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Podside Picnic Tag

Cover of the Xanth novel, "Dragon on a Pedestal" depicting a small blonde girl in a red, frilly dress petting a dragon who's looking up at her in adulation

We Got Xanthed

When I posted a poll to gauge interest in discussing different crap books in an upcoming episode of Podside Picnic, I should've been prepared for this. https://twitter.com/kjy1066/status/1297661342271320064?s=20 What else can I say other than: the public has spoken! This means that Pete and I will prioritize talking about the series of books written by none other than British-by-Birth, Florida-Man-by-Choice, (and all around perv) Piers Anthony. As Pete so succinctly put it: https://twitter.com/PodsidePete/status/1297663309009899524?s=20 I feel your pain, man If there's one good thing I could say about the Xanth books, it's that each one's generally stand-alone. That's why I started on the 7th book in the series and worked my way through whichever ones I could find. Thus my journey began So, look for our Xanth-stravaganza, coming soon to a Crap Books near you! ...

September 3, 2020
Uncategorized
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More Crap Books Episodes

Some good news! Due to the popularity of the Crap Books episodes, Podside Picnic decided to have me on once a month to ramble some more about my genre mis-education. This will continue for as long as it's still something Pete and I are interested in doing. I'm currently racking my brains to list different novels I've not yet discussed for upcoming episodes. Full disclosure: we may reserve the right to circle back for a deeper dive of certain tie-in novels we've already discussed at any time. For the moment, we'll very likely discuss the Shadowrun novel, Burning Bright (which I'm currently reading in preparation), as well as the Vampire: the Eternal Struggle CCG (!) tie-in, House of Secrets sometime soon. We'll probably want to also explore what Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman wrote after Dragonlance. There's plenty of material to draw from already, but we wanted to gauge interest. This is...

August 23, 2020
Public Appearance, Reading, Uncategorized
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Annotations to My Podside Picnic Interview

This is a bit of a companion piece to my most recent appearance on Podside Picnic talking about "crap books" that got me reading science fiction and (mostly) fantasy. My first two years of high school were consumed by reading anything Dragonlance I could get my hands on. That included the initial "Chronicles" and the subsequent "Legends" that I mentioned on the show, but there were so, so many Dragonlance anthologies and other stand-alones that followed I couldn't follow all of them. I remember reading what seemed to be a baker's dozen of anthologies that had Tanis and Company going on so many adventures before the events of Dragons of Autumn Twilight that I wondered exactly what level the heroes were when the first book in the trilogy started. With all those stories, it couldn't possibly be 1st level. A couple that stand out even now as charming subversions of the...

July 1, 2020
Public Appearance, Reading
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Interview at Podside Picnic

Last week, I was invited back to one of my favorite podcasts to discuss my recent story. Last time, I talked about how my experiences as low-level enlisted personnel informed my reading of The Forever War; however, this time, I talked to Connor to discuss my recent story, "As The Shore To The Tides, So Blood Calls To Blood". We talked a bit about inspirations (if I may be permitted a small spoiler, they included games, the Bible, Sumerian myth and Ursula K. Le Guin), the writing process (such as it is for such a slowpoke as me), and whether I'm working on any other stories in this setting (I am). To my delight, Connor loved the story enough to name drop it in his newsletter -- which I've always found to have great insights into whatever he's reading or watching at the moment. Note: This is a patrons-only episode (as was...

April 19, 2020
Fantasy, Public Appearance, Writing
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