Raven Oak's Blog, page 77
October 13, 2014
Monday Night Gaming: Geek Girl Style
We spent this past weekend at Geek Girl Con, which was loads of fun! Think of a con truly for geeks (all genders) that doesn’t have a sizable percentage of attendees thinking that “fake” geek girls exist. I saw people of all shapes, sizes, sexualities, nationalities, social anxieties, etc. having a great time, cosplaying, dancing, and gaming. Honestly, I felt more at home here than I did at PAX, more comfortable, too. And not all of that was crowd size.
So instead of Monday night gaming, this...
October 10, 2014
Amaskan’s Blood Cover Reveal
Wanna see something awesome? How about the Amaskan’s Blood Cover Reveal?
I was going to wait until after Geek Girl Con but if you know me, you know I can’t keep secrets worth a damn. Well, if they’re really super important I can, but surprises like this–not so much. (How I managed to keep my husband’s surprise birthday a secret when he turned 30 is beyond me!)
So after much teasing, here is the fabulous cover to Amaskan’s Blood. The cover art is done by the fabulous K. E. Clausen.
Important!
If...Flashback Friday: Amber
Robert Zelazny. Talk about takin’ it back old school. Nine Princes in Amber to be exact–the first in the Amber series.
This series was probably the longest series I read in middle school, having given up on Xanth with Ogre, Ogre (I couldn’t get past trying to read from an Ogre’s point of view. Too much “Me smash. Me drink. Thirsty.” type talk.)
The series is definitely old school fantasy, complete with the stereotypes and tropes of the times (this book was first published in 1970), but the worl...
October 9, 2014
Book Cover Throwback: Dragonlake
This week’s Book Cover Throwback is one of my favorites. Melanie Rawn‘s Sunrunner series has always been a series I’ve enjoyed, and Michael Whelan‘s excellent covers make the series even better. This particular one is entitled “Dragonlake” and served as the cover for The Star Scroll.
Dragonlake © 1998 Michael Whelan
The post Book Cover Throwback: Dragonlake appeared first on Raven Oak.
October 6, 2014
Wherefore art thou writing?
Got a good Monday Night Gaming post coming up later this evening, but for now, I wanted to frown at my depressing “writing progress” meters on the right and chat about the WHY. Amaskan’s Blood comes out in exactly 87 days, which to most people, means nothing. But to an author, it’s often a time of pulling out ones’ hair or crying in panic or maybe all the above.
Writers are fairly introverted, though most successful writers are excellent fakers and liars. Most readers would never know how nerv...
Monday Night Gaming: Rivals
While my husband mostly dislikes Catan (too much luck for him and not enough strategy), he knows that I enjoy it so we play.Catan itself doesn’t work all that well as a two-player game. But recently we found The Rivals for Catan, which is a modifiedCatan made for two players (it even has expansions).
It’s a great variation with 1 flaw. Whoever gets one particular action card tends to win. Normally, when building a settlement, the resources you get are random. But with this over-powered card, y...
October 4, 2014
Scrivener Saturday #2
TIP #2: Scrivener has a nifty built-in name generator. It’s not as great as some websites out there, but in a pinch or in a place with no Internet, it’ll do. Just go to EDIT–>WRITING TOOLS–>then click on NAME GENERATOR. Check out the screenshot below to see the details. You can pick genders, nationalities, forenames, surnames, etc. (Click on the image to view it larger.)What I love about this feature: The fact that you can pick various cultures and ethnicities to get your character names to f...
October 3, 2014
Flashforward Friday: Invisibility Cloaks
I remember when this was a thing:
When I still taught computer classes & we were covering future tech, I’d show that video and watch my students be amazed. Then this week, I saw this:
Photo credit: Image courtesy of University of Rochester
The image above is way behind anything in that several year old video. This particular project, conducted by Joseph Choi and John Howell at the University of Rochester, created a lens that prevents objects from being seen (optically anyway).
We’ve had cloaks be...
October 2, 2014
Book Cover Throwback: Heinlein
This week’s Book Cover Throwback is from Robert Heinlein.
Besides being an amazing story, the cover to this book is just breathtakingly gorgeous. I honestly miss the days when book covers were works of art, rather than the same photoshopped, stock-photo girl who’s on the other ten books released this month.
That’s not to say that you can’t make art with stock photos, but there’s a higher art involved in painting the cover to a novel, especially one as good as Heinlein‘s Stranger in a Strange La...
October 1, 2014
Dragonriders of Pern…the Movie?
Weyrworld by Michael Whelan
If you’ve read my Flashback Friday on Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey or my Book Cover Throwback on Michael Whelan‘s cover for All the Weyrs of Pern, then you know what a huge influence Ms. McCaffrey served on me as a reader and a writer. You also know that I love the Pern series despite all the little flaws that make it classic sci-fi.
Warner Bros. has optioned Dragonriders of Pern for a movie franchise. Movies get optioned every day. That doesn’t mean the movie will...
