Three Seasons of Various Shows, a Huge Update On My Projects, and Everything You Have Come to Expect

As of this blog Wisdom from the Wastelands 52: Nanotech Undead is in production. Between Michael Varhola and myself we have found all the images to use in the issue, and have settled upon the cover. So it should be available for purchase in the next couple of weeks at the most.

Last week Mike asked me to give him a list of my projects from the shortest to the largest, not including the Wisdom from the Wastelands. I sent it to him, but ended up forgetting about a few!

Here is the list of what you can expect from me in the future, as long as he wants to publish them, that is.

100 oddities found in the trunk of a car – 4 pages of text. This is tiny and probably would not require too much work to get ready for sale.

Monk Magic Items. At this point in time it is 25 pages long. However I will be cutting about 5 pages of material from it, as it was written with Labyrinth Lord in mind.  Thing is, OSR does not sell anywhere near as well as 3.5, Pathfinder or 5^th edition. So the end result is I will be converting all the material to Pathfinder and I will need to write up several more pages of new magic items to get it up to the quota we need.  This actually won’t take all that long for me to accomplish. I already have printed out the rules for figuring out the costs of magic items, so I’m ready to go.

After that, I have the long, long, LONG delayed weapons issue compilation from Wisdom from the Wastelands. I really need to finish that off, and it looks like it’s about 120 pages. I did neglect to send this to Mike before, as I forgot about it. It won’t take too long to get it ready for publication, as about 30% of the material is new.

I had sent Michael New Mutant Monday volume 1 when I was in the Philippines. This book is nearly 190 pages long, and I have several decisions to make in regards to it. First I could cut it in half, having each book have 52 creatures. This will reduce the length of time to edit and I could at least get part of it out fairly soon.

The issue is that I would have to include the rules for Power Score as I have decided I no longer have any desire to write up the mutations in the traditional manner. I want all the mutations to be written up using the rules which will appear in the upcoming manuals. It is bad enough the rules are going to be repeated for each volume! And all the new mutations in this book have been written up and included in all three volumes anyhow.

So that means maybe the best bet is to wait to publish this book, either as a single volume or two volumes, after the mutation books have come out. 

Then I have the plant mutation book. This one is going to be cut down in size. I’ve decided to not include the physical mutations in this book. Simply easier that way and greatly reduces the amount of re-printing material. So that’s going to drop the book to about 100 pages from its current total of about 130.

Next will be the Mental Mutation book, and that one is about 200 pages.

Finally there is the physical mutation book, and it is sitting at 230 pages.

I do have the harvesting book too, but you know, I think I’ll wait until after I’ve got all the other books published. This one could be split into two volumes, one with all the rules, and then one covering the harvesting material found in my Creatures of the Tropical Wastes book.

You know, I would like to say I could continue to create the same sort of harvesting books for all the volumes of creatures which will be coming out in the future, but truth be told, unless I convert it strictly to Pathfinder or 5^th edition, the material just won’t sell that well.

I love to write, I love to create but I also want to make money at this.

Oh yeah and I do intend on making sure all my material is eventually converted over to be used in Starfinder when it comes out next year.

This week I will start the conversion to Pathfinder for the Monk Magic Items, so that will take a little while, but I don’t think it’s going to take months, not like it did with the mutation books.

There you have it.

It was nice to work on some fiction this week. I finished a story I had begun before I took my trip to the Philippines. This one is how my character Ronnath ended up obtaining the tattoo which is quite prominent on the image I have shared in my blog and on Facebook. It’s a 13,500 word story and I hope those of you who like my fiction will take the time to read it. The title of the story, appropriately enough, is Tattoo.

This week saw the usual two new mutant Monday entries from me… Killing Claws, based on an image I saw online, and Sealoid, the latest in my ongoing challenge with Clint Staples to convert our creatures to our favorite game systems.

The boys also had yet another great episode of D-Infinity Live, this time discussing practical modeling.

Our own Allison Aquino Markello of Fox and Ox creations has a brand new kickstarter campaign for a game called Bureaunauts she and her husband created. It is worth checking out, so click on the link and become a supporter! They have just under a month to go and they’ve already almost hit the halfway point in the campaign, so I’m pretty damn sure they’ll achieve their goal.

Help them out!

I love Harley Quinn. I’ve been a fan of her comic for several years now, although I never did read Suicide Squad.

Yeah you can see where this is going…

I saw the movie on Friday. As I stated on Facebook, fuck the critics. I really enjoyed the hell out of the movie.

Suicide Squad had plenty of action, and although there were people who bitched about the backstories, I found it added to the movie.

Although - most of the stories I already knew, of course.

I'm far more used to Harley Quinn from the comic series, in which she is no longer quite bug-fucked crazy and trying to be a good guy, so seeing this rather homicidal version was a bit different.

Still, she was a fun addition, brought a serious sense of chaos to the movie, more so than the Joker.

Speaking of which, I did not care for Leto's Joker. I have to admit I'm far more partial to Heath Ledger's version. Then again there are plenty of people who would argue the fact with me.

Everyone has their favorite version, from the 60's Ceaser's version, to Nicholson, and even Mark Hamill, each have their favorite.

I cared less for Batman, although his role was very minor.

Sorry DC - you tend to make some pretty good TV shows, but you really have no idea when it comes to movies.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it to the point I WOULD probably watch it again in the theater, and I will certainly own it when it comes out on DVD.

That's my take.

Oh and the next three reviews I am going to make will have some spoilers, so be warned before you read further.

And amazingly enough, I finished season two of three different shows this week. First I finished Star Wars Rebels, Daredevil, and Wayward Pines.

I really enjoyed Star Wars Rebels. The addition of Rex, Ahsoka, even Darth Maul was excellent! You get to see Maul and Vader both in the season finale, which is twice as long as the average episode.

Will Ezra really turn to the Dark Side? Is Ahsoka dead? Did Vader kill his former apprentice? How about Kanan? Will he be permanently blinded now?

If there was one thing that bugged the shit out of me, it was the Inquisitors using their dual-bladed light sabers like helicopter rotors. That was just plain dumb.

Other than that, I can barely wait for season three!

Daredevil season two was really good as well, with the introduction of The Punisher and Elektra. Both characters I am very familiar with and both were very well written and acted. I liked the fact how each character has likewise managed to grow and change, but I was rather disappointed to see the law-firm close.

I hate to see Foggy and Matt end the second season as they did. I also wonder how much a role Fisk will play in the third season?

Although I am not as hyped as I am with Star Wars, I am eager to see The Punisher, Iron Fist, Luke Cage and the Defenders.

Lastly, we have Wayward Pines. This was not quite up to the same level of entertainment as the first season, but then again you already knew what the hell was happening. This season did a great job of killing almost every single actor from the first season, and leaving it to a new group.

The town is running out of food. The Abbies are growing more aggressive, although at one point they appear to leave and the current leader of Wayward Pines believes they can leave the walls and settle outside.

And the final episode had one very sick and twisted plot twist. THAT I won’t spoil for you. I can see where season three is leading, as long as it gets renewed… 70,000 years later, Theo opens his eyes.

PLEASE renew the series! That line with the exception of the name - is the epilogue from the third novel in the trilogy.

Speaking of novels I finished an unusual zombie novel called Positive by David Wellington. It takes place in a zombie apocalypse, about twenty years after the rising. The zombies are not actually undead, just infected people who act like zombies. The government is still functioning and the survivors live in walled cities, living off the bones of the old world.

If someone is exposed to the blood of the zombies, they have the possibility of being infected, and it can take up to twenty years for the infection to change the person into a zombie.

The main character becomes a positive after his mother turns zombie, and he is forced to go into the medical camp. Things don’t turn out the way they were supposed to and he finds himself thrown into the hands of a lotter gang as he tries to make his way to the camp.

It was well written and I enjoyed it, as it showed a different take on how the world has changed twenty years after the infection or the Crisis, as it is known to the survivors.

Well worth your time to read.

One last statement to make. Those of you who know me or have followed my blog for a long time know that I love Otters. I’d love one as a pet, although that will never happen.

I posted an image about a place where you can ‘shake hands’ with an Otter. I don’t know if this is real or not but hey, I’d love to.

One of my friends decided to post a very rude comment about it.

Let me make one thing VERY CLEAR. If I post something on my Facebook page and you don’t like it, you have a couple of choices. First you can unfriend me if it bothers you that much. Fine – good riddance. Secondly you can make a statement if you so desire, but be polite. Third, just hide the post if you don’t like what you see.

Do not get rude with me.

EVER.

The only reason I haven’t defriended the person who did this is because I have known him for many years. I did give him a warning about never doing that again, though.

Micro rant over.

And that’s it. A really long blog this week!

School is less than a month away now, and I’m sure my readers who are parents are looking forward to having an empty home.

Stay strong!