Organ Trail

Every now and then, I find an interesting video game on Steam. Usually it's an indie game and I love buying those games, if for no other reason than to encourage the indies to keep working.

Well, the other day, I got excited, because I thought that I spotted an old favorite on Steam: Oregon Trail. Who here remembers Oregon Trail? When I was in elementary school, I remember how excited I got plopping down in front of the Apple II and trying to get my little band of pioneers from Independence, MO, to the promised land of Oregon. Yeah, I usually wound up wiping out due to dysentery or the final trek down the river, but it was a lot of fun!

You can imagine my surprise when I thought I spotted Oregon Trail on Steam. It even looked the same as the Oregon Trail I used to play. So I clicked on over and then stopped.

Organ Trail? What on Earth?

As it turns out, I had stumbled on a silly little indie game in which a group of survivors have to travel from Washington, D.C., to a promised land on the west coast. Load up a station wagon, gather your provisions, and head on out. Just hope that nobody gets bit by a zombie or you might have to put them down.

So let's talk about what the game gets right. First of all, it's got the feel of the original 8-bit version of Oregon Trail, down to the awful graphics. You have to buy your original supplies, like food, ammo, med kits, and spare tires and mufflers and batteries for your car. You can set your pace and your rationing and hope for the best.

Just like in the original game, you can stop from time to time to scavenge for more supplies, just like how you had to hunt for game in the original. Only this time, you're scooping up magically appearing wallets and grocery bags and using your trusty rifle to shoot the shuffling zombies that come after you. Plus there's plenty of silly humor in the game, some nods to the original that had me smiling.

But not everything is kosher in this game. The combat system is a major disappointment.

Look, I get it. The game developers didn't want this one to get too easy. But using the mouse to aim the gun is too much of a hit-or-miss proposition, and usually, it's a miss. Instead of putting the cursor between the zombie and myself, to aim, I have to put the cursor behind my avatar. The only way I could reasonably aim my gun was to draw a line from the zombie target to myself, but there were still times when my hand would twitch and suddenly, my character would turn 270-degrees and I'd be facing the wrong way, unable to turn around quick enough to shoot the zombie. Because of this glitch, I haven't even come close to reaching the end of the game. And all of this is on easy! I shudder to think what would happen on the harder difficulties.

So do I regret getting this game? Not at all. It is fun. I just wish I had a better shot at beating it.

Rapture

If you've been around my blog long enough, you've discovered that I have a thing for video games. That's especially true for games that come with a good story. And if you're looking for some great stories in video games, you don't have to look any further than Bioshock (and in this case, I'm referring to the first two in the franchise; I haven't finished playing Biohosck: Infinite just yet, but I think I might be close).

Part of what makes the Bioshock franchise so engaging is the setting and the larger-than-life characters the player encounters throughout the games. I still remember the first moment I saw the underwater city of Rapture looming up on the bottom of the ocean floor in the first game. I still remember the shock I felt at The Twist in the middle of the first game (and no, I'm not dropping any spoilers here). I still remember how excited I was to go back for the second game.

So when I saw that a man named John Shirley was tasked in creating a book about Rapture and its denizens, I wanted to see what he put together. I got a copy of BioShock: Rapture and finally got around to reading it.

The book is pretty much what it advertises. We get to go along as industrialist Andrew Ryan envisions his objectivist utopia and builds it on the floor of the North Atlantic. We get to watch as all the characters we meet in the games come to live in Rapture. And then we get to watch as it all falls apart: as war breaks out between Ryan's forces and an upstart who wants to rip it all away, as Dr. Sofia Lamb tries her best to create a collective out of what should have been competition, as so many little girls are turned into Little Sisters, paired with the hulking Big Daddies.

I really wanted to like this book. I mean, I really loved the games. The first one, especially, kept me up late one night wrestling with philosophical questions of how much free will a person really has (and really, isn't that what a good story is supposed to do?). I guess those high expectations translated over to the book.

Don't get me wrong. Shirley does an admirable job weaving a very convoluted timeline into a whole (I've often gotten confused about how all the events of the two games fit together). And I think he does a pretty good job capturing the personalities of the games.

But after reading it all, I think I know what it was missing: a true through-line. We needed a main character to follow and care about. There are a lot of people that I felt sorry for while reading the book. But we pop around Rapture so much throughout the book that it was hard to really care about any of them. Shirley almost does that with Bill McDonagh, but we don't spend nearly enough time with him to really come to care.

So this was an admirable try, but it fell short of the greatness of the games.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find out what happens in the flying city of Columbia. Ah, Bioshock, you're so much fun!

FFF Intermission

Sadly, there won't be a Freaky Fun Friday post today. Unfortunately, it got bumped to the low priority list and I don't have anything to share. But it will be back next week!

I hope.

Until then, I leave you with a question: what's your favorite found footage movie?

Wordcount Wednesday

Remember that goal I set for myself last week? Where I said I hoped (as impossible as it might seem) to have Failstate #3 done by the end of April.

Yeah, I have a feeling that's not going to happen.

This past week, I did my best, I really did! But I was kind of stuck. I only was able to write 7,948 words this week. Granted, that is a little more than last week, but it's not going to be enough. My grand total is now at 36,665 words. Again, not too bad, but not good enough, especially since I finally introduced a character that should have been in the book 10,000 words ago.

Ah, well. That's what editing is for. All I can do is say, "Onward and upward!"

Captives

Back a few weeks ago, at the release party for Failstate: Legends, I was asked who my favorite authors were. And I said that one of them was Jill Williamson. Granted, Jill is a friend of mine, so I might be a little biased, but when I read books like her latest, Captives, I am forced to conclude that no, I'm not being biased in the slightest.

In the not-too-distant future, society has broken down due to a plague. A lot of folks have grouped together in what was once known as Colorado, in a major city called "The Safe Lands." In the Safe Lands, everyone is permitted to pursue pleasure. As a matter of fact, that's what's expected of everyone. Live for today, focus only on yourself and what you want, and hope that it all works out.

Only it's not working out too well. Everyone is infected with something called the "thin plague." Worse, it's a disease that is passed on to any children born in the Safe Land. Thanks to the plague, that isn't many. The Safe Lands desperately needs an infusion of new citizens, uninfected citizens, who might be able to produce a new generation of citizens.

Enter Glenrock, a tiny village not too far from the Safe Lands itself. A few dozen people live a relatively simple life there, having rejected the Safe Lands and their decadent lifestyle. That's not to say that it's perfect. A young man named Mason, for example, is being forced into a loveless marriage by his father. Mason's younger brother Omar is constantly bullied by their father and the others of the village for being artistic rather than a hunter. So it's little wonder when Omar strikes a deal with the Safe Lands: he's willing to voluntarily join their society and he'll try to convince the others to come with.

Only the Safe Landers don't want to risk it. Enforcers enter Glenrock and kidnap most of the women and bring them into the city, along with Mason and Omar. Soon the people of Glenrock find themselves trapped inside the walls of the Safe Lands, unable to leave.

Will they be able to survive and escape? Or will the seductive call of the Safe Lands condemn them all?

This was a great book. In the interest of fairness, I did see an early copy of the manuscript, so I kind of knew where the story was going. But it was great to come back to the story now and see how Jill put it all together. I absolutely loved Mason. He's by far my favorite character and I'm rooting for him in future books. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but the good news is, that's easy to do.

But what was really fascinating was the Safe Lands and the way Jill described it. She created a vibrant if crumbling culture, one that leaps off the page and gets stuck in your mind. It's easy to see why it would be so appealing, but it's also easy to see why it would also be dangerous for a person of faith.

All in all, this is an excellent YA book and should definitely be picked up by everyone. Simply put, Jill did it again.

Let's talk Etzal'el!

That's Etzal'el in the back

One of my favorite new characters from Failstate: Legendswas Etzal'el. I had been looking forward to introducing him after dropping his name a few times in Failstate. It was a lot of fun including this character in a book finally. And I say "finally" because Etzal'el has been rattling around in the back of my head for a long time now.  As in, at least since about 2004.

And the reason? An old MMORPG called City of Heroes.

Back in 2004, Cryptic Studios released a game that allowed its players to create superheroes and then go into a massive city to fight crime. There were all sorts of different powers a person could have and myriad villains to defeat. It was a lot of fun.

I made at least half a dozen different heroes during the months that I played. A few were jokes (a gigantic purple man with a Vikings helmet called the Purple People Eater), one was intended for role playing (a hero called Tolkien who was based on a group of villains called the Trollkin), but three of them kind of stuck with me. First was a red-headed superhero girl named Jensina, who used fire attacks. Then there was Evangel (I think), a blond-haired bruiser who wore a white shirt with a bright red cross on it.

But my favorite of the bunch was Etzal'el, a creepy man who dressed in a black suit, wide-brimmed hat, and had glowing red eyes. He was a controller, designed to deal with large crowds of bad-guys. He wasn't the best in a straight up fight. Instead, he fought by creating illusions in people's minds. And he could also control the weather.

Yeah, don't ask.

So where did the name come from?  Well, when I was creating the character, I needed a name. I couldn't think of one, so I pulled out my copy of Character Naming Sourcebook and flipped to the Hebrew section.One name stood out: Betzalel, which means "In God's shadow." Well, I know enough Hebrew to know that the letter B in that name means "in." So I dropped it to make the character's name to roughly mean "God's shadow." I liked it.

Eventually, Etz became my primary character. I don't remember how far I managed to level him to, but I do remember earning him a cape at one point.

This past week, I went looking for my screenshots of Etz and the gang. Sadly, they've disappeared.

But here's the interesting thing. While I don't have the pics anymore, I remembered something about Etz, Evangel, and Jensina. Even though it wasn't necessary, I came up with a backstory for those three. Etz and Evangel were brothers. And they were both in love with Jensina.

Wait. A superhero with seemingly weak mental powers, his superstrong brother, who are both in love with the same girl? Where have I heard that before?

I guess maybe Failstate's been with me for a while too.

Don't forget to sign up for the Legends giveaway on Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Failstate

by John W. Otte

Giveaway ends April 10, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Across the Universe

So I've had an interesting time with this book.

A few months back, I had this great idea for a book. At least, I thought it was a great idea. Granted, it wasn't much of an idea right now. Just a few snippets of character ideas, an idea about the setting, and that's about it. I've started with less in the past. I figured it might be worth pursuing.

Then I saw a copy of Across the Universe on the shelf of a Barnes and Noble. For some reason, I felt compelled to pick it up and read the back cover copy. And almost immediately, my heart fell into my shoes.

It was my idea. Published a year earlier than I had it.

Okay, maybe I didn't have a reason to panic. There are lots of instances where multiple books are published with similar plots. But the back cover copy for this one was so similar to my initial glimmerings of an idea, I had to check it out. I bought it but then left it on my to-be-read pile, mostly because I didn't want to see if it was the same.

I finally screwed on my courage and pulled it down this week to read it. And, for the most part, I'm glad I did.

This book is the story of a girl named Amy. She and her parents have signed on to be cryo frozen and then put on a generation ship, one that will travel through space to a new planet, one that they will colonize.

Fast forward to several centuries later. A young man known as Elder is studying under a man called Eldest. Eldest is the leader of Godspeed, the generation ship. Elder is supposed to be learning how to someday take up the mantle of leadership from Eldest, but it isn't easy. Eldest doesn't seem to like him that much.

But then, a surprising thing happens. Amy thaws out early. That wasn't part of the plan, especially not Eldest's plans. Amy is an intrusion into his carefully ordered world and he's worried that Amy could destabilize everything.

Elder isn't so sure. Amy is unlike any girl he's ever seen. For one thing, she's his age. He's the youngest person on Godspeed by design. And she has some unusual ideas about how life is supposed to work.

But that's not the only problem on Godspeed. Someone is killing the frozen passengers. And Elder is beginning to realize how much of his home is founded and run on lies.

Okay, so now that I've read the book, let's see what I think:

For the most part, the book is fascinating. In many ways, what Beth Revis has written is a dystopian novel, one with a science fiction veneer to it. The whole relationship between Elder and Eldest is interesting, even though Eldest seems more of a caricature than a real person. The society in Godspeed is interesting as well.

But here are the problems:

1) I saw the ending coming. It's telegraphed pretty badly.

2) There was a lot of graphic content in here. Now, I get why. I do. The way the society is engineered, it makes sense. But I'm not sure that Revis had to be as graphic as she was. It's a personal thing, though.

But there's one big thing that has me upset about this book. And before I explain why, I need to bring back an old friend to my blog.

Godzilla, take it away:

I'll try to keep them to a minimum, but be forewarned.

3) Like I said in my little recap, Godspeed is a ship of lies, a lot of which unravel as Elder and Amy work together. Eventually, Eldest reveals part of the truth to Elder. When he did, I wound up groaning.

It's clear to me that Beth Revis doesn't have a working knowledge of physics. At least, not to how it might apply to interstellar travel aboard a generation ship. There's this little thing called momentum that would play a big part of that journey. That's all I'm going to say. If you've read the book, hopefully you know what I'm talking about.

The thing is, what she did could have worked in a slightly different way. But sadly, there's an oops here and it's pretty significant.

That said, I came to the following conclusion:

1) I'd like to read the rest of these books. I'm curious to see where Revis goes from here and what will eventually happen to the people on Godspeed.

2) My idea might work after all. We'll see.

FFF Part IV --- Meet the Crew

If you're not sure what's going on, you can catch up on what's been happening in this found footage horror film I'm writing by reading the previous entries. Just a warning: they are in reverse order. Sorry.

WHERE WE LEFT OFF: Staci, a journalism student, has convinced her friend Leon to shoot a documentary about apparent political corruption in a small town called Garretsburg. They interviewed a girl named Lisa who lived in this town. Her dad ran for mayor and, when he started asking too many questions, their house caught on fire and burned to the ground.

WHERE WE PICK UP:

Leon has already turned on his camera and is filming Staci packing their stuff in the back of the van. He makes some comments about them going off on their grand adventure that causes Staci to smile and roll her eyes. Leon then looks around the parking lot.

"So where's Bethany? She is coming, right?" he asks.

"Don't worry about it. She said she needed some time away from campus, and she seemed really excited when I talked to her about it last night. I'm sure she'll be here any minute. Relax!" Staci says.

Sure enough, Bethany arrives. Bethany is a cute girl, dressed nicely, and has a bag slung over her shoulder. She smiles at Staci but then scowls at the camera. "Is that thing going to be going the whole time we're gone?"

"Well, not always, but we are filming a documentary," Leon says.

Bethany interrupts him. "Because I"m really hoping for some privacy while we're gone."

Staci frowns. "Why?"

Bethany looks over her shoulder and a guy walks up to her and puts his arm around her waist. "I asked Ray to come with us."

The camera droops in Leon's hand. It shifts as he turns to face Staci. "Staci, a word."

They go off to one side. "I thought you said that Bethany broke up with Ray," Leon says.

"I thought she did too!" Staci replies. "Last I heard, anyway. They must have gotten back together yesterday or something."

Someone walks up to them. Leon angles the camera to reveal that it's Bethany. She fixes Leon with a toxic look and turns to Staci. "Look, Ray and I need this time away from campus. I want to rekindle the romance, y'know?"

"This isn't a vacation, Bethany," Staci says. "We're going to be doing some serious work while we're gone."

"Oh, I get that, but we're not going to be working the whole time, right? There will be some time for fun. That's what I'm hoping for. Ray won't get in the way of your little film thing, don't worry."

"We going or not?" Ray shouts.

Leon turns to see Ray toss his bag into the back of the van, along with Bethany's bag.

"I guess so," Leon says, his voice bitter.

Bethany scoots over to Ray and throws her arms around him.

"Look, I know this isn't what I promised," Staci said. "But look at it this way: Ray's a complete tool. Now Bethany can get to know you better and see what a great guy you are. Then you'll be there for her when things go south again."

"Great, so I can reserve my spot in the friend zone, huh?"

"C'mon, let's go."

The camera cuts to shots of the van driving along the highway, past farm fields and clumps of trees. Then it jump cuts to footage of Garretsburg, little snippets of sites we've already seen: the park, city hall. At one point, the van slows to a crawl next to a vacant lot. Staci reveals that this was where Lisa's house stood before the fire. There's no evidence that it was ever there. Leon wonders if they should go check out the property Lisa's dad wanted to buy. Staci decides not to because it's getting late.

Instead, they pull into the motel parking lot and Staci goes in to get their rooms. Leon and Ray have one, Staci and Bethany another. Leon puts his stuff in his room, only to hear a knock at the door. It's Staci. She's apparently been chased out of her room and needs a place to crash. Leon offers the other bed. Staci suggests they shut off the camera for the night, because their investigation starts in the morning.


So there we go. We have our four intrepid (and ultimately doomed) college kids. I'm trying to be a bit better about describing how I visualized a lot of this. As always, let me know what you think.

Wordcount Wednesday

Well, back at it then.

Last week, I finished up my edit pass through Numb, trying to find and eliminate some of my common "writing tells," the over- or poorly used phrases that pepper my works. Once that was done, I decided to take a little break. It was Holy Week, after all, and as a pastor, I had enough on my mind as it was.

But Easter is now done and past. I'm back on the Coke . . . er, the drink, that is. I hope that was obvious. And I'm feeling the itch. The itch to write about superheroes again. So I'm back onto Failstate #3. The last time I reported in three weeks ago, the new manuscript was at 22,248 words. After working on it for the past couple of days, it's up to 28,717 words, an addition of 6,469 words. Not too shabby for only two or three days' work.

So what's my plan from here on out? Well, I'd like to finish this monster in the next month. That leaves me about 27 days. I honestly don't think I'll be able to make it. I'd be surprised if I can. But I still might be able to. I'd have to write about 2,750 words a day, which is a bit high. I'll do my best to try, but I'm not going to be too disappointed if I can't do it.

In the meantime, have you entered my Goodreads giveaway?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Failstate

by John W. Otte

Giveaway ends April 10, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Only 104 people have entered right now. That's still pretty good odds, and you've got a week left to enter. So get on it!

DLC Quest

If you're a gamer, you're probably painfully aware of the fact that the video game industry has adopted the practice of overusing DLC, which is short for downloadable content. You buy the base game, and then, either on the day the game releases, or scattered throughout the following months, the developers add content to the game, allowing you to run new missions or get new weapons or stuff like that. For example, in Mass Effect 3, we have the following DLC packs that have been released (some for free, some for up to $15 a pop):

• Alternate Appearance Pack 1
• Leviathan
• Extended Cut
• Reckoning
• Citadel
• Groundside Resistance Pack
• Omega
• Firefight Pack
• Retaliation
• Earth
• Rebellion
• Resurgence
• From Ashes

Somehow, typing that list out made me more depressed, although to be fair, the vast majority are free multiplayer upgrades.

Regardless,  the inclusion of DLC has a lot of players steamed. And where there's anger, comedy quickly follows. Enter Going Loud Studios' DLC Quest where everything is DLC.

You start as an 8-bit character. You have no animation, no sound, and you can only move to the right. As you move, you collect coins in the game and meet up with a shopkeeper, one who will sell you the DLC necessary to rescue a kidnapped princess. So you buy the ability to move in every direction. You buy the ability to double-jump. You buy everything you need to actually play the game as microtransactions. And along the way, there are ridiculous jokes about current gaming trends, other popular game titles (such as my beloved Mass Effect games), and even more DLC.

When I bought the game on Steam, it also came with an expansion called "Live Freemium or Die." All told, playing the whole game took me about two hours. It's not a lot of time, but I was laughing out loud through most of it.

If you're a gamer and you're not happy with the current trajectory of gaming when it comes to DLC, this is a good game to check out. And hey, it's only like three bucks. Not a bad deal!

FFF Part III -- Something's Rotten in Garretsburg

Professor Veronica Weathers, after being told by the police that they couldn't investigate the disappearance of four college students without further evidence, headed to their last known location. In the little town of Garretsburg, she couldn't find anyone who would admit to seeing them, but she did find an empty suitcase in the local motel's dumpster. She also found a camera bag in the woods with a tag on it, identifying it as belonging to one of the students.

Veronica is back in her office and wants to document what she's found. She shows the camera she found, along with the portable hard drive. She reveals that there were dozens of videos taken around the time that Staci called her cell phone with her frantic voice mail. Veronica has uploaded all of the files onto the department server and she's going to start going through them...

We cut to the first entry and get our first look at Staci Fowler. She's around 20 years old, perky and nice looking. She's seated on a couch in a dorm room, one that obviously belongs to a guy. She smiles at the camera and teases someone she calls Leon about finally getting it working. Leon, who remains off camera, mocks her back.

"At least now I can get to work on my film studies final project," he says. "But now I have to come up with something to actually film." He zooms in on Staci. "Wanna make movies with me?"

Staci smirks but then says, "Actually, I have an idea about that. You know I have that big journalism project coming up, right? Why don't we team up and do a documentary?"

Leon makes a fake snoring sound. Staci picks up a pillow and throws it at Leon.

"Seriously, though, a documentary on what? Isn't your project supposed to be about politics?"

Staci nods. "Exactly. There's this girl in my econ class. The other day, she was telling me about some crazy stuff that happened in this town she lived in a while back. It sounded like the perfect thing to investigate. What do you say?"

"I don't know," Leon says. "I mean, yeah, I'm supposed to put together a movie, but a documentary? That sounds like a lot of work."

"Oh," Staci says. "That's too bad. Because you know, I asked Bethany to help us on the project and she seemed excited. Just think. The two of you would probably have to spend some time alone together."

"Oh, come on! That's not fighting fair, and you know it!"

Staci smiles. "So what do you say?"

Leon sighs. "Fine. What do we do first?"

"Let's go interview the girl from my econ class and get the story from her."

The footage cuts to another college-aged girl. We catch our first glimpse of Leon as he clips a microphone to her her shirt. Leon is also twenty years old, a little on the pudgy side and definitely average as far as looks are concerned. He then steps around behind the camera again.

Staci's voice comes from off camera. "Okay, Lisa, we're just going to talk about that story you told me in econ, okay?"

Lisa takes a deep breath and nods. She then starts to tell her story, with Staci interjecting questions from time to time:

"Several years ago, my family moved to this little town called Garretsburg. It seemed like a nice enough place at first, very friendly. You know, typical small town.

"My dad, he's an avid hiker and he couldn't find any trails or anything nearby. But there was this large wooded property  right outside of town. It was a couple of acres with some old rundown buildings in it. Dad thought that it would be perfect as a park. He had some money my gram left him, so he tried to track down the owners to see if they'd be willing to sell it.

"The weird thing is, no on in town seemed to know who the land belonged to. They all knew about it, but whenever Dad would ask about it, he got what he called the royal run-around. He finally found out that the land belonged to the city. He offered to buy it, but the mayor wouldn't even talk to him. When he tried to track down the records about the land, he found out that they had disappeared. Not only that, but the mayor was becoming really rude to him.

"So when the next election came around, Dad decided to run for mayor. But that wasn't easy. He said it was like everyone in city hall was against him. They lost his paperwork three different times. His lawn signs kept disappearing. The town newspaper kept misspelling his name.

"Then, when the election was held, the old mayor won in a landslide, which Dad thought was fishy. Sure, he knew he had an uphill battle, but based on what the newspaper reported, it sounded like no one voted for him at all. Dad thought maybe the election was rigged, and so he started making noise about contacting the state's Attorney General's office. That's when the sheriff stopped by and 'suggested' that Dad take it easy.

"Two nights later, our house burned down. Strange thing is, none of the smoke alarms went off. Dad took it as a sign that we should just forget about it and get out of town.

"So there you go. That's my story."

The camera swings around to Staci. "Sounds like there's something rotten in Garretsburg. I think we should go find out what."

Keep the comments coming. I know this was another "wall of text" scene, but it will get better. I hope. LOL!

Insurgent

It had been a while since I've been to the dystopian future that Veronica Roth created in Divergent, but I finally got a copy of Insurgent for my Kindle for Christmas. I finally managed to eke out some time to actually read it to find out what happened to Tris and Tobias.

In some ways, the hiatus left me a little confused. I could barely remember where I had left off. I vaguely remembered something about Tris switching factions to become Dauntless. I knew something bad happened toward the end of the first book. So when I was dumped back into futuristic Chicago with very little by way of introduction, I'll admit that I floundered.

But it's a testament to Veronica Roth's abilities that I didn't care. Once again, the characters came to life and drew me into their story as the Dauntless tried to take on the Erudite. Tris learns more about Tobias's family and about herself, leading up to a dramatic conclusion that left me ready for the last book.

I know that I'm a little late to the game and I also know that YA dystopian books are all the rage. But Veronica Roth's are the best of the best. You would do well to check them out.

Let's talk Prom!

This last Saturday, I hosted a release party for Failstate: Legends. As a result, I didn't post my usual "Let's talk..." column about the new book. So I'm making up for it a little late. But instead of talking Legends, let's talk about prom.

More specifically, what happens when a superhero goes to the prom?

While I was editing Legends, I realized something kind of embarrassing. There was a continuity glitch between the two books. Not a major one, mind you, but it was enough to make me realize that I had left a major thread dangling, one that I felt had to be tied off. But doing so in Legends would take up a lot of space and, I realized, it wouldn't really contribute much to that book.

What to do, what to do?

Well, I decided that I would write a short story to help bridge the two books. It could deal with that loose thread and provide a little fun.

Thus Gauntlet Goes to Prom was born. It's not very long, approximately 44 pages, but it helps bridge the two books. I had a lot of fun writing it and I had a lot of fun working with Carlo and Kat, the artists who created the covers for the books. And now I'm glad to say that for a little while longer, it's FREE to download from Amazon.

But it won't stay free for long.

So if you want to see what happens when a superhero goes to the prom, be sure to click on over to Amazon and pick this up.

The Extroverted Writer

In the interest of fairness, I'll just get this out of the way up front. Amanda Luedeke is my literary agent. She's a big part of the reason that I'm published and she's great at what she does. What makes her unique is that before she became a literary agent, she was a marketer, a subject that usually gets most authors tied up in knots. For a while now, Amanda has been doing regular posts on marketing at Chip MacGregor's blog. Well, now she's gathered all of that advice together in one easy-to-read place: The Extroverted Writer: An Author's Guide to Marketing and Building a Platform. It's a short book, easy to read, and easy to digest.

Amanda covers a diverse range of topics, like how to use Facebook or Twitter efficiently, what you should blog about, and what should be on a website. Unlike a lot of marketing books, this isn't just empty cheerleading, she gives practical advice with good suggestions on what to do.

If you're an author, either published or not-quite-there-yet, this is a good resource for you to have. I'm sure you'll get a lot out of it. Although you may not have the experience of hearing Amanda's voice in your head while you're reading it. LOL!

FFF Part II -- Retracing Staci's Steps

When we left off last, Professor Veronica Weathers had received a frantic voicemail message from one of her students, Staci Fowler. Staci had been on the trail of some sort of expose when she and several of her friends disappeared. The message made it sound like Staci was being hunted by someone in a town called Garretsburg.

We pick up with Veronica driving in her car. She has her video camera going on her dashboard. She explains that she tried calling the police to let them know what she had heard. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a dead end. The police contacted their counterparts in Garretsburg and were told that everything was fine. Without further evidence, they couldn't do anything.

So now, Veronica took it upon herself to dig up that evidence. She's heading to Garretsburg with a camera of her own to see what she can find. Maybe she'll be able to find something that will get the police to act.

Next we see small snippets of her arrival in Garretsburg. It's a small town, a population of about 4,000. There are deep woods outside the town, a brick church near the downtown, a few pleasant parks. There's only one motel to speak of. Veronica goes there first. While filming, she goes to the front desk with a picture of Staci. She asks the attendant if Staci stayed at the motel. The clerk barely glances at the picture but informs Veronica that no one has stayed at the motel recently. Veronica presses the clerk, but she insists that Veronica leave.

Veronica does, but she goes around to the back of the motel and finds a dumpster. She sets the camera aside and sifts through some of the trash. She quickly finds what she's looking for, namely a bag with a tag that has Staci's name on it. The contents of the bag are missing.

Vernoica sets out with her camera into Garretsburg. She shows Staci's picture to some folks in the local diner and asks if they've seen Staci or her friends. Everyone claims to have not seen them, but there's an underlying tension to the townsfolk. It's clear that they don't appreciate this outsider asking questions. When Veronica goes out to a local park to ask some of the mothers gathered at the playground, she spots the sheriff's car parked a block away and it's clear that she's being watched.

Most of the mothers at the playground ignore her, but one little boy seems ready to help. He claims to have seen Staci and her friends and says that they got themselves into trouble. When Veronica asks where they went, the boy claims to not know but says that if she goes out of town and finds the "bad place," she might find what she's looking for. One of the mom's shouts and the boy runs away, along with the rest of the kids.

Veronica gets in her car and drives to the edge of town in the direction the boy pointed. She finds a dense woods and goes in, wondering aloud how she's going to find this "bad place." But then, she spots something in the underbrush. She brushes away some dirt and dead leaves and discovers it's a camera bag. The tag marks it as belonging to Leon Johnson, one of the missing college students. She opens it and discovers that the videocamera is in there, along with a portable hard drive. She pulls it out of the ground and gets back in her car. She drops the camera on the dash, revealing that the sheriff is right behind her. She throws her car into drive and roars away. The sheriff follows her for a while until she manages to lose him on the freeway. She wonders what she'll find when she gets the camera back to her office.

So what will she find? Come back next Friday to see what Leon's camera reveals.

Oh, and thanks for the comments! I like the fact that people are thinking about how this could be filmed best. I'll be honest, I really don't think this will ever get put on film. I don't have the technical know-how to do so. But I'll be even more honest and say that I briefly considered starting something on Kickstarter. LOL!

Wordcount Wednesday

As I announced last week, I've taken a break from Failstate #3. Instead, I've spent the last week sifting through my old friend Numb, cleaning up the text so we can hopefully do some advance reader copies. It's been interesting revisiting this one. It took me a while to get going, but I think I've done pretty good. As of right now, I've made it through 153 pages out of 330. Not too bad.

Hopefully I'll have this one done in the next few days. Then it's back to Failstate #3's first draft.

And now I have to get off the computer and get some sleep. I seem to be coming down with some sort of cold and that's not good, especially since the Failstate: Legends launch party is this Saturday. Even if you can't be there in person, there are details in the Facebook invite about how you can join us via Ustream.

Good night, all.

Let's Talk Title!

As I promised last week, I'll share the story of where Failstate: Legends's title came from. It's a tale that's filled with mystery, heartbreak, and a little salsa.

Okay, not really. But it was a stumper for a long time.

See, I hate titles. Either I have an idea right away for a book or story's title or I have no idea what to call it. That latter was the case for Legends when I first got started. I kept working on it, hoping that at some point, a word or phrase would magically fall into my lap. That didn't happen. For a long time, when I was discussing this book with my wife, it was simply known as "Failstate #2." Not the most inspiring of titles.

Eventually what I did was sit down one night and write down every name that occurred to me. No judgment on quality, just different possible titles. I knew I wanted it to be "Failstate-colon-something-or-other." So I came up with a list of about a dozen titles or so.

Then I went to my colleagues at Marcher Lord Press. I shared a back-cover copy of the book, along with my list of possible after-the-colon subtitles. A bunch of the titles got rejected outright, including a few that I really liked (I don't remember what they were, so I guess it was a good thing in the long run).

The one we landed on was "Legends," partially because Failstate is striving to establish his own legend, and also because . . . well. Hmmmmm. How to do this without spoilers? Let's just say that he encounters some living legends along the way.

So there we go. It's not the most exciting of stories, but that's where the title came from.

If you have any questions for me, be sure to leave them in the comments. Otherwise, I'll be stuck trying to come up with questions on my own. And we wouldn't want that.

FFF Part 1 -- Staci's Gone Missing

Time to start writing my really bad found footage horror movie. I don't have a title for this. I have no idea where this is going. I don't know how long this series might last. But that's not going to stop me.

So let's get started!

Our untitled movie opens with news footage talking about how a professor and four students have gone missing from New Belton University. Professor Howard Erickson holds a press conference, explaining that he thinks his colleague, journalism professor Veronica Weathers, and the students were victims of foul play. He claims that he has evidence of this. When the local police chief is asked about this evidence, he dismisses it as a hoax.

Cut to an interview with Professor Erickson. He explains that he received an odd e-mail one evening from Weathers, claiming that she had uploaded some video footage into the department server and that it had to do with four New Belton students who had missed classes for several days. Erickson said he retrieved the footage and it disturbed him enough that he called the police. Now that the police have dismissed his concerns, he's put the footage together as best he could and now he's releasing it to the public in hopes that someone will be able to shed some light on what happened.

We cut to an image of Veronica Weathers. She's a nice looking middle aged woman. She's obviously set up a camera to record herself talking. She explains that she's a journalism professor at New Belton. She goes on to talk about how she's concerned about one of her students, a young lady named Staci Fowler. Staci is a promising student with aspirations for being a political reporter. Several weeks ago, Staci approached Weathers, asking for advice on how to do a big expose. Staci didn't go into details at the time, but she claimed to be on the trail of a story that could help make her mark before she's even graduated from college. Weathers says that she humored Staci at the time but thought that her student was exaggerating.

Then Staci and three of her friends left campus. Several days later, Weathers received an ominous voice mail message from Staci. Weathers pulls out her phone and plays the message for the camera.

At first, we don't hear anything, just rustling and what might be heavy breathing. But then, we hear the gasps and sobs of a young woman crying. "Dr. Weathers? It's Staci. We went to Garretsburg anyway, and now . . . I don't know what happened. Cynthia is dead and . . ." A burst of static drowns out her words. When they come back, she's crying harder. "We should never have come here. The sheriff is in on it." Another burst of static. "He's after me now and I don't know if---"

The line goes dead. Weathers explains that she looked it up on the map. Garretsburg is a small community to the north of New Belton, so she's planning on going up there to see what she can find out.

Want to know what Weathers finds in Garretsburg? Come back next week to see. And if you like what you're reading, be sure to let folks know what I'm up to. The more the merrier.

Wordcount Wednesday

Ever have one of those days? I've been having one of those days for the last three months or so. Okay, so that's a bit pessimistic. At the least, it's been one of those weeks. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting it out of first when it came to writing. As a result, I didn't get a lot added to Failstate #3.

As of right now, Failstate #3 weighs in at 22,248 words, meaning I added 4,980 words over the past week.That may seem like a lot, but I think most of that was added at a writing retreat I was at today.

And, truth be told, I'm not sure if I'll be able to add that much in the coming weeks either. I realized I need to start work on an old story, the one that prompted me to start Wordcount Wednesday in the first place. It's been almost four years since I started it, but Numb is going to be published by Marcher Lord Press this fall. Thing is, I (hopefully) have grown a bit since I wrote that, so at the prompting of my publisher, I'm going to do a sweep through it to see if I can polish it up even more.

So Failstate #3 might be put on hold for a few days so I can do that edit sweep. But once that's done, I'm intending to crack down and get #3 finished.

Angel Eyes

So I'd been hearing a lot of buzz about Shannon Dittemore's Angel Eyes. The Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour, of which I used to be a member, did this book recently. So I decided I should check this one out and see what it's all about.

The story is about Brielle Matthews, a young woman who has been pretty much forced to move back home to the small town of Stratus. Brielle had left town to be a dancer and a model, but a tragedy around her best friend Ali has forced her to return home. She's haunted by the guilt of Ali's death and, as a result, feels perpetually cold.

But then she meets Jake Shield, the new kid in town. Jake practically radiates heat. At first, Brielle doesn't want anything to do with him . . . or anyone else, for that matter. But Jake is persistent. He's always around, offering his heat and maybe more.

Pretty soon, in spite of herself, Brielle finds herself warming to the mysterious Jake. And a good thing too. Because without realizing it, Brielle has stumbled into a dangerous situation, one that stretches from this world into one that can only be seen by angel eyes.

Okay, I'll say this up front. I thought the chapters told from Brielle's perspective were really great. The prose was almost poetic. And the dialogue was great also. Dittemore was extremely creative in the way that she put this story together and the way she portrayed spiritual warfare.

And yet . . .

And yet this is another spiritual warfare book, angels taking on demons in unseen realms. It's ground that's been covered before. Yes, Dittemore adds some interesting twists to it, but it didn't really make me sit up and take notice.

There were also some sections of very lengthy dialogue (more like monologues) that kind of threw me. And this may sound harsh, but Brielle as a character kind of bugged me. It's almost like she was just a whisker shy of crossing over the border into being conceited. Or not. I'm not sure what it was about her, but I had a hard time relating to her.

This isn't to say that it's a bad book. Not at all. A lot of people have read it and really enjoyed it. Perhaps I'm too old and the wrong gender. Whatever the case, it was good, but I'm not lining up to purchase the next book in the series. Maybe some day, but not when I've got somewhere around 50+ books in my to-be-read pile and waiting on my Kindle.