Over at The Fringe, Scott Wilson read Vegas Knights and enjoyed it. In his review, he writes:
Vegas Knights is populated by a varied, realistic cast, all of whom are fun to read about… The dialogue is crisp and realistic… and Forbeck has created a rather winning ’system’ of magic and how it affects the real world.
Adam at Jedi News just gave Star Wars vs. Star Trek a solid review. Among other things, he writes:
Whether or not you agree with the results of each comparison (and in all honesty, the author appears to have had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek in conjuring up many of the scenarios), the book provides a lighthearted view of how the galaxy might look if the Trek and the Wars were to share the same space and time.
Meanwhile, over at Hollywood Jesus, they’re giving away three free copies of the book. Click on over to get your chance to pick one up.
Also, I’ll be chatting with the folks at AskOutcast.com about the book next Tuesday at 8PM Eastern Time. You can send in questions ahead of time to questions@askoutcast.com, or you can try me or them during the show too.
Over at Pinnacle, they’re reissuing the Deadlands Dime Novels, a combination of a short story and an adventure for the Deadlands roleplaying game, in PDF format. I wrote a bunch of these back in the day, including Independence Day, Strange Bedfellows, Savage Passage, and Ground Zero.
If you’re not a gamer and would just like to read the fiction, Pinnacle’s set the Wayback Machine for 1997 so they can separate out the two halves of the dime novels and offer readers just that. You can now download a PDF of the fiction-only version of Independence Day too.
My son Marty is still posting more things on eBay. This week, he has a couple of gems from the collection of Liz Danforth. These include the rulebook from the Champions 2nd Edition boxed set and the extremely rare City of Carse from Midkemia Press, a generic fantasy sourcebook published in 1980. The current bid is 99¢, but these often go for more than $60 through online stores.
He has a number of other things from my collection up there too, including some stuff from Shatterzone and the Star Trek RPG. Check in for more later today too.
The kid’s working on saving up enough money for an iPad. Give him a hand. He’s almost there.
Over at the Adams Media humor blog, I wrote up a 12-question quiz to help you figure out if you’re a bigger supporter of Team Star Wars or Team Star Trek. It’s called “12 Ways to Tell if You’re a Star Wars or Star Trek Fan.” For example:
2. You regularly tell your kids, “Don’t make me destroy you.”
To celebrate this silly event, the Adams Media folks are giving away six copies of Star Wars vs. Star Trek. To enter, all you have to do is follow @adamsmedia on Twitter, then tweet your team + WHY with either #teamstarwars OR #teamstartrek. On June 23, they’ll pick 6 random Tweeters, 3 from each team, to receive a free copy of the book.
For you gamers out there – or those interested in learning more – be sure to check out Free RPG Day at your local game store tomorrow, June 18. I just posted about it over at Wired.com’s Geek Dad blog.
Update: I also posted about it over at Tor.com.
I just got my hands on the press release of the shortlist for the Diana Jones Award for this year. Congratulations to all the creators who brought these wonderful games to life.
My son Marty’s putting up more of my old stuff on eBay now that school’s out. He just stumbled across a pair of art prints I’d forgotten I had. Paul (Prof) Herbert created this artwork for the Doomtown CCG back when I was still the president of Pinnacle. The first one features Eureka the dog holding a zombie arm with a pistol still in it. The second shows a zombie Eureka.
Much as I love the artwork, I never hung these in my house, as they’re a bit too dark for my younger kids. They’re part of a limited run of 500 prints, signed and numbered by Prof himself, and they each come with a certificate of authenticity. Marty thought these pieces were something special, so he asked me to post about them. Go ahead and make his day: bid.
A pair of great reviews showed up recently. The first is for Star Wars vs. Star Trek, and Earl Davis wrote it for the Empyrean. He gives the book 4 out of 5 stars and writes:
It took one of our own, Matt Forbeck to shine an honest light on the subject and force us to laugh at ourselves… Forbeck pulls no punches, laying out lightsaber swipes and Vulcan Nerve Pinches with equal aplomb.
The story has the kind of action that you would expect from a Hollywood movie, but there’s a very touching human element to the book that you simply don’t find in a lot of action movies.
Thanks, guys!
Once again, the ENnies (the biggest tabletop RPG awards around) will have a cocktail hour and award ceremony at Gen Con this August. As part of that, they’ve asked a number of industry folks to help raise money by auctioning off an arrangement to hang out with them during the big ballyhoo. The list this year includes Paizo, White Wolf, the 2011 ENnies Judges, Ed Healy/Rone Barton (Atomic Array), Erik Bauer (Gaming Paper), Evil Hat Productions, Hero Games, Monte Cook, Owen K.C. Stephens, Sean Fannon (DTRPG), Stan!, and me–even though I’m only able to commit to the cocktail hour due to conflicting plans later in the evening.
The auctions for Paizo and White Wolf are already up on eBay. For the rest of us, the ENnies are running a poll to see whose time should be put up for bid next. Go check it out and vote for me or whoever else you’d like to see on the block next. We’ll all get there sooner or later, have some fun, and raise some money to help keep the ENnies running.
[Edited to add:] I don’t recall if I ever publicly thanked Ben McFarland for his winning bid last year. We had a great chat at the ENnies about his burgeoning work as an RPG writer (check out Streets of Zobeck, for instance), but that was just part of a series of talks throughout the weekend, starting at the Diana Jones Award ceremony. Thanks, Ben!