571 Days

Update time! I've finally decided to make the move to a new blog platform. Starting later this month, I'll be moving from Blogger to Squarespace. I'm looking into porting over all the existing posts now, which should be fairly straightforward (since everything is text), but also adding some images to break up the long blocks of words.

I’m moving towards wrapping up the first draft of my new project, which is tentatively called 571 Days. I'm excited about it and looks like that draft will finish at 95k words. It's an exhilarating jump into science fiction for me and has opened a lot of new doors for me professionally and personally.

571 Days was the first project I jumped into the first draft with something I wanted to say fully intact. This story came about a conversation I had with a friend back in 2013 or 2014 when I lived in southern Illinois and had a roommate was looking to do programming – we talked about developing a little pixel game together, something super easy that was a way to test dialogue trees. So I wrote this story where you were the therapist on the first ever intergalactic ship looking for extraterrestrial life.

As the ship's counselor, you were aware of the other crew's stress levels, happiness, etc. and you were in charge of the morale of the team. The different crew members got along (or didn't), had quirks that you needed to attend, and had specific events occur at various points of time or contention.

That game never really happened, but I held onto that idea. And one day in early 2017 it came back to the forefront of my mind when I had an epiphany about the characters and their empathy (particularly the main character) and 571 Days was born when I realized who Brandon Jackson, ship’s counselor, was.

The book focuses on Brandon's relationship with Captain Danielle Childers, his ex-girlfriend who left him fourteen years before the beginning of the story for his toxic behavior. Brandon has grown and learned to be empathic, and wants to make amends for his shitty ways – but Danielle hasn't exactly forgiven him for what he's done. And now they and 11 others are on board the first intergalactic starship responding to the first ever communication with alien life.

Talking about this kind of toxic behavior is crucial to me. I'm ashamed that I've been on the giving end of that kind of action, and I've been on the receiving end of it as well, which is why I felt it was vital for me to talk about. 571 Days won't be a redemption story – Brandon doesn't want redemption for what he did. He just wants to be a good person. A better person.

I hope you’ll take this journey with me when the time comes.

2017 Retrospective: Books

In 2017 I barely missed my reading goal of 75 books, falling short by just 2. This was still up from my 2016 goal of 52 books which I also missed. This year, I decided to bring the expectations down a little bit and set a reasonable, reachable goal of 65 books. My biggest misstep last year, though, was that I focused quite a bit on older books. I pushed myself to read books that were out of my wheelhouse (some Young Adult, for example, and more non-fiction than I've ever read). Only toward the end of the year did I realize my oversight and start looking for stories released this year.

So, while these nine are my favorite stories that I read published in 2017, there are quite a few more on my list that I intend to read sometime this year. That list includes The Bear and the Nightingale, God's Last Breath, Kings of the Wyld, Red Sister, Jade City, Age of Swords, Godblind, A Plague of Giants, and I'm halfway through the audiobook of All Our Wrong Todays, which may or may not have bumped something off this list – the prose is absolutely beautiful, and the concept is fascinating. That's over a month's worth of reading right there, and releasing a "Best of 2017" sometime in March didn't really feel right.

So without further ado, here are my Top 9 Books Released in 2017.

9. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
I bought Turtles All the Way Down on release day, one of few books I did this year. I loved each character and consumed this book in two days. Although it's somewhat short, I felt thoroughly satisfied with each character arc and entirely engaged with the disappearance of Mr. Pickett. This is one of those mushy, feely books that reaches out and caresses your heart until you cry – but you don't know if you're happy crying or sad crying because honestly there are just so many feelings to process. I loved it. I enjoyed the emotional journey that John took me on.

8. Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
Six Wakes was one I was initially hesitant on getting but ended with the most pay off. There's a lot of excellent craftsmanship and prose here, all wrapped around an absolutely stellar premise surrounding cloning and criminals paying off their debt to society by doing public service on a starship. There are lots of great ethical questions, the front-most being how does your society punish lawbreakers when there functional is no death? There are a half-dozen great characters that are each fleshed-out and given life.

7. Killing Gravity by Corey J. White
One of the trends I noticed in 2017 (and continuing into this year) are that novellas are becoming more and more popular. It seems most of them are coming out the Tor.com house, and Killing Gravity is the first on my list to fall into that category. The amount of worldbuilding in under 200 pages is impressive, but the character building that goes along with it turns this book up to 11. If you're a fan of Warhammer 40k, but you want something a bit leaner, without all the extra stuff (or without all the superimposed unnecessary grimdark for the sake of grimdark) – this will be your go-to read, I promise. Mariam can be violent and fierce with her psychic powers, but it's not just throwaway bloodshed.

6. Artemis by Andy Weir
Artemis is the first city on the moon. Weir's book is a look at a heist in this city. What's best about Artemis is the worldbuilding and science that Weir put into making the metropolis feel truly alive. From the engineering behind the spheres that people build in, to the difference in biology that people experience after spending their lives in different gravity. This is explored in other science fiction (like The Expanse), but Weir plays with it in exciting ways. If you choose to experience Artemis, I highly recommend the audiobook. Rosario Dawson voices Jazz, the main character, and the tale is told first-person (just like Weir's previous novel, The Martian).

5. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
Holy shit this book is so much fun. There are quite a few different things going on in this supernatural-mystery-thriller that can get you on board, so let me break it down. The first and most important is the words. It's super unique, and at times it can feel a bit forced, but Cantero's prose and structure are absolutely a blast. Some parts were written like script scenes, some parts are written like a stream of consciousness, but it always fits. The second is the nostalgia factor, which is spot-on. If you ever watched and enjoyed any Scooby Doo movie or TV show, you will kill for this book. The whole premise feels like a "What If?" Scooby-Doo, where the what if question is a "Where are they now?" VH1 episode of the Scooby Gang as adults. The final bit to get you on board is Cthulhu. If you like that 1920's-Insanity-is-alive-as-a-monster vibe, dig into this. Please.

4. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
I took Greek & Roman Mythology in high school, and it was really enlightening to see where a lot of our stories come from, especially to learn about the application of Campbell's Monomyth. Norse mythology has grown quite popular in the last few years (with shows like Vikings and movies like Marvel's Thor) and so reading these stories in a digestible format with the excellent writing from Gaiman exceeded my wildest expectations. Since then, I've started to seek out the mythology and religious stories from several other cultures to try and learn their stories and more about their ways.

3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
The second book of The Wayward Children does not pick up neatly where the first book left off. As a matter of fact, the whole of the events takes place before its predecessor. It also focuses on just two main characters, instead of the ensemble cast of Every Heart A Doorway. Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the second novella on my list (also by Tor.com), but it packs a lot of emotion into each word. Jack and Jill are characters from the first book which have quite a bit of unspoken history and tension built up – and this book seeks to educate and detail just that. By the end of the book, I was torn for these twin sisters who must face a tragic future. Typically, these sorts of "prequel"-like stories are tough to pull off, because you already know how their story goes, but McGuire leans into that and grows the tension off of what you already know.

2. La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
His Dark Materials has been a favorite of mine for a long, long time. The Golden Compass was one of the first books I read on my own as a child, and it was one of my daughter's first books she read by herself (which she read while I read this in late 2017). Like Down Among the Sticks and Bones, I was hesitant with this book because it takes place before the events of previously published books (prequel syndrome). However, the first book in The Book of Dust series hardly contains characters from the others. Lyra is there, as an infant, and serves more as a plot device than a character. Lord Asriel and Lady Coulter appear but not in a significant capacity. Instead, the story focuses on a little boy named Malcolm and his daemon Asta. Le Belle Sauvage is much more of a spy novel than the others when Malcolm finds a secret message and the secret agent who was meant to get that message finds him. This builds Lyra's world much more and leans into the political and religious arguments present in His Dark Materials.

1. Damn Fine Story by Chuck Wendig
Chuck tells a lot of stories. It's kind of what he does for a living. It's kind of what I want to do for a living. So when someone like Chuck tells you about his process, about the things he's learned along the way, and give tips on writing relatable characters, pacing, etc. you listen. Sure, a lot of that is stuff I've learned before from other outlets like writing conferences, panels, interviews online, etc. And some of it is covered in other books by other famous authors. But there's always something new that you can learn and I'll be damned if I didn't pick up two or three things. I will say this, though. If you're a content creator of any kind (literally, if you have a single creative bone in your body) pick this book up. The last segment has the absolute best advice for creatives. That last portion is relatable and personal, and it had me weeping. Honest.

2017 Retrospective: Board Games

In my day job, I work for a publisher of board games (and trading cards). I'm a huge board game geek (har-har, see what I did there?) and play a ton. I'm also a huge data nerd, so I track all my game plays (through an app called Board Game Stats that links to my BoardGameGeek account). I don't get a chance to play all the games that come out in a year (I don't think anyone in the world has that kind of time, given that some thousands of new games come out every year), but in 2017 I logged 480 plays across 155 unique titles.

This blog will highlight some of my favorite (not necessarily the best, or best-selling, but ones that I had the most fun with and would recommend to others) board games that publishers released in the 2017 calendar year. For the sake of fairness, I omit all board games published by the company that I work for, because I would have a hard time choosing one of them over the year, or comparing them to other games considering I have a personal attachment to many of them (though if you haven't played Legendary: Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Quest for the Antidote, you should).

Before I get into my Top 9 (deal with it, Top 10 is for suckers), I'd like to talk about a few games that I didn't make the cut but are still intense. Tiny Epic Quest is a big game in a small box that looks and feels a lot like playing old Zelda games. My wife (and playgroup) didn't get sucked in, but I found I enjoyed it quite a bit despite a long first game. Pandemic Legacy Season 2 is an exciting new spin on regular Pandemic and had huge shoes to fill with the love and adoration of its predecessor. It's a good game that didn't quite live up to the hype, but if you loved the first season, you'll likely still enjoy the second. Jump Drive is a much quicker and simplified version of the fan-favorite Race for the Galaxy. Of all the games that didn't make my list, this one is the one I played the most of, and I struggled with putting it on there.

I'd also like to take a moment to talk about Roxxon. This was an alright game that had one of the best marketing campaigns I've ever seen. Roxxon takes place in the same universe as Dead of Winter, both by Plaid Hat Games which is a post-apocalyptic plague filled world. Roxxon was stealth announced and launched for sale exclusively by invitation on a website by Plaid Hat Games. Once purchased, the website would prompt you to invite others by giving their e-mail address, thus creating a viral-like experience of spreading. It went viral. People on Twitter and Facebook groups and BGG were all looking and begging for invitations. I'd be interested to know how many units sold like this (I know I bought one and sent three invitations to others, and I know of around a hundred other units that sold around my copy). What an excellent idea, even if Roxxon turned out to be an average game.

And now, on to the show.

9 – Hotshots

Fireside Games struck with this press-your-luck cooperative dice chucker about putting out wildfires. Each character has variable player powers, and the board is constructed using quite a few hexagons that can assemble into different configurations and even different shapes which make for quite a bit of replayability. There are high tension and some quality components with the fire tokens. It's tough and challenging, but also easy enough that younger players can catch on quickly.

8 – Star Wars: Rebellion – Rise of the Empire

This expansion of Star Wars: Rebellion by Corey Konieczka and published by Fantasy Flight Games brought a great game to one of the best I've ever played. Rebellion is one of the most thematic games in history. There's nothing like the immersion that Rebellion gives you for playing through the original Star Wars trilogy, hiding the Rebel base, training Luke to become a Jedi, or building the Death Star. Each side has their own mechanics and goals, along with their own miniatures and decks, but the combat was fiddly and could take quite a long time in a game that is already science fiction epic that can take up to 4 hours to play. This expansion addresses that with a new Cinematic Combat variant as well as adding several characters and ships from the Star Wars: a Rogue One story film.

7 – Twilight Imperium 4

Speaking of science fiction epics from Fantasy Flight Games, they launched a new edition of their flagship original property. Though I only got to play this once in 2017, it was easy to identify the familiar pieces as well as the new (or changed) parts. Our inaugural game took just under 12 hours for six players (who were all familiar with the previous edition, but mostly strangers to each other) and was one of the most fun experiences I had in the year. The fourth edition seeks to streamline the technology portion of the last edition, as well as the way politics and voting work. This is a massive game with intrigue, combat, customization, trading, and politics.

6 – Sentient

If you don't like crunchy, number-focused goodness, then you can pass on this one. I understand that that kind of mechanic is tough for some people to get behind, but if you enjoy Sudoku in any way, please play this great game from Renegade Game Studios. In this robot-making game, you must take cards with values or equations and roll dice to match those values. Robots have certain types, and points are awarded at the end of rounds based on those types.

5 – Century: Golem Edition

Action selection is hit-or-miss for me. Splendor is okay but has mostly lost its luster. Century: Spice Road is the same game as this, but the artwork is bland, but Golem Edition is… beautiful as well as excellent. Cards allow you to gain or change gems; play a card and put it in front of you. On your turn, you can buy a new card, play a card, spend specific gems to score a Golem, or rest and pick all your cards back up. Plan B Games did an outstanding job with both the card art (awesome, colorful Golems) as well as the components. Bright gems stored in gorgeous plastic cups that fit in the insert. Century has a great engine building, deck building, resource management compilation along with a natural game end.

4 – Unearth

Brotherwise Games has done a lot of good with their Boss Monster system (which will be getting a third standalone game soon), but this is their first reach outside of that. Unearth has an incredibly unique art style that makes it stand out, and I absolutely love it. Each turn you will pick a ruin and a die you have (among five dice). Each ruin has a target number to hit, with rewards based on colors of ruins as well as scoring based on tokens on those ruins. I'm usually not one for such luck heavy games, but Unearth offers some mitigation as well as a powerful scale of reward that allows players to participate in scoring even with low rolls. High rolls give you a chance to score ruins, and low rolls allow you to take the tokens. Lots of strategy and replayability here with quick turns.

3 – Ex Libris

Renegade Game Studios hits the list again with the most unique theme for a game. In Ex Libris players are librarians in a fantasy world trying to correctly organize and alphabetize books. That might sound boring, but holy crap is it fun. Books come in different categories like Fantastical Fictions and Corrupted Codices. In this worker placement games, players place their assistants or librarians on boards that change each round that allow to draw or shelf cards in different ways. When someone has completed their book shelf (containing at least 16 cards), the final round is triggered. Players score based on the stability of their shelves, a special category selected for everyone at the beginning of the game, and a secret category everyone is dealt. Not only is this game a blast to play, but lots of love and care went into naming some of the books in the images and makes for some incredible, memorable, and humorous moments.

2 – Wasteland Express: Delivery Service

The last two here are very close. Regarding theme, Wasteland Express: Delivery Service wins by quite the margin. Playing this was one of my favorite experiences of the year. If you ever wanted to play a completely immersive Mad Max game, this is it. All the components are out of this world, and even the insert is comprised of different trays (some of which are actually used during the game). In Wasteland Express you're given five actions a turn to drive around a randomly generated map. Objectives can change from game-to-game, but most revolve around the pick-up-and-deliver resource system that keeps track of the in-game economy with a supply and demand system. Jonathon Gilmour and Pandasaurus Games have outdone themselves with this excellent game.

1 – Tak

Of my 480 plays this year, 101 of them were Tak by James Ernest and Patrick Rothfuss published by Cheapass Games. This game was originally an element of Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear. It was played by the main character, Kvothe, and talked about somewhat abstractly. The game went to Kickstarter in April 2016 and successfully funded. The game is an abstract strategy game played with thick wooden pieces and a pawn for each player. The game can be played on a variety of board sizes, but we usually play on a 5x5 board. Players each take turns either placing or moving a piece they control in order to make a road from one end of the board to the opposite end (left to right or top to bottom, for example). Pieces can be played flat, and when moved they can be stacked. Pieces can also be placed "standing" on their edge to prevent their opponent from stacking on them. Our games have been as long as 15 minutes, but we've also had some that were shorter than a minute. The subtitle of the game is A Beautiful Game and damn that's right. Cheapass Games makes a good copy of this game you can find at your local game store, but Wyrmwood makes magnificent copies with other materials that are much more beautiful for much (much, much) more money. For the time we've sunk into our copy, we'll be buying pieces from Wyrmwood to upgrade in 2018.

There are quite a few games that I wanted to play this year that I didn't get a chance to such Legacy of Dragonholt, Azul, and Dragon Island (another Pandasaurus title). I wish I would've had the time to play all the amazing games that came out last year (that'll be a recurring theme with these posts) but of all the games that were published in 2017, these were my favorites. You can find all these games at your friendly local game store.