worldbuilding

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan

Every once and a while I pick up a book that makes me want to quit writing. It’s so good, so well thought out, so incredibly written, that I can’t help but think to myself that I will never, ever be this good and I can just quit. I love these books. The Name of the Wind is probably the best example of this. Promise of Blood is another. The basic premise is about a coup that ends with the execution of a nation’s king. There is a lot about why they overthrew him and how bad he was as a ruler, but that has little bearing. It seems like the people who overthrew him were really just sick of his shit, and had their own personal vendettas to boot. Everything is well written and the characters are great, but what I love, absolutely adore, is the magic. The world…

Continue Reading

Shadowrun

I wanted to write a review for X-Com, because I just bought it and it’s a lot of fun and was a pretty big deal in gaming…but I don’t really have anything to add at this point. It’s fun, go play it. So, instead I’ll discuss the reason I bought it in the first place. I was checking out Gamestop’s digital sales and when they didn’t have anything I switched over to Steam. That’s where I saw a game coming out this month. I’d read an article in GameInformer sometime last year and it caught my attention. The more I looked at it, the more I learned about it, the more intrigued I became. I spent about three hours reading about the world of Shadowrun and its upcoming game, Shadowrun Returns. It got me so excited to play something that when I found X-Com on sale for ten bucks I…

Continue Reading