A drunken guard lets in a dark stranger into town and in doing so he inadvertently steps into an epic time-spanning and twisting adventure that will definitely hammer in the importance of his Guard Duty. Continue reading Review: Guard Duty
Tag: Science-Fantasy
Summersalt – Tracer
According to the latest census by the Summersalt Ministry of Commerce and Security—it makes sense in Summersalt, but nowhere else—the city-state is home to more than 700.000 beings, with humans being the majority. This census is the most accurate report on Summersalt population, if you forget that it ignores all mutants, saltbabies, horrors and aberrations born in the depths and slums, most of them from exposure to some form of raw salt.
Twenty percent of the population make up the upper neighbourhoods, where the Trade Princes, nouveau riches, big merchants and old school nobility live. But among them is a family with enough skeletons in their closet to beat the census by at least twice its reported amount, and enough secrets to burn the city itself a few times over. Continue reading Summersalt – Tracer
Star Wars: Igniters – Time for a Revamp
I think if you check this site for five minutes, you’ll probably come across a couple dozen articles that at least mention Star Wars. It’s a big deal for me, one of my favourite franchises and one where I’ve lost hours on, both reading or in other ways consuming stories or making up my own, be it for RPGs or just simple daydream. Continue reading Star Wars: Igniters – Time for a Revamp
Summersalt – Character Concept – Blankface
The city of Summersalt is a dangerous place, particularly for the Summer Knights, the regulation agents for The Salt, the wondrous substance at the core of the city’s technology, mysticism, economy and everything in between.
Regulation agents come from various background but they all have one thing in common: the job is their last hope. Some like Keegan Leona Mercer, have spent centuries burning bridges and making enemies. Then there are those like Julianne “Tracer” Allen, with two clear choices: service or some ghastly capital punishment, particularly if they have her unusual skills in Saltcraft. Continue reading Summersalt – Character Concept – Blankface
Fiction – New One-shot Premises!
Hi everybody. I mentioned a short while ago that I would come back to you with new premises and updates on the current stories.
Let’s get the updates out of the way. The stories I’ve already written are still with my proofreader, whom I’ll stick with a cattle prod this weekend to get him reading and giving me the feedback I so desperately need, so I can start working on second drafts and possibly posting the stories (sadly, don’t have many proofreaders or beta readers at the moment, though I’m in the process of roping a few more people in). I’m also thinking of getting some custom artwork made for them, to enhance the stories with a couple of visuals–well, that and the fact that I need very few excuses to commission more stuff from my go-to artist, Biddoodles. It might cost me money, but the quality is phenomenal and I just dig her style. Continue reading Fiction – New One-shot Premises!
Genres of Fantasy – Science-Fantasy
Last time I spoke of the Fantasy genre I went on about the Trapped in a Game genre. It was on my mind as I watched the very good Overlord anime, about a player staying on the last day of his MMO’s lifespan, spending the time with the NPCs of his Guild House, then as the servers shut down, he finds himself inhabiting his character.
The series does many interesting things with the genre, particularly with having a nice guy main character that is evil at the same time. Well, not entirely evil but as his character is a Lich, he adopts the personality of an undead lord, cold and detached. It creates a nice contrast between the character’s inner monologue and how he behaves on the outside. Continue reading Genres of Fantasy – Science-Fantasy
Back to Ficton – Winners and New Challengers!
Last week I mentioned some of the short stories I’ve been thinking of writing, leaving you with the premises for each of them and asking you to vote on which one you’d like to see the most. As tends to be the case with polls on The Mental Attic, everyone who voted picked a different story, leaving me with a massive tie.
I’m used to this, so I made the call on which story to write first, picking one I had worked on for some hours already. Lion’s Claw, with its non-magic fantasy setting was my pick and I wrote most of it, leaving it just shy of the last scene, as it’s a big confrontation sequence that I need to think to make sure it’s believable. Continue reading Back to Ficton – Winners and New Challengers!
Back in Fiction!
I’ll be honest, I was planning on having the first of my new short stories for you today, but I did go through a giant rant the other day about taking the time to make the stuff I write be as good as it can be, so I decided against it, so I can finish it properly, edit it as I should and polish it to near perfection for a story I came up with while riding the train back from the Bristol GeekOut Meetup.
But I do want to let you know that I have fun stuff coming, some stories I’ve had bouncing around my head for a while, some of them already started but never finished, in various genres, none of them Romance because if there’s one thing I learned while writing my third novel it’s that romance is not my thing. I’m a sucker or romance, that’s true, I know what makes good narrative romance and what’s bad one, and I can tell a good intense scene if I need to, but an entire novel based on the genre…yeah, not this guy, at least not yet anyway.
Right now I have five stories to work on, two of which are in progress and the others are barely an interesting premise in my mind. Continue reading Back in Fiction!