Monte Cook's Blog, page 143

Geek A Week

I don't know for certain that I'm supposed to post this, but it's too cool to keep to myself. Cartoonist Len Peralta is doing this cool project called Geek A Week where he creates a "collectible card" each week for a year showing someone who's influential in the geek world. He's already done cards for Jonathan Coulton, the Rifftrax guys, John Scalzi, and more. And in a couple of months, there will be a card for yours truly!

Len does an interview with each geek, and during our chat, ...

Denton, TX

What is it about Denton, TX and me? The city's not that big (just over 100,000 people, apparently), but it just keeps coming up in my life. It started when I worked at ICE 20-some years ago. I was in charge of Rolemaster for a few years and the best Rolemaster fanzine (yeah, it was 20 years ago, so there were still lots of 'zines about--cool times) was called Grey Worlds. The guys who put out Grey Worlds, Lem Richards and Ross Henton, lived in Denton. I even went out to visit them o...

OddCon

Last weekend I attended OddCon in Madison, WI, as a guest of honor alongside Harry Turtledove and Tobias Buckell. It was a great time mainly because all the people there were so warm and friendly. I was on panels about what makes an rpg "good," building campaigns, and the "recent" resurgence in "old school" gaming. I gave a panel on dungeons and dungeonaday.com, a reading from Skeptic's Guide to Conspiracies, and a GOH speech on the value of roleplaying games.

I was pretty pleased with ...

Writers in Movies

I suppose this could really be an essay about writers portraying writers in any medium, but I think for now I'll focus in on movies.

When a character in a movie is introduced as a writer, I almost always groan. Usually inwardly, but sometimes audibly. Why? Lots of reasons.

First of all, it's just an overused cliche. I don't have any real data to back this up, but I'm pretty certain that the number of characters in movies that are writers probably is right up there with lawy...

Book Review: Lovecraft Unbound

I'm going to do something that I've never done before, and normally wouldn't do again. I'm going to write a review of a book I didn't finish. That book is Lovecraft Unbound, an anthology of stories "inspired" by the works of HP Lovecraft edited by Ellen Datlow. Because I didn't read every story, I'll admit up front that it's possible that I missed something. But I thought it might be interesting (to me at least) to explore why I stopped reading it.

The back cover ...

Launchpad

Launchpad is a NASA-funded program that invites 12 writers to a workshop in the summer with the purpose of encouraging the use of real science (in particular astronomy) in their writing. This year, I've been selected to be one of the attendees!

I couldn't feel more honored or excited about the entire thing. The workshop is in Wyoming (where I imagine the star-gazing is particularly great) and is a part of the University of Wyoming's astronomy program. The guest instructor is Kevin R. ...

Book Review: Inverted World

I read Inverted World by Christopher Priest based mainly on how much I enjoyed The Prestige. My reaction was somewhat mediocre. It's a straight-up science fiction novel of the "in the future, things are weird, can you figure out why?" variety, a la Stephen Baxter's Raft .

Helward Mann has grown up in the city, but he's never left it. He's never seen the sun, but he knows that the city is always moving. Once he joins one of the important guilds, he gets to leave the ci...

Happy Easter... Marley.

I got Sue and I some Cadbury Eggs (cream and caramel kinds) today for both Sue's birthday and Easter. I put them on the table and then got distracted for a few minutes. I came back, and they were gone.

Marley ate all four candy eggs, tinfoil wrapping and all.

I sat with her for about an hour, waiting for her to puke (ah, the good life), but she never did. She's got a weak stomach for a dog (and chocolate is really bad for dogs, I know--I'm guessing tinfoil's not that gr...

TVs Greatest Meta-Moments

The top three self-referential moments in TV:

3. The End of Newhart. At the very end of the very last episode of the show Newhart, Dick (played by Bob Newhart) wakes up in the bedroom of his character Bob on the Bob Newhart Show. Next to him is Bob's wife Emily, played by Suzanne Pleshette. It turns out that the entire show Newhart was a dream of Bob Hartley, the character on the Bob Newhart show. Newhart was a great show, but it almost always lived in the shadow of th...

The Loss of Woxy.com

The shutdown of the Internet radio station woxy.com came as a shock. I saw the announcement on Facebook just as I was getting up from my computer to go out to dinner with Sue. It didn't seem real to me until I tuned my Sonos to listen to woxy.com last night and got only sorrowful silence.

For the last couple of years, woxy.com has been my conduit to new music. I thought, for a moment, of listing the bands that I love discovered thanks to woxy.com, but it only took me a few ...