Getting Ready for Saturday Tabletops

A MYSTERY

WHO IS THIS STRANGE BEING THAT THREATENS

WHAT POWERS DOES IT POSSESS

What Keeps me Busy

The world of Ten-Ghost, Sky Crossing, and Spider People! See those continents in the northwest section of the map? That's where those books all take place. This thing is huge, by the way. Warning.

I will also be signing copies of Ten-Ghost at Half Off books in Orange City, FL on March 16th from noon to three. I'm all excited. Also a little bit freaking out. Should be ok, though. It's a nice store, has that old-school library feel to it.

We Learned Many Things That Night.

We learned Narla was a compulsive gift-giver when drunk. We also learned not to take those gifts. And also to track down anyone who had them, steal them back, lock them in lead boxes, wrap them in chains, and throw them into the Miskatonic River.

Spelljammer

I have this serious love/hate thing with Spelljammer. Spelljammer's cover is all like "hey guess what all of Kepler's first ideas were correct and phlogiston theory is real fuck yes get ready for 15th Century voyages on the high seas only in space and prep your buckles for swashing only there are DWAAAVES" And then you open it up and read it and what you get is an elf in a Guyver suit trying to buy a pair of bongos off a penguin riding a flying pig down at the beholder bar. Which is okay, I guess. Had the cover said "get ready for wacky Baron Munchausen in space adventures," it'd be easier to swallow. Also hate tinker gnomes for whom every gadget fails. How the hell did they get into space in the first place?

Magic vs SCIENCE

Dear Urban Fantasy: Science is not a force. It is a process by which we test and decipher the laws of the universe. If magic existed, the process of science would have uncovered and named it by now. Magic and science cannot be opposed anymore than you can "oppose" the idea of the assembly line with a rock. I buy that magic might futz with technology the same way you can use that rock to smash a factory, but if that were the case, that if there were some universal force that fucked with everything that had more than three moving parts in it on a regular basis, we'd damn well know where the problems were coming from by now (this is conveniently ignoring the fact that we would have already been calling it something else entirely by now and have incorporated it into systems and, since any system or tool designed to solve problems is "technology," we'd be calling it "technology." Not "manatech" or "magitech" or anything like that. Just "technology." A spell is a type of technology just the same as a hammer or a battery is. Deal with it.). I know, you're trying to present us with a good old "man vs nature" conflict by having magic represent nature and science and technology represent man, but, seriously, there are better and more sensible metaphors you can choose. Like sticking a man in the woods. Actually, that might be fun. Stick a wizard in the woods without his magic and see what the fuck happens to him. I guarantee you it will be the same thing that happens if you put just about anyone else in the woods and take their pocketknife. Thank you.

Dreams Last Night

1. A girl tries to go further underground with her family. Unfortunately, the pus-arms that come from the walls are following them. Also, there are many squeezers and abandoned brownstones where time-eating worms reside.

2. A movie about a girl with radiation based super powers comes out. She fights atomic mutants. Actually not that bad, and gave me some ideas for writing.

3. Two goofy guys move into an apartment complex dangerously close to a river. The man who owns that part of the river tries to go fishing there and wonders if he can plant corn in the part he owns. Goofy shenanigans ensue as they try to help the man, but some of the fish are endangered and also have faces like baboons. Also the neighbors are murderers.

4. This rocket has the tail of a crocodile and that's how it flies. I don't remember much else, other than what was happening on the rocket involved a lot of grinding noises and it woke me up. Went right back to sleep.

5. Someone kept turning everything that wasn't related to me off when I left the room. Everything, like particle spin and neural activity and ugh. Eventually everything was gone, and it was just a black, cold universe where only I existed and there was blundering around in the dark until I froze to death. This is when I woke up and got the day started.