5 Great 2018 Christmas Gifts for that Geek in Your Life

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Red Dead Redemption II

Only three days left, and you still don’t know what to buy your geek for Christmas yet.

Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

Here are 5 great presents that any geek would love.

Google Home

Google Home

Geeks love gadgets, especially ones that interface with the internet.

The Google Home turns your entire abode into a smart house.

Tell it to set the alarm, turn on the lights, play music, ask about the traffic, how’s the weather, or anything else you see in an episode of Star Trek.

The Poppy War

the Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

This new epic fantasy trilogy published earlier this year made my to-read list because of its compelling blurb.

A dark-skinned peasant girl enters an elite military school and soon becomes part of a bloody war. Throw in the rare art […]

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2018 Writing Resolutions

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s that time of year again when the internet is full of goals and resolutions and weight loss promises.

And unpublished writers are proclaiming books are going live this year.

I know. I’m guilty. I’ve been saying that for the past three years now, so I’m going to be more realistic this year, while at the same time surging ahead with all goals.

Here’s a little recap of last year and further plans for 2018.

Writing Progress

With two ebooks in the works, I’ve really took on a huge challenge.

The main novel Guardian of the Cursed Crown is about two thirds revised. Actually I would have been finished by now if my editor Jesse hadn’t done such a great job in pointing out all the issues with the story. Now everything about the book – the story, the world, the characters – […]

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5 Great 2017 Christmas Gifts for that Geek in Your Life

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8bitdo Wireless Gamepad

It may be true that geeks like me don’t talk much about presents (or anything for that matter), but we do a lot of networking, and share common ideas.

If you’ve been wondering what to get that geek in your life for Christmas, I’ve got you covered.

Here are 5 great 2017 Christmas presents geeks worldwide would love to unwrap on everybody’s favourite merry morning.

Game of Thrones House Stark Stein

Game of Thrones House Stark Stein

It’s going to be another year before we finally get to see the conclusion of the epic fantasy Game of Thrones (the HBO version), so in the meantime let your geek reminisce all the action of Westeros while drinking ale from this House Stark stein.

True, Eddard wasn’t a drinking man, but maybe if he’d taken a couple of swigs, he would have lasted […]

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Elements of World Building – Evolution

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Photo credit: José-Manuel Benitos at Wikimedia Commons

Imagine a massive city of brick and steel, with buildings stretching to dizzying heights and electrical conduits snaking through the ground to power its lights, computers, and lifts. Surrounding this city is a defensive wall, lined with battlements and dotted with great gates.

Everyone walks around wearing jerkins and breeches, and the guards patrol the streets in plate mail and armed with swords. There’s also magic, of course, elemental stuff like fire and ice and electricity, along with dark temporal summonings and white healing abilities.

For transport, horses pull passengers on floating vehicles. Greater distances are covered using large, wooden, three-mast ships capable of soaring through the sky, with wings to control their direction, and kept aloft by gas turbines.

People would be able to travel to different planets on these ships, to similar cities with similar settings.

Sounds awesome, right?

Well I’d […]

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Top Science Fiction Fantasy Games at E3 2017

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E3

I’m always excited to look at E3, the world’s greatest gaming convention. Unfortunately, this year’s E3 left me wanting a bit more.

There wasn’t that amazing feeling I got when first witnessing games like Zelda Breath of the Wild, Fallout 4, or Horizon Zero Dawn.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some good ones. Here are the top Science Fiction Fantasy games at E3 2017.

Note I’m not talking about previously highlighted games. So, as amazing as they looked, God of War IV and the Breath of the Wild DLC are not covered here.

Anthem

The first thing I noticed about this game was the gorgeous graphics. Looking around the market area, a giant robot stomping by in the background, then getting into the javelin exosuit bordered live action.

Then the javelin jumps off a docking area into a vast open world that simply absorbed me. The sense of […]

Posted in: Games

Game of Thrones Season 7 Predictions

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HBO’s Game of Thrones

It took two months longer than average – and to a Game of Thrones fan that’s feels like the same length of time the Targaryens ruled Westeros – but it’s finally here.

Game of Thrones season 7 premiers this month, and the whole world is excited.

And seeing that the series has moved beyond the novels, the story can swing in any directions. We know from experience how easy that happens – favoured characters die all the time, the story jumping from zero to 60 in a heartbeat.

Any predictions?

Well, I’ve got some. Here’s what I think is going to happen in Game of Thrones Season 7.

Battle of Kings Landing

Game of Thrones: Battle of Kings Landing

The Lanisters, rulers of Kings Landing, have built up a long list on enemies: House Dayne of Dorne, House Tyrell of Highgarden, House […]

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Elements of World Building – People

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Photo credit: Rufino at Wikimedia Commons

I read once that, unless described, a fictional character is often visualized as having the same features as the person imagining him.

That means that if you’re white, you see the character as being white, and similarly for if you’re coloured.

It’s strange because, even though I am of African decent, whenever I start a new fantasy novel I always imagine all the characters as being white. This is probably due to growing up watching fantasy movies that have been dominated by white Hollywood actors. Conan the Barbarian (the 1982 version), Red Sonja, Clash of the Titans (again, the 1981 version) were all full of white characters.

And then there were the fairy tales that my young impressionable mind absorbed: Jack and the Bean Stalk, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast. You see where I’m going here.

Single-Race Fantasy

Because fantasy is based on […]

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Mining Gyegan’s Ring

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Photo Credit: Fernando de Gorocica at Wikimedia Commons

When my Facebook writing group Skywriters announced that they were doing an anthology themed around rings, at first I wasn’t interested.

I always found this theme-based style of writing too restricted. I prefer to write where my imagination takes me, not the other way around.

So I ignored the invitation, but somewhere in my mind, my imagination played with the idea, dissecting it, turning the pieces over, until one night inspiration came streaming. I decided to offer a story of my own.

I came up with a red gas giant, unnamed at the time. Surrounding this planet is a ring of dust, rocks, and ice. People must go there for some reason, but the environment is dangerous.

Then I started to write, and after several drafts and help from Skywriters, I created Mining Gyegan’s Ring. Here’s the basic idea of the […]

Posted in: ebooks

Skywriters Ring Anthology: Short Story Collection

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Skywriters Ring Anthology

Magical rings, asteroid rings, wedding rings, rings with special inscriptions. The Skywriters Ring Anthology is full of magic and adventure.

This collection contains ring-themed stories from Skywriters, ranging from a wife receiving a ring engraved with a message from her husband when he emigrates to America, to an asteroid ring miner who must survive an attack from giant intergalactic spiders.

Content

There are nine stories in all, including one from myself:

For Eve – S. J. Henderson
Artifacts – Ann Stanley
The Legend of the Vanished Isle – Katie Hamer
Alaskan Run – Eleanor M. Huteson
Mining Gyegan’s Ring – Jevon Knights
Heirlooms – Sherma Webbe Clarke
This Too Shall Pass – Mirel Abeles
The Red Ring – J. E. M. Hall
The Mirror – Joy Collado

The collection was published by Skywriter chief James Hall, and I think he did an excellent job.

And interestingly, thanks to him, along with my contribution, I am […]

Posted in: ebooks

2017 Writing Resolutions

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Image courtesy of krishna arts at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So long, 2016.

It feels like it flew by in just a couple months. I know I say this every year, but this is the year I’m going to publish that debut novel.

Now something like that is easy to say. So in order to get things going, here’s a little recap and how I plan on accomplishing my goal.

Writing Progress

If you’ve been following along for a while, then you know that I’ve been working on two ebooks: the short story collection Chronicles of the Cursed Crown, and the main novel Guardian of the Cursed Crown.

Progress has been slow, but I did hit a milestone.

Last year I sent the short story collection to my editor Jesse, and he already responded with his comments. Then I started revising the main novel.

This year I plan to pick up my revising pace […]

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