Fantasy stories take us to wondrous places, whisking us off to the impossible, the breathtaking, occasionally the terrifying. Crystalline forests,...
Wizarding Real Estate
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J.S. Morin
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Sequel
When I first heard that there was going to be a third movie in the Bill & Ted “franchise,” I cringed. Hollywood has been awash for years in the...
A License to Spoof
When Author Scrapheap comes around, you’re often subjected to half-baked or off-kilter ideas that had little hope of turning into anything...
The best of games / The worst of games
I don’t feel like I’m doing it a disservice to call Dwarf Fortress the game with the worst user interface in the history of successful games....
Vacation in Space?
Captain Kirk has now actually gone to space. Well, there’s some debate these days over what qualified as “space” for the purposes of quickie...
For the Horde!
I played World of Warcraft waaaaaay back in the day, back when there didn’t need to be suffixed qualifiers to explain...
Where we’re going, we don’t need tables
When I was a kid, there was a set of shelves in our basement stacked with board games. Monopoly, Sorry!, Clue, all the old classics....
Year 8 of my 5-10 Year Plan for Overnight Success
My expectation going into 2020 was that it would be a year dominated by an exhausting number of hindsight jokes. In hindsight, I wish it had been....
It Used to Come in the Mail
2007... Fox was still trying to make Fantastic Four movies, the iPhone had been announced and was a year from stores, the Oklahoma City...
We’re Celebrating WHAT?
It's autumn in the northern hemisphere. It's a time of changing leaves, football games... and Halloween. There are plenty of holidays on the...
History Like It Never Happened
Alternate History.It's not the sole province of dictators and totalitarian regimes. Alternate History is also a niche subgenre of science fiction...
The One That Almost Made It
It's time once again to sift through the flotsam of my TBW pile (To Be Written) and share why one of them has failed to climb its way out. This...
Frumious Bandersnatch
A younger version of me had some pretty clear ideas about what the future might look like. Somewhere between the emergence of the internet and the...
Poll: Imagine it’s 2065. “I believe robots will_”
Back when I first launched my Project Transhuman series (formerly Robot Geneticists), I posed this question to my email insiders. While my series...
This show is a giant Easter egg hunt
One show that I never expected to like was Once Upon a Time. The basic premise is that Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter ended up an orphan...
No Robot Uprising in 2020
Not sure what my Author Scrapheap is? I introduce the idea on the Author Scrapheap archive page. This time diving into my Author Scrapheap, we're...
Heroes are More than Tavern Brawls
If you're a fan of board games, there's a good chance you've at least heard of Red Dragon Inn, even if you haven't played it. Well, that...
Poll: What’s it take to be the greatest bounty hunter?
Back when I first launched my Black Ocean: Mercy for Hire series, I posed this question to my email insiders. The main character, Esper, may be...
Good News, Everyone! It’s the best Sci-Fi show ever
While I hold onto hope that someday this title might get passed along to a Black Ocean adaptation, I just want to talk about the best sci-fi show...
Henchmen can be heroes too
Not sure what my Author Scrapheap is? I introduce the idea on the Author Scrapheap archive page. This edition hearkens back to some of my earliest...
Firefly: You can’t take this board game from me
I've never made a secret of Firefly being one of the main inspirations of my Black Ocean universe. And when it comes to themed board games, there...
2 techs I want to mash up
For me, the "present" is sort of permanently frozen in my mind as the mid-to-late nineties. As we drift ever onward into the future, we rob old...
Your DIY magic portal
One of my favorite seeds for story ideas is the notion of the crossover concepts. They've been big in comics since forever and huge in fan-fic. But...
Labyrinth: Two Kinds of Magic
Rumors have circulated (as rumors are wont to do) about a potential remake of the fantasy classic The Labyrinth. This is, of course, blasphemy. Not...