Rest In Peace, David Honigsberg

My pal Aaron Rosenberg reported today that David Honigsberg died this morning. I hadn’t seen David for years, but I commissioned his first professional RPG work from him many years ago, for the Cybertronic supplement for the Mutant Chronicles RPG. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a convention a few years after that, but our paths didn’t cross often enough.

Still, I kept track of David over the years. He was a man of a stunning variety of talents. Besides being an excellent writer, he was a guitarist and composer, both solo and with the Don’t Quit Your Day Job Players. To top it all off, he was a rabbi too. He handled the honors at Aaron’s wedding and at the naming ceremonies of Aaron’s two kids.

David had a heart attack six months ago and seemed to be recovering from it well, as you can see from his blog post about the subject, dated just six days ago. He was only 48. He leaves behind his loving wife Alexandra and a gaping hole in the world.

Farewell, David. We’ll miss you.

The Hobby Games 100

Here’s something else I’ve contributed to: Hobby Games: The 100 Best. This anthology, due out this summer from Green Ronin, features essays from scores of top game designers and writers on their favorite tabletop (or hobby) games.

See the full press release after the break.
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Deceptively Quiet

If it seems quiet around here, it’s because it’s anything but that in my house. I’m in the final throes of writing The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating Dungeons & Dragons Characters. I’m about to dive into my fourth Blood Bowl novel. And I have the Mutant Chronicles film novelization on the line, screaming for my attention. In the meantime, I’m creating a series of puzzles and games for a new line of children’s books, and I just finished up two large pieces for my third computer game gig of the year.

Mix that in with school conferences, Marty’s play this weekend, planning for convention trips and summer vacations, and there’s precious little time for anything else. Still, I can’t complain. While my life may be filled to bursting, it’s filled with wonderful stuff.

In the interstitial bits, to keep me sane, I do and read what I can. Marty and I recently finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS, and we really enjoyed it. If you like mysteries, it works more like interactive manga than a regular computer game, but the story is as strong and compelling as anything in print. I polished off Scott McCloud‘s excellent Making Comics, which completes his trifecta of must-read comics on comics. And at the moment Dan Simmons‘ The Crook Factory and James Farr‘s Xombie (the new illustrated novel which just shipped!) are stomping through a cage match for my attention.

Whew! So, how you doing?

Local Drama

My son Marty is in a play here in Beloit next weekend (April 23—25) with KFAD (Kids Fun and Drama). It’s at the First Presbyterian Church at 7 PM Friday and Saturday and 1 PM on Sunday. Local acting legend Josh Burton directs the kids through a series of vignettes from selected works of Shakespeare. If you’re in the area, please join us.

Adepticon, Ahoy!

Just a quick reminder that the fine folks at the Black Library have asked me to join them at Adepticon, a convention for Games Workshop fans. It’s held in Schaumburg, Illinois–just northwest of Chicago–from March 30—April 1. I’ll be there on Saturday, March 31, just over two weeks away.

Also, I just noticed that they’ve posted an interview with me on their website’s front page. You can also try a direct link to the PDF too.

My friend Jervis Johnson, creator of Blood Bowl and many other excellent games, will be there too. If you’re in the Midwest and love Games Workshop‘s stuff, you can’t go wrong here.

In other news, it seems I’ll be a guest of honor again at this summer’s Gen Con. That’s in Indianpolis, from August 16—19, and I should be there for all four days.

All Night Long

Pulled an all-nighter on Thursday night, my first this year. I was asked to take part in our school district’s strategic planning session retreat, a two-day affair. Unfortunately, I had a deadline for a draft of a computer game script on Friday morning, so instead of going to bed between the two days of the retreat, I planted myself in front of my computer and wrote until I had to get the kids up to get them ready for school.

Amazingly, I discovered that one of the best ways to stay alert was to take regular breaks for 10-minute sessions on the Wii. There’s something about a quick boxing match on that machine that really wakes you up and gets you going again.

Battle Dice Big in Europe

I’d heard that my Marvel Heroes Battle Dice game was doing well in Europe, but I didn’t know for sure what that meant. Malakai at PopDice.com dropped me a recent comment, though, that pointed out that the game is now selling in France. Apparently, there are some extra figures in the European set, which seem to be from Series 2, which was unreleased in North America.

I’m glad to see the game having a second life. Here’s hoping it keeps rolling!