Raven Oak's Blog, page 61

Book Cover Throwback: Sassinak

This week’s Book Cover Throwback: Sassinak by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon. This was the firstElizabeth Moon novel I ever read. In fact, it was the first space opera I ever read as well.

What I Love about This Cover: I love how bad-ass Sassinak looks on this cover.

What I Don’t Love about This Cover: It’s hard to tell if there is any sort of shield across her face, keeping the oxygen in her suit. Oops.

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Hugo Awards

The Hugo Awards are what most writers dream about–our version of the Oscars even. This year was the first year I could nominate and vote as I’m attending WorldCon (I realize I could’ve bought a non-attending membership and thus, nominated before, but I didn’t know that until recently).

I was excited to know I could be part of this, and more excited to know that Amaskan’s Blood was eligible for nomination. (No, I didn’t nominate myself–that’s dishonest.) Then the sad puppy folks entered the pi...

M is for Magic!

In today’s continuation of the A-Z Challenge, I give you:

M is for Magic!

Gaming has been a part of my world since I was a child–back in the day with the King’s Quest series on old 5 1/4″ floppy discs–but it wasn’t until I married my husband that I became a series gamer.

He introduced me to the land of Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Pokemon. This later evolved into a love of board games (aka tabletop games), and eventually Magic: The Gathering.

Gaming together isn’t just fun, it’s amaze-balls. While...

L is for Love

In today’s continuation of the A-Z Challenge, I give you:

L is for Love

Warning!

I’m gonna be fairly sappy here, so if sticky, silly sap isn’t your thing, you may want to read something else on the site. Just a fair warning.

I met my husband back in 1993 in 10th grade. I don’t remember if we met first in computer science class, in Writers’ Guild, or through mutual friends, but all three instances were determined for us to become friends. Before he was ever my husband, he was my friend, and when...

Monday Night Gaming: Scoundrels of Skullport

This week’s Monday Night Gaming: Scoundrels of Skullport, the expansion for the game, The Lords of Waterdeep.

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast

# of Players: 2-6

Best with: 3-4 players

While this post is going live on its normal Monday, we didn’t play this for “Monday Night Gaming” this time. Instead, we played it on Saturday for International Tabletop Day!

I’m a huge fan of The Lords of Waterdeep (you can read my full review here), so I was pretty excited to try out its expansion, Scoundrels of Sku...

K is for Kitties

In today’s continuation of the A-Z Challenge, I give you:

K is for Kitties

I’ve known for 26 years that children weren’t for me. I can tolerate them when I must, but most under the age of twelve, irritate me like broken glass rubbed into my skin. I’ve lucked out that my husband shares these feelings, and for the nineteen years we’ve been together, we’ve shared our time with “furry” children instead.

Scientific discoveries in the past decade have shown that pet owners live longer, healthier live...

Scrivener Saturday: The Wishlist

I’m doing something a tad bit different today forScrivener Saturday as I’m still trying to catch up from back-to-back conventions.

This week’s Scrivener Saturday: The Wishlist–as in my top 5 features I wish Literature & Latte would add to the program.

Blog Support–as in, a way to have a blog template the way you have fiction projects, dissertations, etc. without resorting to a lot of weird hacks to get it to work. Even better if it could work with WordPress’s Post to Your Blog via Email feature...

J is for Joss

In today’s continuation of the A-Z Challenge, I give you:

J is for Joss Whedon

Despite what many folks think, Joss Whedon isn’t perfect–any more than any other writer, director, etc., but the man has a mad sort-of genius that continues to amaze me with each project he dives into. I could use to be his kind of imperfection!

My favorite Joss related t-shirt.

The first anything I saw from Joss was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The movie, not the TV show. And I hated it.

At the time, I was 15 and my sarc...

I is for Imogen

In today’s continuation of the A-Z Challenge, I give you:

I is for Imogen Heap

If you haven’t figured it out by the letter “I,” music is an important part of my world. For 3.5 years, I was a music composition major in college. I even released a CD. I stopped when I realized that I didn’t need a degree to make music, and said degree wouldn’t help me pay the bills. I went into teaching instead and believe me, the irony isn’t lost on me.

Music isn’t just for the creation, but for the listening–the...

Flashback Friday: The Witcher Saga

This week’s Flashback Friday: The Witcher Saga.

I’m happy to have Polish author, Joanna Maciejewska here for a guest post on how The Witcher Saga influenced her as a writer.

Some of you might have heard about a successful video game series by CD Project called The Witcher, but probably not many know it all started with a short story sent to a contest organized by a Polish speculative fiction magazine. “The Witcher Saga” by Andrzej Sapkowski that grew out of this one story not only became a sour...