing spree like I had last week with my Wisdom from the Wastelands issues. I still have not completed the issue on alternate advancement, but who knows, maybe tonight.

The conversions continue to run quite smoothly with a posting on the D-infinity site every single day. I’ve gotten into the habit of posting these first thing in the morning while I am eating breakfast and getting ready to start my day. As for writing up new creatures, I find that I can only accomplish that Saturday through Tuesday, and even then I usually only write one every two days.

The past week I’ve been posting conversions from Deathlands and Outlanders. I have quite a bit of artwork that I commissioned for my old site quite a few years ago so right now I am getting a chance to re-use this artwork. I still have seven (it will be six after tonight) conversions that include new art that I will be writing over the next couple of weeks.

Much to my surprise and delight, I was posting the conversions on the Deathlands / Outlanders Facebook page and one of the readers, a gentleman named Eric Fabiaschi just so happens to play Mutant Future and has been taking my conversions and posting brief encounters using them.

Here are the links to the encounters he has created using my conversions. Stickies, Hybrids, Dragoons, and the Guardians.

So if you happen to play the game, take a minute and check out the encounters that he created using my work. Makes a guy feel great to see someone using material that I converted. I would like to say that I created all that material, but that would be a lie. I just was inspired by it.

Speaking of conversions, if any of my readers would like to see something from a book, movie, television show or videogame converted into OSR stats, just drop me a line at chrisv@nucleus.com or contact me on my Facebook Author page.

I will say right now that I don’t expect much in the way of work or creativity this week, and I might even be late getting the blog written next Sunday due to the expo. Although I have not forgotten that I was thinking of writing a day by day blog, but if it was anything like last year, I’m going to be too damn tried to do that!

That reminds me… it was ten years ago that my first novel Outlanders: Mask of the Sphinx was published, nearly to the month. I believe that it came out in May or June of that year. I can still remember how excited I was to see my work finally in print, even if it had to be vetted extensively by Mark Ellis.

Here ten years later I’m waiting for my second novel to be published. This one was written entirely on my own and does not need to be vetted. I’ve come that far since I wrote my first book. My skill has grown and increased quite dramatically over the past decade. Of course the book needs to be edited, but isn’t that the case with all novels? Michael Varhola is doing a great job when it comes to that!

When it comes to books, this week I finished off Destroyermen: Distant Thunders, book four of that particular series. As with each previous novel, I found myself absolutely engrossed with the story and the characters. I can’t get enough of this series! I just hope that it continues to be as amazing with the remaining five novels in the series as it was for the first four!

I started another book by an author I have come to enjoy. This particular offering is called ‘Nocturnal’ by Scott Sigler. I’ve really enjoyed it thus far and I will be finished it tomorrow. I can’t really go into it much but I will say that it reminds me a great deal of the movie ‘Nightbreed’ that came out in the late 80’s.

Lastly I have to bring up a series that got into reading during the mid to late 80’s while I was in highschool. ‘The Survivalist’ was written by Jerry Ahern (rest in peace) and ran for 27 regular novels and two super novels.

It wasn’t that long ago that I discovered that Jerry and his wife Sharon had revived the series with a new author named Bob Anderson. I was very excited to see the return of one of my favorite series from an author who had such an influence on my own writing. So I ordered two copies of The Survivalist 30: Inheritors of Earth, one for myself and one for my best friend, who happened to really enjoy the books as well.

Sadly I have to say that I am quite disappointed with the book. I understand that it would be an all but insurmountable task to try and pick-up where Jerry left off and his shoes are all but impossible to fill, but the author simply is not very good!  I find that I have to go back and re-read scenes because they appear to be missing information, and even though the characters are ok (thank god), I feel that the new author simply is not doing a very good job.

A real pity, too. His work really reminds me of my older work, the kind of writing I did about fifteen years ago. It has potential, but he really needs to do some serious practice. Sadly I really, REALLY doubt that I’ll bother picking up any more in the series unless his skill drastically improves.

Yes I fully understand what I just said sounds incredibly arrogant and egotistical. I know it does and I feel bad because of it, and I just hope that as with everything, the more that Bob Anderson writes, the better his prose will become.

And that will be it for this week’s blog. As usual I would like to invite those of you who take the time to read my blog and that have Facebook to like my personal author page. Broke 80 this week and I would love to see it break 100 by the time I head down to Houston next month for Comicpalooza.

Until next week, peace!