C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 41
November 7, 2020
My reaction to the reign of President Omega
Weirdly, I feel like singing the theme from Star Trek: Enterprise. No, seriously.
It's been a long road
Getting from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near
I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No they're not gonna change my mind
No they're not gonna hold me down
Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's go...
October 29, 2020
Book Announcements for October 2020
Hey folks,
I'm very pleased to say that we've got a lot of news for fans of my writing. I want to thank all my wonderful fans for their support in making this a productive year for me despite the fact, well, it's been a real pear of a year for just about everyone and everything.
Some of this information will be new to you and others will be a retread but as November approaches, I figure it'd be good to give a year update.
Cover Art for Upcoming Books
A NIGHTMARE ON ELK STREET (Bright Falls Myst...
October 20, 2020
Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Heart of the Forest review
WEREWOLF: THE APOCALYPSE: HEART OF THE FOREST is the latest visual novel from the Paradox Interactive produced World of Darkness. It is based on the old White Wolf World of Darkness where vampires, werewolves, demons, and hunters all fight a covert war behind the scenes of our modern Earth. I was never a huge Werewolf: The Apocalypse fan like I was Vampire: The Masquerade or Changeling: The Dreaming but I did run a few campaigns of it. Honestly, I was always more of a Fera fan than the Garou...
October 19, 2020
Mafia: Definitive Edition review
Mafia: City of Lost Heaven was one of the stand-out Grand Theft Auto clones when seemingly every game in the business was trying to imitate the success of GTA III. The idea behind this game was that you would play a mobster, Tommy Angelo, and the game would rid itself of all the more absurd elements. Instead of a hyper-exaggerated version of real life, it would be fairly true to the cinematic mafia movies of Goodfellas, The Godfather, and American Gangster. It would attempt to tell a serious...
October 7, 2020
Ten Real-Life Inspired Chronicles for Kindred in 2020
V5 Chronicle Tips
3. Ten Tips to Running the Sabbat in V5
4. Ten Chronicles for Sabbat PCs in V5
5. Ten Tips to Running the Camarilla in V5
6. Ten Tips to Running the Thin-Bloods in V5
7. Ten Tips to Running the Tremere in V5
8. Ten Real Life-Inspired Chronicles for V5
The year 2020 has been a bad one for a lot of people across the globe. It has utterly upended the lives of the majority of the populace, clai...
Vampire: The Masquerade NPC Update: Sullivan Dane
I'm a huge fan of Vampire: The Masquerade as fans of this blog may have noticed. Sometimes, you can't get an idea out of your head. In this case, I wanted to update one of my all-time favorite characters to 5th Edition. Sullivan Dane is the first vampire hunter we meet in the game and one of the major characters of the Forged in Steel chronicle. He gets a short update in Chicago by Night 5th Edition but not a full write-up and I thought I'd try my indie urban fantasy writer's hand at making ...
September 25, 2020
Vampire: The Masquerade: Night Road review
Warning - This review contains minor spoilers for the first half of Night Road.
Vampire: The Masquerade: Night Road by Choice of Game is a text-based choose your own adventure game. It's not even a visual novel with the entirety of the game being text with a scattered few character portraits. It's the kind of game you would play on your cellphone but that doesn't mean it's not deep. The writing is far deeper and, ironically, allows a great deal more freedom in determining your character...
September 15, 2020
WORLDBUILDING #3: THE UNITED STATES OF MONSTERS
Hey folks,
This is a long-time coming bit of world-building because my United States of Monsters series is multiple series and is an entire planet's worth of history. For those unfamiliar with the United States of Monsters, it consists of the following series:
* Psycho Killers in Love (Psycho killers in Love)
* The Red Room Saga (Esoterrorism, Eldritch Ops, The Fall of the House)
* Straight Outta Fangton (Straight Outta Fangton, 100 Miles and Vampin')
* The Bright Falls Mysteries (I was a Teenage Wer...
Shadows of New York review
SHADOWS OF NEW YORK is the sequel to COTERIES OF NEW YORK that came out last year. It is a visual novel set in the World of Darkness by White Wolf Publishing. A visual novel is effectively a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book that is played on a computer and a bit different from a video game since there's often no voice acting or much gameplay. Neither game is anything like VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE: BLOODLINES but I enjoyed the former, so I picked up the sequel when it came out last week.
...
September 8, 2020
Star Trek: The Way to the Stars by Una McCormack review
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY: THE WAY TO THE STARS is a Young Adult novel based in the Star Trek universe. I have been enjoying the Star Trek: Discovery spin-off novels starting with Michael Burnham and Spock's adventure in Desperate Hour and continuing in works like Drastic Measures. They're a great mix of Star Trek: The Original Series lore with a new perspective on the life of characters from the 23rd century as well as their culture.This book follows Cadet (later Ensign) Tilly of the show and di...
