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This morning I finished rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the third time. I first read it in fifth grade, and I really don’t remember anything about that experience, except that it hooked me on epic fantasy. I read The Two Towers and The Return of the King the same year. In sixth grade, I read the Silmarillion. My teacher didn’t believe I...

“Why we play fantasy games, part three: Because special attacks that make the air around you glow and pulse with magical life are much cooler than head-butting an angry tramp.” “Why we play fantasy games, part four: Because we like big, shiny swords. And also, because it’s frightening outside, with its unnecessary brightness and horrible blue r...

If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted much fiction lately, I’ll tell you: I’ve been working on a game manual. I have a friend who I play games with—board games, mostly, with the occasional role playing game thrown in—who was telling me about this game he found at Deseret Industries for a dollar. It’s called Civil War, Brigade, one of those wa...

Here’s an update on my search for new music. The band under discussion is Edenbridge, another female-fronted metal band. I’ve had a couple of their songs for some time now, but I had forgotten about them when I wrote my Evanescence-esque post. That probably goes to show how much I like them. It’s not that they’re bad. They’re a fine band. Just n...

I just finished reading Latro in the Mist, by Gene Wolfe. This is my first Wolfe novel. I’ve seen his books on the shelf countless times, but hadn’t ever gotten around to trying him out. Luckily for me, my wife got me this book for my birthday. Latro in the Mist is a compilation of two novels, Soldier in the Mist and Soldier of Arete. It’s the ...

Role playing games I’ve played tend to have a particular problem that I’ve been pondering. Role playing games are games about cooperative story telling; in most games, each person controls a character in the story. The problem is how to ensure that each character fits into the story you want to tell. If you don’t place boundaries on character cr...

When I first heard Wake Me Up Inside, the hit single by Evanescence, I loved it. They had me completely hooked. Their sound was something I’d never quite heard before, a mix of heavy, pounding guitars, piano, and symphonic strings fronted by Amy Lee’s pure, soaring vocals, and it spoke to me. After they lost their founding guitar player, I felt ...

I was going to post this on Friday night, before the Deathly Hallows was released, but um, I was at a store waiting in line for this great, um, thing I wanted to buy, and I’ve spent all my time since then focusing on nothing else, and wondering how anyone could not be doing it too, and wishing it weren’t over. Anyway . . . Sometimes I think Pot...