Seconding these recs – Michael Stackpole’s Star Wars books (the X-Wing series) were always underrated too, in my view. On the Star Trek side I at one point had read a distressingly high percentage of the ones in print (like, 1994 or thereabouts); beyond Peter David, whose stuff as always very funny – he also wrote a great run of She Hulk, actually – Michael Jan Friedman and A.C. Crispin were pretty solid too.
(Huh, in looking up some old lists of the novels, I see Robert Sheckley, who wrote the story that was the basis for that Cost of Living game from last year’s ParserComp, wrote a DS9 novel!)
EDIT: actually, Michael Jan Friedman was local to where I grew up (on Long Island, in NY) and I just remember I took like a short writing workshop course at our public library when I was like 12. I think the thing I was working on was a fantasy novel whose only distinguishing feature was an embarrassingly obvious Raistlin pastiche for the main character.
Raistlin, the OG Edgelord. Also, solid follow-up recommendations. I second them all.
And, since you mentioned Raistlin, I’ll add that, in the Dragonlance series, the writing team of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman is solid (although their Twins trilogy is their best work) as well as Richard A Knaak (spelling? fixed) and many others.
Is this the same author that caused the BattleTech slang term “stackpoling” to exist?
(To “stackpole” is to see a fusion reactor explode like a nuclear warhead upon breach, which the author uses as a plot device in many books, despite the event actually being impossible)
…So we’re in computer updating hell, (fingers crossed I can get this sorted out before bedtime today, at least it wasn’t tomorrow during the appointment time, and I think I’ve managed to fumble my way through enough tutorial articles online to get it sorted) but on the bright side, even in the very worst case scenario where I need to hard wipe the computer, I literally just saved a copy of my Twine projects and backed them up, so I can re-install that if need be.
I woke up to a steel blue chilly Spring sunrise. The magpies have completed their nest and they’re nicely settled in. My son and I are going to ride our bikes to a beautiful nature park with a pond and a climbing wall and a tree-rope parkours where he’ll be doing an adventure camp. An amazing list of IF games just dropped on the Spring Thing page. And I have the entire day off!
I mean, how many good things can happen on one day? And it’s barely 8 o’clock in the morning.
----looks around the corner and over his shoulder, scared that Lady Fortuna might change her mind; burns incense in offering----
While resting and convalescing, I got the final achievement in Inscryption—beating a run with every single challenge active. The game is officially complete!
I seem to be perpetually ill these days, so I try to dedicate a few evenings each week to lying down and trying to recover a little bit. Which probably says bad things about my stress level.
It’s raining, like real rain, today. Not spitty drizzle and not torrential flooding, but just rain.
That’s so unusual here. Like our politics, our weather has to be vicious and extreme. Last time it rained (6 weeks ago), we got almost 2 inches in 15 minutes, and then the sun came out and it was 90 F and a steambath. The time before that, it drizzled throughout almost all of November, but the total rainfall for the month was only about an inch.
A few days ago, it was 90 F. Now it’s 45. Texas weather is such a drama queen.
But, I can’t think of a lovelier day than playing Spring Thing parser games in my fuzzy robe while hearing the rain on the roof and watching my creek fill up.
Had some very, very intense thunderstorms today (this is a positive, imo!) and I got to spend entire hours with the crash and rumble overhead, pointing out particularly impressive strikes of lightning (when the sky turns lavender for a few brilliant seconds at 10 pm, that’s amore), and listening to the rain.
Also did some more collaborative writing that I’m very proud of with Sophia - all things come back to the Gonch Girls in the end.
Comfiest coziest kitten rolling around on silk sheets in shortshorts and a heavy sweater and feeling the delightfully cool slip against bare skin before you get all warm and snuggly beneath the covers. I have my sleep mask, two pillows, my three blankets, and my stuffed bunny. Sooooo comfortable.
According to Autumn, the Gonch Girlies have just hit ~128k words (pre-formatting for things like handles, but those don’t contribute much) in terms of our campaign. That’s wild.
I finished and handed in an 8 page singlespace paper on legislation about like, wetlands protections and development and land use I’ve been angsting over. It’s done! (And tomorrow, a new beast: the communications rough draft to good copy, and the day after, a short story and a multiple choice key, and… then another 8 page singlespace paper, but it will be on history and science and much easier, as I have several pages of notes and the presentation fresh in my brain. Oh, heavy metal biomagnification and Great Lake eutrophication, my beloved babbling topics.)
Having a strong afternoon coffee to get me through this re-drafting hell. The bones and meat are solid, I just need to whipstitch in some connective tissue. Progress is going well, and also enjoying the pleasantness of firing off a reply to Jinx in our silly bo billy kitty writing shenanigans. Should hopefully get this assignment done before midnight. Then I just need to use my braincells for another day before I have the breathing room to pause (for a day, maybe two) before launching into that other “8” (really 16, as most classes do not ask for singlespace) paper. Feeling hopeful.
I painted my nails with a fresh coat of that warm purpley tone, and will top it with some pink glossy glitter when that layer is dry. Trapping myself at the desk in keyboard purgatory is a really effective method when you have wet nails you can’t do anything (wander off to examine snacks, go to the bathroom to wash your face for no reason other than you don’t want to do work, write or doodle aimlessly) else other than park your butt down and hammer at the keyboard with.
Been debating doing my own stab at Bluebeard, since I keep seeing that story out of the corner of my eye in discussions of the gothic. That’s spinning in the background while I get through these last few assignments…
Also here’s what my prof sent to us, which I think was nice:
Well done; I know that this time of year is brutal for all of you, so I commend you on your persistence, your perseverance, your resilience.
