The Latest Delight

While waiting for your favorite story to update, why not reminisce about what playing MMORPGs was like before we developed magical VR or were all hit by trucks? What do you mean, that sounds boring and vaguely depressing? It's winsome and lovable.

New Release

Such a story is found not in heaven but on this very Earth! Excited? Check out "First We Reroll," available at a special special launch price for Kindle, free with Kindle Unlimited, or in paperback format.

Come to This Side

If only there were a story about the MMORPGs of yore with no VR and no plot of any kind. Such a story could remind us what things were really like, remind of us inane group chat and worse town chat when combat was stately. Slow? No, stately.

Notes on Armada for the Dreamcast

Spoilers! Armada is a neat game might be good if it had anything in it. Unfortunately, with only one town, linear ship upgrades aside from a mere four module slots, two mission types, and one side mission type mean it runs out of interest long before it runs out of game time.
Leaving aside whatever troubled development and budget issues aside, what was that ending? All five people who ever finished that game had to run to the internet just to find out if it was actually over or not. If you can't end with a bang, at least end. The only NPC with a real resolution is the guy who's going to open a restaurant.

Qualities of a Side Book

Much like you might keep Azur Lane or Princess Connect as a side game while playing Epic 7 or Granblue Fantasy, so too might you read Sherlock Holmes stories between the Iliad and the Odyssey. Just the same way, when between VR MMORPG stories, why not read something more grounded yet nostalgic?

Main Books and Side Books

When you get a new LitRPG, obviously you want to see thrills, intrigue, and numbers going up. You'd better want to see a spellblade too, because that's what you're getting. However, even thrills and intrigue can lose their charm. That's when you need a good stun or sleep.

History Corner

Speaking of the Hundred Years' War, the English were right. That's why I refuse to recognize France to this day.

The Topside

The world just keeps going whichever way you go, so somebody in one of those directions must once have wondered what was on the topside of clouds. The town of Wheating was home to none of that sort until that pleasant day when even the doomsayers saw no cause for complaint in the broad, blue sky until a cloud jerked away from its path and something fell from it.
Wheating may have been a town that acknowledged the place of routine among the civic virtues, but taking an early lunch is no great crime when something like that happens. The entire citizenry temporarily relocated to the field owned by Wheating's number one citizen, Inkle, where the cloud refuse fell.
Less surprising than the fact it was a man was that he lived through his fall and took less harm than some have descending a simple staircase. His only source of distress, he told us, was his untimely removal from the cloud where he had work to do. The Wheatingers assured him they were eager to assist him, but in the meantime they hoped he would favor them with some tales of the world above the clouds. The man, whose name was Rmachl, begged them to forgive him for having nothing interesting to say since the topside was a boring, tedious sort of place.
The entire town with Inkle at its head came together to build a tall ladder which outsiders unfamiliar with its purpose might call a tower. Rmachl grew antsier as it rose and hopped from one foot to the other in an endless personal dance when it was nearly done. He thanked the townsfolk less fulsomely than etiquette might advise when the day came and put his foot on the first step when Inkle stopped him.
That local head man asked again what things were like on the other side of the clouds, and again Rmachl said it was nothing special. Inkle allowed that might be true, in which case there was no reason for him not to go up the ladder himself or even for a few of his friends to make the ascent. Only then did Rmachl, no longer intent on the ladder's progress, notice the force of armed men Wheating had gathered which was far from detestable. At a sign from Inkle the men climbed the ladder, which was how the world below discovered and immediately conquered the sky palaces and their celestial gifts of inexhaustible food and drink left behind by the gods after they made the world and hoarded by Rmachl's people while they looked down and laughed every day.
Finis

Stuff People Would Think Sounded Dumb If You Put It in a Fiction Book

The Hundred Years' War

Discussion Corner

Fantasy movie and tv adaptations should always be animated. There isn't much to discuss there, since it's universally correct, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Think about this instead: "Feist" spelled backwards is "tsief," which is you would say "thief" with certain speech impediments maybe. What a twist!

Secret Club

Make sure to include the following word in your story so we know you're one of us: "Unctuous."

Quiver Queries

If your quiver has infinite arrows, why would you need more than one?

The Caprice of Fashion

Out: Magic compasses
In: Quivers of infinite arrows

Cut Every Corner

Wow! Who knew Valentine's was such a dangerous day? Besides Saint Valentine, I mean. Now let's all forget love exists and get back to the ruthless efficiency with which we normally conduct our affairs. By the way, what does Mackenzie Extraplanetary Engineering actually do? No idea. That's how worldbuilding works.

Power of Love

"There is no doubt the recent attacks in this station are not terrorism or rioting but rather sabotage by our rivals, Ad Astra Design. There is no doubt also that we have so far found no way to retaliate. Their headquarters is on Satellite 8 on the other side of the planet, and no major facility of theirs is within our reach." Vice President Perrault of Mackenzie Extraplanetary Engineering paused, though he anticipated no argument. The facts were clear enough. Only his conclusion would seem unorthodox. "The solution is simple, gentlemen: Love."
"This is no time for jokes, Perrault."
"You mean seduce someone for infiltration?"
"That's not the kind of merger we do here, Perrault."
The vice president pointed to a display. "Gentlemen, I said love and I meant it. Observe." The display blinked on and showed a gigantic cylinder which had been hauled to one of Mackenzie's docking platforms. "Gentlemen, our engineers have demystified the essentials of love and produced this enormous Love Cannon which focuses the power of love into a destructive beam. Just as love transcends time and space, so too does our destructive ability. We can bypass the planet between and strike AAD directly."
"Genius!"
"Madness!"
"I still think this whole thing is a prank."
"Interesting. When will we see a test?"
"A test, gentlemen? The tests are done. We are firing the cannon now." As he spoke, the cylinder whirred and a pink glow surrounded it for a moment before a similarly pink beam stretched out in front of it and disappeared. Perrault activated another display which showed the planetary monopoly news channel at all times.
"This is unbelievable, but we have just received reports that Satellite 8, housing millions, is . . . well, it's just gone. More on this as it develops."
Vice President Perrault turned off the news and turned back to the meeting. "Well then, gentlemen. What should Mackenzie Extraplanetary Engineering do with our colossal Love Cannon next?" In that question, everyone gathered heard the start of a new era.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Be sure to take care of all your romance in real life lest it leak into your fantasy or scifi story. Nobody wants to see that.

The Definition of Fantasy

If it has a floating continent or at least a city, it's fantasy.

How to Make Your Characters Stand Out

I dunno, give them different eye colors or something. Who cares? We're here for floating continents and magic explosions.

The True Purpose of Javelins

They're what you put in your shield to impress the neighbors.

The True Purpose of the Shield

That's where you keep your javelins.

Arts and Crafts

How do you make a magic compass, anyway? Dropping your enemy's heart in there is a good start so the compass can point toward the futility of vengeance. Other options? Put a single tear from a dying god in, look where it points, and moonwalk the other way.

The Secret City

There are secrets in this city that most can never find. For them the sun lights the streets from morning till night while others see only the second moon, dim and foreboding. The bell in the great tower rings every hour, but not for everyone. There are those whose ears are never reached by its peals. The paved streets serve the ordinary well enough, but the earth itself grasps at the ankles of those it desires so that they struggle simply to walk. There are two worlds in this one city, and none knows why each is placed in either. So that's why I was late.

The End of Innocence

And the movie Sorcerer is about trucks and explosives!

Paradigm-Shaking Realizations

Wait a minute. Wizardry had barely any wizardry in it!

Aiming for the Top

I know everyone out there has been striving to write the second-best story, but it's time to raise that aim a little and write the best story. Remember that the best stories all include knights or the knights of the future, mechs.

Addendum

The magic compass probably just points to a good place to level up for the next fighting tournament, though. Some things never go out of style.

Fashion Watch

Out: Fighting tournaments

In: Magic compasses