fantasy Archives · Page 2 of 4

The Polar Express (2004): Best Christmas Action Since Die Hard?

Part 5 of the Christmas Movie Watchstravaganza

Almost Christmas
Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
The Polar Express

Wikipedia states that the book this movie adapts “was praised for its…calm, relaxing storyline.”

I have no clue what happened to that.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985): The OTHER Santa Origin Story

Part 4 of the Christmas Movie Watchstravaganza

Almost Christmas
Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
The Polar Express

“There is no religion. Friars are bad. Buddha is bad. There are no gods, there is no cycle of rebirth. The only church is the Church of Santa Claus.” So sayeth the Rankin/Bass Santa origin myth we didn’t exactly need.

NEWSBLAST: December 2023

This is a free sample of the update posts I’ll now be uploading to my Patreon monthly. Check it out!!

Running Around in Video Game Levels You’ve Completed Already For No Apparent Reason (and Then Also Looking at Maps)

It’s a time-honored tradition.

A Talking Cat!?! Finally, A LitRPG Heroine We Can Believe In

Meet Taipha, the star of my LitRPG series in progress. She’s a cat. She’s a girl. Will she rule the world???

Read on to learn more about her…and her world!

What Is a LitRPG? A Simple Guide for the Deeply Confused

LitRPGs are like books plus video games. And while most websites defining them will assume you already know a lot about video games, I’ll pretend you’re my mom, who hates them and has no idea what kinds of books I’ve been editing for the past several months.

This explanation will be slow and methodical.

Writing a Small-Scope LitRPG?

I’m striving to create a world that’s small but rich with hidden secrets. We don’t always have to save the world!

Oops! My “Quick Side Project” is Consuming Untold Years

How’d I get here, and what can you do if you’re in my shoes?

Hide No More: The Masquerade Trope in Fantasy Fiction (And How Elatsoe Kills It)

When people recommended the young adult novel Elatsoe to me, it was never as a quirky take on a fantasy world. That’s what it is, though: a modern America with spirit summoners, vicious vampires, and fairy children as its typical citizens. Magic is a known factor that makes travel convenient, complicates crime scenes, causes fantastical global warming.

Rather, the book was introduced to me as a story about grief, healing, and ghosts that features a Native lead. This is also a true statement about what Elatsoe is. What interests me about the discrepancy is how people don’t see a need to mention the setting, bizarre though it may be. Seemingly nobody is saying, “Brace yourselves, because this story has kind of an unusual world…”

That must be because the setting’s not so weird after all. Not since approximately 2005.

First Impressions: Four Against Darkness (A Solo RPG)

Includes narrative-style actual play!

Recently—and with a whirlwind passion—I have gotten interested in solo RPGs. Not video games, but tabletop, pen-and-paper, cards-and-dice affairs. Most of what I’ve done is itch.io browsing and theorizing about what mechanics I’d like to put in my own games.

Until now: yesterday I did my first run of Four Against Darkness (and today I will do another). In the niche world of solo games, this one is quite popular, with multitudes of players and expansions.