Raven Oak's Blog, page 58
May 14, 2015
Book Cover Throwback: A Wizard of Earthsea
This week’s Book Cover Throwback: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin.
What I Love about This Cover: I had an entire box set of these in this style. They were simplistic by design, yet intricate and detailed. I loved that!
What I Don’t Love about This Cover: I wish the colors were less washed-out and carried a bluer hue. They could have kept the design’s simplicity, yet created something eye catching.
Click here to view other Book Cover Throwbacks.The post Book Cover Throwback: A Wizard of...
May 11, 2015
Monday Night Gaming: Pokemon Shuffle
Normally I review tabletop games, but I enjoy console games as well. I’ll be covering two handheld games this week and next because these two games are screaming for a thorough review.
In Q1 of 2015, Nintendo released two freemium games for the 3DS: Pokemon Shuffle (February) andPokemon Rumble World #4 (April). I’m not a fan of freemium. I’d rather pay $30 for a game and own it–all of it–rather than play a game that requires me to continually spe...
May 9, 2015
Scrivener Saturday: Word Frequency Redo
Warning!
I’ve got a massive writing deadline on 5/15, so this week’s Scrivener Saturday will be a repeat topic. I added more to it though, so enjoy!Scrivener Saturday: Word FrequencyOne of the most difficult parts of writing is making sure that you use variety in your word choice and that you avoid redundancy. To help with word choice and word frequency, Scrivener has a text statistics option which will not only give you general statistics about your project, but will tell you word frequency....
May 8, 2015
Flashback Friday: The Day of the Triffids
I’m happy to have bestselling author, Jennifer Foehner Wells, here for a guest post on how the book, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham influenced her as a writer.
As a child I had access to a friendly neighbor’s library that contained a lot of SF. I quickly discovered that SF was where my heart lay. One of the first books that I borrowed from her was a tome of Ray Bradbury short stories. The second was John Wyndham’s The Day of the T...
May 7, 2015
Book Cover Throwback: A Wrinkle in Time
This week’s Book Cover Throwback: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.
What I Love about This Cover: This was the original cover on my copy as a kid, and I loved abstract feel of the cover.
What I Don’t Love about This Cover: The overall-green cast to it.
Click here to view other Book Cover Throwbacks.The post Book Cover Throwback: A Wrinkle in Time appeared first on Raven Oak.
May 4, 2015
Monday Night Gaming: Sentinels
Publisher: Greater than Games
# of Players: 1-5 players
Best with: 4 players
Playing Time: Depends on the # of players. While the box says 30-60 minutes, in a 2-player first run-through, it was almost a two-hour game for us.
# of Expansions: Five, plus lots of promo cards
# of Parts: 578 cards.
You know me–I love deck builders. I love Legendary from the Marvel universe, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for me to enjoy this g...
Reddit Writer of the Day
The Reddit Writer of the Day is live. Hop on over and ask me anything. 
The post Reddit Writer of the Day appeared first on Raven Oak.
May 3, 2015
Writer of the Day
For those of you who frequent reddit, tomorrow (Monday) I will be the r/Fantasy Writer of the Day.
What does that mean?
It means there will be a discussion / AMA in reddit‘s Fantasy subreddit all about me. If you usereddit, please stop in and feel free to ask me anything about books, writing, me, whatever.
I’ll post a link to the discussion directly tomorrow AM, but wanted to give everyone a head’s up. I’ll be answering questions all day.
The post Writer of the Day appeared first on Raven Oak.
May 1, 2015
Flashforward Friday: Carbon Nanotubes
I’m happy to have author, Stuart Thaman, here again for a guest post on carbon nanotubes and how his own experiences with prosthetic limbs shaped the future of his writing.
While I haven’t written much futuristic as far as novels go, I’ve been in love with sci-fi ever since I read Dune in high school. My first novel, Vatican Massacre, often gets categorized as futuristic sci-fi for a few reasons. Let me say here that it is indeed set in present...
April 30, 2015
Z is for Zelda
In today’s continuation of the A-Z Challenge, I give you:
Z is for ZeldaWhile not the first video game I ever played, The Legend of Zelda (1986) is the first non-platform video game I ever played.
I sucked at it.
But then, I sucked at most video games as a kid. What I enjoyed most about it was traveling on an adventure to not just collect rupees, but to defeat monsters and find treasure.
By the time The Ocarina of Time (1998) came out, I was well and truly hooked. The Legend of Zelda wove a stor...
