Happy 2020, everyone!

Is it me, or does 2020 look too sci-fi to be taken seriously on my calendar? Now I have to exercise suspension of disbelief to plan my week.

But here's what's happening in some of those weeks:

Lone Wilderlands has another expansion! More than a booklet like Orion's Hoard, Adara's Atlas is a full box of cards. These cards still create the adventuring world as in Lone Wilderlands, but around an extended quest on a partially completed map with settlements and NPCs.

There's also a new addition: Treasure cards!

Take a look at the full game!


                             

In other news, I'll be attending the Life, the Universe, and Everything symposium February 13-15 in Provo, Utah. We're at the Marriott. I'll be in the vendor room or the gaming room with dice, character sheets, and a certain solo sandbox RPG in a cardbox.

In other OTHER news, I got a sneak peek at the first draft of the cover for SpaceBoots, my sci-fi novel that will be published in May 2020. No, this photo isn't it. That's me playing with my LEGOs and my iPhone camera. It does show three main characters, though. Four if you count the kid with the yellow shirt. Anxiously awaiting the final version, you'll all get to see it soon after me.

And you heard me correctly. Not my kids' LEGOs, mine. My own. My preciouses.

Cheers!

Nutmeg Apprentice, Yeah!

Those are the mis-heard words my kids sing to a Christmas song. It sounds like a jingle about a barista learning to spice the Polar Express hot chocolate. While dancing on the backs of the seats. I really should pen the rest of it.

But first, I have other projects.

Lone Wilderlands. I’ve always wanted a card game/tabletop RPG that can be played solo and is more portable than a book, but I’ve looked and looked and never found one. The mechanics of most RPGs don’t model physiology and psychology the way I’d like, either. So, I made my own. In the spring of 2018, I hope to have Lone Wilderlands: The Solo Sandbox RPG in a Cardbox available for purchase at TheGameCrafter.

SpaceBoots. My first young adult sci-fi is novel is complete. It’s currently on an editor’s desk at a publisher. Where exactly on that desk and under how big a pile, I don’t know. But how fun for Leo Jones and Hophnia Zimmerman! Maybe someday dozens millions hundreds of people will experience the heroes’ dual timeline misadventures in American middle schools and US Navy starships.

Fyrecon. I was recently invited to present at a three-day conference on writing and art in science fiction and fantasy. In June 2018, I’ll be teaching a workshop on Aerospace Medicine and perhaps a few other disease and pestilence things. It’s fun to dust off Mr. Dalton the high school biology teacher, and even more fun to spend time with writers.

Untitled Work in Progress. This one gets me really excited! I’m doing background reading for what I call frontier punk historical science-fiction. Did you know all the great scientists in history had bodyguards? No? They didn’t either…

So, that’s my Holiday Card to everyone: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Peaceful Solstice, Fab Festivus, Jolly Kwanzaa, and brilliant Boxing Day.

Did I forget anyone?

Oh. The nutmeg. Here it is in recipe context. Original lyrics by Isaiah, music by George Frederick Handel, and modifications by my offspring:

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

For the Lord’s Nutmeg Apprentice, yeah!

But the Nutmeg Apprentice isn’t the best musical malapropism to come out of my house. According to my age 8 son, Boris Karloff describes the Grinch a little more harshly than Dr. Seuss intended:

You’re a three-decker sour crotch and toadstool sandwich.

Put that on a Holiday Card.