C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 35

Ghostrunner, Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story, and Val-11 Hall-a review

 Hey folks,

    I've been puttering around on Steam, picking up various video games tagged with "Cyberpunk" and playing them as a way to get in the mood for writing my next Agent G book. Most of these are on the shorter side (with an exception) and my commentary is not necessarily going to be as detailed as usual. I hope you enjoy!

Ghostrunner

    Ghostrunner is a kinetic action game where you are a cyborg ninja in a huge towering arcology. You are the last of the Ghost Runners, a group of cyborg n...

Red Dead Redemption 2 review

This article will contain spoilers for the game Red Dead Redemption 2 because why not?

    RED DEAD REDEMPTION is a work that doesn't really need any further statements from me. It's widely considered to be one of the best video games of all time if not THE best video game of all time. It's a storytelling and technical achievement that is magnificent to look at. It has a story of horrific crunch and vast expenditures behind it but Red Dead Redemption is currently sitting at the apex of what video...

July-August 2020 Book Sale

Hey folks,

It's coming to the end of July and we're going to do a sale on three of my book series that I think everyone who wants to expand their collection of my books should take advantage of. You know, if you have such bad taste as to want read more of my works. 

Hehe.

All of them are available for 99c until August 21st!

The Rules of Supervillainy

 

Gary Karkofsky is an ordinary guy with an ordinary life living in an extraordinary world. Supervillains, heroes, and monsters are a common part of t...

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline review

    READY PLAYER ONE is a very interesting book in the fact that parts of it are the absolute worst of the previous book taken up to the eleven, other parts extremely entertaining, a few like drug-shots of nostalgia right to the brain, and a few just utterly nonsensical. It's a book that I am glad I listened to on audiobook with Will Wheaton but I also kind of wish I hadn't since that mean I was deprived of the joys of skimming through parts undeserving of close attention. This is a book ...

Synergia (video game) review

     I am a huge fan of cyberpunk as anyone who visits my webpage will note. Unfortunately, there's never been any definitive cyberpunk game (pushes away Deus Ex for undermining my argument). I think part of that is due to the fact the genre is one where a thousand stories could be told and many games get the cyber or punk part of things going but never quite both. Synergia isn't a video game per se, though, but is a visual novel.

    For those unfamiliar with visual novels, they're closer to cho...

The Queen of Swords by R.S. Belcher review

    I am a huge fan of the Golgotha series by R.S. Belcher. I enjoyed both THE SIX-GUN TAROT and THE SHOTGUN ARCANA as I am a fan of Weird Westerns as well as genre mashups. A mixture of the Cthulhu Mythos, angels, demons, mad science and the Wild West made it into a unique book that I very much enjoyed. So, I was very excited about this latest book.

    THE QUEEN OF SWORDS is a very different book from the others since it centers primarily around Maud Stapleton and h...

Glass Rhapsody (The Songs of Sefate #2) by Sarah Chorn Book Review

    GLASS RHAPSODY is the second book for THE SONGS OF SEFATE series by Sarah Chorn. The original volume, OF HONEY AND WILDFIRES, was my pick for best fantasy book of 2021. No small praise since I read about 200 a year. The series is a fantasy steampunk one set in a sort of pseudo-Old West where instead of cattle barons, the economy is dominated by a corporation that owns all of the mines that extract the magic substance known as shine. Shine is a food additive, drug, and power source tha...

Cloudpunk review

    CLOUDPUNK is a game that I decided to pick up on a lark. I am a huge cyberpunk fan and never really can scratch that itch no matter how many times I try. Cyberpunk 2077 was something of a failure to that as the game was not nearly as expansive as it was advertised as being. Even if you ignored its copious flaws, the game was a very short 30 or so hours that didn't make use of its setting very well. So, I was eager to get into Cloudpunk just because it was another cyberpunk game setting.

    S...

You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Older by Richard Roberts review

    YOU CAN BE A CYBORG WHEN YOU'RE OLDER is a Young Adult affectionate parody of Eighties cyberpunk. It's an interesting twist, implementing a lot of tropes that only adult readers will get and not necessarily all of them but also a great way of introducing the genre to people who wouldn't normally be familiar with it. It also takes a number of pot shots at the sillier ideas in the world of neon, rain, androids, and street samurai. As a fan of both cyberpunk and Richard Roberts' PLEAS...

A Nightmare on Elk Street is now available on Audible!

Hey folks, 

I am very pleased to announce that the third and final BRIGHT FALLS MYSTERIES novel is now available for purchase in audiobook form! The adventures of Jane Doe have always been close to my heart but I've got an especially big love for Arielle Delisle's take on the character.

From the Best-Selling Author of The Rules of Supervillainy :

Jane Doe has settled into her new role as the Shaman of Bright Falls but that doesn't pay the bills. With her boyfriend off chasing his evil father, J...