King Blogging

I just found out that my old buddy Bill King (William King of Warhammer novels fame) has a blog. In it, he writes about the writing process and his upcoming stuff. To me, it’s like sitting in our flat and listening to him rant or rave about something again. It’s always brilliant. I recommend checking it out.

Syndicated Feeds Up

I’m tired of surfing to read the various websites I keep up with, so I started fiddling around with an RSS newsreader. When I tried syndicating this site, nothing happened. I fiddled around with my Movable Type installation a bit, and bingo! I now have feeds for RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom, and RSD. Or so I think. I’ve only tested the RSS stuff. If anyone cares to try the others and report back, please do. In the meantime, if you’re a newsreader too, enjoy!

Geek Fu, ReplayTV Style

Last night, inspired by one of Aaron Williams‘s excellent Full Frontal Nerdity strips, I busted open my year-old ReplayTV and upgraded the hard drive from 40 GB to 200 GB. Everything went well, if not smoothly, especially considering I was using an iBook running Linux programs through Terminal, attached to the guts of a Firewire/USB 2.0 external hard drive enclosure, rather than the standard tower Wintel machine with a couple open hard drive bays. I now have five times the space on the thing, which I’m sure I’m sure my kids will soon fill with multiple episodes of the finest entertainment from PBS Kids and Nick Jr.

Like most great hardware hacks, it voided my warranty (which was already expired anyhow) and ran the risk of turning my cool toy into a large doorstop. There were a few heart-stopping hiccups, but through the glory of the web and a bit of trial-and-error I was able to figure out how to circumnavigate them. It’s comforting to know the two years of the electrical engineering major I started at the University of Michigan didn’t entirely go to waste.

Conan Guru, Reporting for Duty

I just took on a gig as the content guru for Conan Properties, the people who own Robert E. Howard’s Conan. I’ll be working with authors, publishers, and other licensors as the arbiter of all things Conan, the original fantasy hero. This should be a blast, as I’ve been a Howard fan since I first stumbled upon his stuff in high school, and the company has lots of great products in the works. Wish me luck!

Marked for Death on Press

My illustrious editor Mark Sehestedt tells me that Marked for Death (the first in my Eberron trilogy, The Lost Mark) is at the printer right now. The book is slated for a March release, which suddenly seems not all that far away. This is my first full-length mass-market novel, so you can imagine how excited I am about it. You should be able to pre-order it through your local game or book store now.

Eisner Dies

Will Eisner, the comic book and graphic novel legend, died on Monday. I only met him once, at a book signing at an American Book Expo where he graciously personalized a copy of Dropsie Avenue for me, but I miss him. He was a master of the sequential art form and did more to bring it respectability and literary weight than anyone else in the field. We should all aspire to be so passionate about our work and to lift it to such heights.

Worlds of D&D

I’ve been spending some time on a new forum set up at WorldsofDnD.com. There’s not too much traffic yet, but a good number of Wizards novelists stop by to post. If you’re interested in discussing Dungeons & Dragons novels with other fans and asking questions of some of your favorite authors, stop by to give it a look.

Currency Matters

My friends at Guardians of Order (publishers of The Authority RPG, of which I wrote the player’s chapter for them) just announced that they had a rotten 2004, mostly due to the plummeting value of the American dollar versus their Canadian version. Because of this, they’re asking people for help by purchasing some of their excellent games now. If you love good games and good game companies, you can find the details here.

It’s ironic that GoO is having such problems with the exchange rate. Because I’m writing books for Games Workshop‘s Black Library, the exchange rate has helped me instead. That’s living in a global and ever-changing economy for you.

Dead Wicked Games

My good friends at the Wicked Dead Brewing Company (John Wick, Jared Sorenson, and Annie Rush) recently gave me a load of their games, and they’re all great. My favorites are InSpectres (a Ghostbusters-style RPG with some really cool mechanics), Necromonopoly (a Lovecraftian boardgame in which the last sane player wins), and Run Robot Red (a dystopian RPG in which you play the common robot yearning to be free). If you can’t enjoy these, you don’t like adventure games.