Blog

What I’m Thankful for – 2022 Edition

People nowadays just think of today as a day for food and football, but it’d behoove all of us to stop and be grateful. The last few months I’ve needed to remind myself of that. There are times it still does seem pointless, but it teaches you humility and, well, gratitude. So, here it goes.

  1. My faith in Jesus Christ.
  2. My family.
  3. My new church.
  4. My previous church (which is now closed).
  5. My apartment.
  6. My podcasts (The Monster Island Film Vault, Henshin Men, The Power Trip).
  7. That I’m a cast member on Power Rangers: The Audio Drama.
  8. My master’s degree.
  9. The jobs I worked this year.
  10. My car.
  11. My collectibles.
  12. My book collection.
  13. My DVD and blu-ray collection.
  14. Moses, the new family cat (he was rescued from a marsh).
  15. My friends.
  16. My gaming consoles.
  17. My phone.
  18. My laptop.
  19. That I got to meet some great celebrities, including Jason David Frank.
  20. My fans and readers.
  21. My websites.
  22. That I got to be a panelist at G-Fest.
  23. That conventions restarted in earnest this year.
  24. Movie theaters.
  25. Comic shops.
Blog

Why I’m Not at Gen-Con This Year

I’ve been a staple at Gen-Con, a massive four-day gaming convention in Indianapolis, for a decade. I’ve tabled in Authors Avenue in the vendor hall since 2020, but even then, I taught a pair of online panels in the free online version held during the off-year. I’ve networked with many authors there, sold hundreds (if not more) books there, expanded my readership there, and met some amazing friends there.

But this year, I’m staying home. In fact, I canceled my vendor hall table in June.

Why? I’m not allowed to be there. Not because of something I did, but because of something I didn’t do.

This year Gen-Con required COVID vaccination cards to get in the door. This decision wasn’t finalized until two months before the convention. I’d reserved a table in February. I only got half of my money back when I canceled—because I’d chosen not to get vaxxed.

Before I continue, let me make several things abundantly clear:

  • I am not anti-vax.
  • I am not anti-science.
  • I have simply chosen not to get the vaccine. I’m admittedly a little hesitant with how fast the vaccine was produced, but I’m incredibly healthy and hygienic. I’ve gone for 2 ½ years without getting COVID (unless I was asymptomatic).
  • I’m not here to argue about the medical science of COVID and the vaccine. That invariably turns into a quagmire because everyone can site sources that seem to back up their position. Honestly, the science is immaterial to the issue with Gen-Con.

What I will argue is still potentially dangerous. I could lose readers and/or friends over it. (Welcome to the world we live in). It might even be considered grounds for “cancelation.”

But I must speak up.

This vax card requirement by Gen-Con makes no sense. The COVID-19 pandemic is over, for all intents and purposes. In my home state of Indiana (where Gen-Con is held, in case you forgot), we have returned to what feels like 90-plus-percent pre-2020 normal. Last year, Gen-Con held a half-size show while the pandemic was ongoing but subsiding. Precautions were taken, such as requiring masks. It was “diet Gen-Con” in many ways, but I can vouch for it being a success. Heck, I made more money in Authors Avenue than I ever had before! I expected Gen-Con would relax their restrictions in 2022.

Instead, they’ve done the opposite.

Why?

I suspect politics.

It’s no secret that Gen-Con’s management are leftists. In 2015 when then-governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the CEO of the convention threatened to break contract with the city of Indianapolis and move the show out of state in protest. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but it showed the organization’s true political colors. Now politics are influencing how they manage their business. It’s at best misguided virtue signaling and at worst a thinly veiled attempt to identify the political demographics of Gen-Con’s customer base and, I would argue, bar some from attending based on those politics. The problem is some people—such as several members of my family—haven’t gotten the vaccine because of their politics but because of pre-existing health conditions that would be aggravated by the vaccination. Why should such people be prohibited from attending Gen-Con along with the “evil” antivaxxers if they want to be there?

This decision makes Gen-Con an outlier. While I’m sure there are other cons that have such requirements now, I can’t think of one. (Feel free to mention any in the comments below). This year I’ve attended both Indiana Comic-Con (which is in the Indiana Convention Center, the same venue as Gen-Con) and G-Fest (which is held in Chicago, a city that only recently relaxed its stringent COVID restrictions), neither of which required vax cards. And guess what? Everything went fine. No one said anything one way or the other. Nobody died. The attendees just enjoyed themselves. Gen-Con could’ve compromised, as many venues and shows have done in the last year. A negative COVID test within three days of the con? Sure. A mask mandate? Fine. Social distancing and other precautions? Understandable. But a vax card requirement is a bridge too far.

I’ve debated if I still would’ve attended Gen-Con if I was vaxxed. While I can’t say for sure, I think I would’ve canceled on principle and as a sign of solidarity with friends who couldn’t or wouldn’t attend because of this decision.

After the success of last year’s Gen-Con despite reasonable restrictions, this vax card requirement is a baffling, presumptive, and seemingly prejudicial decision. It’s bad for PR. While I don’t wish failure on this year’s con, I do hope that the powers-that-be at Gen-Con corporate get plenty of pushback about this and drop the requirement for next year’s convention. I’ve spoken with other Gen-Con fans who’ve been unfairly excluded by this. We aren’t going to get a COVID shot just to participate in “the four best days of gaming.” There are other cons who don’t have these restrictions who will be happy to have our time and money. It’s not 2020 anymore. We’ve moved on.

Gen-Con should, too.

Video, Interview

Interviewed on the Christian Nerds Unite Podcast

Recently I was interviewed by Ricky Pope on the Christian Nerds Unite podcast with Scott Bayles. It pertained to The Fantastic 42: A Fellowship Facing Doom with Hope, the latest in the 42 devotional series. We both contributed to that book, and we go into a lot of detail in the interview about why we chose the characters we wrote about as well as the origin of this new book. This episode is available on YouTube and your favorite podcatcher. Check it out!

Vlog, Video

“But I Digress…” Returns–for Gen-Con 2021!

After the longest of hiatuses, my old YouTube show returns as a live show/YouTube shorts series! I relaunched it for Gen-Con 2021, doing daily recap streams with my friend and co-author Eric Anderson, the founder of Nerd Chapel, discussing what we did at the convention and how our book sales went each day. Check out the playlist below!

The “But I Digress…” Gen-Con 2021 playlist.
Interview, Video

I was Interviewed by Kaiju Kim about Kaiju Literature!

This past Sunday, I was interviewed by Kaiju Kim, who makes the most wholesome kaiju content you’ll see on YouTube. It was Father’s Day, so the chat was relatively quiet, but we still had a good time discussing kaiju literature–including books and short stories I’ve written and published myself. Give it a watch!

Books, Blog, Novellas, Fantasy

NEW BOOK – ‘ZORSAM AND THE GOD WHO DEVOURS’

The cover art for the book.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything of note on this website. I’ll say it’s a New Year’s Resolution to remedy that. So, let’s start that off with a mandatory post about my newly published book, Zorsam and the God Who Devours!

Some years ago in a wonderful place called Story, Indiana, a bunch of my college writer friends and I made a pilgrimage to have a weekend retreat in a big cabin. Amidst some sightseeing and tabletop gaming, we all sat down and discussed doing a big year-long project together we called “The Pulp Fiction Project” (the “literary genre,” not the Tarantino movie). We listed several types of stories that you’d see in old pulp magazines, including space western, monster story (which led to Destroyer), and “barbarian story.” My friend Nick Hayden chose to write that last one. Over the course of the next year, our goal was to have multiple 30,000-word novellas in the style of old dime store novels. Each would have three writers who took four months each to write about 10,000 words a piece before passing it on to another writer whose name would be drawn from a hat. It fell to Aaron Brosman second and finally to me.

It sat on the proverbial shelf (or rather, hard drive) for years until Nick attempted to get it published with a publishing house he was with a few years ago. That didn’t work out, so I contacted Wild Hunt Press, who jumped at the chance to publish some sword and sorcery.

What’s this book about? In a nutshell: a barbarian cooler than Conan.

You read that right.

Here’s the back cover copy:

Zorsam is a mighty and savage warrior born in an undreamed of and unrecorded age, filled with strange kingdoms, fierce warriors, dark magick, nightmarish monstrosities, and terrifying deities. Among the latter is the dreaded Manrix, the God Who Devours, a bestial deity who demands the sacrifice of young female virgins to keep his appetite sated and appeased. His most powerful follower in that bygone era is the brutal King Margruxks, the ruler of the much-respected kingdom of Glaur, whose latest intended sacrifice is a young woman named Asundi.

Zorsam is soon to learn, through a deadly series of trials he is put through by an avatar of Death itself, that the sacrificial girl is one of his tribe, and he becomes determined to do the unthinkable and take on his greatest trial yet: invading the lands of Glaur, oppose King Margruxks and his deadly minions, and dare to deny Manrix his demanded offering by rescuing Asundi.

Among King Margruxk’s soldiers are the brothers Zaduk and Fria, unconquerable warriors who control the forces of fire and ice respectively, which will more than ensure Zorsam a challenge that shall truly earn him the title of one of the greatest warriors of all time — if he survives. For even if he gets through this incredible gauntlet, he must then face the deadly sword of King Margruxks himself, and ultimately, the power of the God Who Devours.

The blood-stained saga of Zorsam begins here, and it is brought to you by no less than three authors who have made the sword and sorcery genre their passion.

It’s available on Amazon as an eBook right now, but the paperback is coming soon!

If schedules allow, I’m hoping to do a livestream with both Nick and Aaron on my YouTube channel to discuss the book and the process of writing it. Stay tuned!

In meantime, start the New Year off with a new book!

Video

My Gen-Con Online Panels

Yeah, yeah, I know I should be making more content on my website. I’m working on it. Regardless, here are videos of my presentations for Gen-Con Online last month.

This first video is…not great. I had lots of technical issues, as you’ll see. However, I do think I’ll remake this in anotehr video.

With this one, I figured out the problems and it went much better. If you want to start a podcast, you’ll benefit from watching this!

Blog

The Journal of the Plague Fortnight, Days 4-5: Keeping Busy

I missed a day, so this entry will detail my first weekend in quarantine/lockdown.

Saturday I returned to BioLife, where I was able to donate. They’ve told me that plasma is desperately needed now, especially since the number of donors has dropped with people staying home. Just because there’s a pandemic going on doesn’t mean other medical issues have ceased. Also, they told me that there is some preliminary research that says plasma from people who’ve recovered from coronavirus may help those who are suffering from it. That may not hold up after more research, but it’s a good sign.

After returning to the Fortress of Solitude, I set up my podcast equipment to interview Eric Elliott, the mastermind behind the fan comic Batman Meets Godzilla, which is based on an unmade film back in the 1960s that would’ve featured the Adam West Batman battling the Big G himself. No joke. That interview should drop April 15. We had a fun time nerding out about comics and superheroes.

After lunch and more UltraSeven with Jarod, I got back to grading papers. I was determined to get them all done that day, if for no other reason than to do right by my students since we aren’t meeting in the classroom anymore. Sadly, I let myself get distracted (again) and got started a bit later than I wanted to. I spent the entire afternoon slaving over their papers, but even at 10-15 minutes a paper, I didn’t feel like I was burning through them fast enough, especially since I got a few late submissions the day before. It got to the point where I just couldn’t force myself to get going and took a break for thirty minutes to watch some YouTube videos. That left me rejuvenated. I wanted to have dinner with Jarod, but his eating schedule is so wacky, we ended up not doing it. That break lasted longer than I wanted it to. I plowed through what was left of the papers and had them done by late evening.

I punctuated my day watching a cheesy 1994 action film starring Roddy Piper and Sonny Chiba called Immortal Kombat on YouTube while giving live commentary with friends on Facebook messenger. The movie was kinda boring in the middle and had too many subplots, but the beginning and end were fun.

The next morning I “attended” church at home through their livestream. I was working a bit during it, though. I recently became the webmaster for their website, so I was updating the site while the livestream was going on. While I’m glad they’re doing this, it isn’t the same as actually being there. I miss the community.

Lunch and a double helping of UltraSeven followed. Then I spent some time writing a script for an upcoming podcast episode. But during that writing session, some friends asked me to play some video games with them online, and given that chatting with them while playing has become another avenue for me to connect with the outside world in all this madness, I took the offer. All I have to say is if you’re playing The King of Fighters XIV and meet a player named “Bumba Chunga,” you better bring you’re A-game. I finished that, but then another friend invited me to play after dinner, so I did.

Here’s the stream video my friend Sergio took of that session. It starts in the middle of my match. Sadly, you can’t hear my side of the chat.

By then it was close to 9pm. I still had to finish that script and do some reading for school, so I spent the next few hours doing exactly that. It wasn’t the most productive time, but hey, I needed a Sabbath.

What’d you do during your first weekend in quarantine/lockdown? Comment below!

A Man from Another Time Exploring Another Universe