Now for some good news.
I just found out that my father is coming back home today after nearly five weeks in the hospital. He’s doing much better, although he still has a good stretch of recovery ahead of him. I’m just glad to have him home again. Thanks to all of you who offered your support!
I just learned that James Perham died on May 31 of heart failure. I first met James many years ago when he was working for Cliff “Gideon” Van Meter at Starchilde Publications (publishers of Justifiers and Guardians) and back in the late ’80s/early ’90s. He later spent time working in comics with Valiant and Acclaim and had the singular honor of being the last Acclaim Comics employee, going down with the ship. Still, he didn’t let that stop him.
I saw James at Gen Con a couple years ago. He was working with a company that was about to bring a South American collectible card game into America. I don’t know whatever happened to that game. Still, it was great to see James again and hear his laugh that one last time.
Last week, my wife Ann participated in a “poverty simulation exercise” for people who work with the impoverished. Ann is a school social worker who concentrates on helping out homeless students, so she sees a lot of this in her job. The Janesville Gazette ran an article about the exercise and how it worked. The paper ran a photo of Ann with the article, but the website is not graced with it.
As Ann described the event, I immediately recognized it as a live-action roleplaying game. It would not have been out of place at any gaming convention, with the exception that the players were there to learn rather than to have fun. This was a simulation, not entertainment. Coincidentally, Ann played a 12-year-old boy named Matt, and the irony ensued.
Tor has been making e-books versions of some of their novels free for a week at a time over the past few months. This week, they actually have a tie-in novel available for free: Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey A. Carver. Just go to Tor.com to register and get your copy.
Each novel is only made available for a week at a time, but Tor posts a new one each week, with a couple of gorgeous desktop wallpapers to go along with it.
Although Tor’s been at this for a while, this week’s offering surprised me because it likely meant that the licensor had to sign off on the free release. It’s one thing to persuade a novelist that putting up a free copy of a book is a good idea. It’s another to convince a major licensor that it’s okay too.
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