Recent Reading: BOOM! Comics

Posted on October 10, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

A couple months ago, I noticed that Humble Bundle was selling a batch of digital comics from BOOM! Studios.  They’d been on my radar for a little while, since they produce (most of? all of?) the Adventure Time comics, which are kind of a thing at my workplace these days, plus Lumberjanes by the lady who does (and just finished) Nimona.  I also happened to stop by their booth at Phoenix ComiCon and ended up taking home an armload of books.  So I pitched in for the Bundle to see what other fun things they had.

I only got around to reading them at my Vegas convention (what else would I do with my downtime?), and obviously only got around to reviewing them right now.  But don’t let that be a mark against them, because there was some great stuff.

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Posted in Review | Tagged | 3 Comments

Trope Roulette: Colour-Coded For Your Convenience

Posted on October 2, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

trope_rouletteNothing to say about Curses, alas, so I’ve decided to do a similar thing to Tough Traveling, except with prompts off of TVTropes.

Yes, run away now, all you people who fear getting sucked into that site.  It is one of the original black holes of the internet.

I really love tropes.  Examining them, fiddling with them, figuring out how to fit them into my world — or looking back at stuff I wrote without them in mind and crossing my fingers that I didn’t trip on a bad one.  For a little while, I was a contributor to the site, but I’m easily distracted and wandered off.  Maybe some day the War of Memory series will have a page of its own.

Anyway, the idea of Trope Roulette is just to go to the main TVTropes page and hit the Random button until you find something you can write about (since many of the tropes either won’t apply to your particular work or won’t generate more than a sentence or two).  This time, I eventually ended up on Colour-Coded For Your Convenience.

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Posted in Magic, World Info | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Little Writing Music…

Posted on September 30, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

I took dance classes as a kid (ballet, tap and jazz), and I’ve always had a strong response to music — to the point that I only feel ready to write if I’ve had 5-30 minutes to bop around with headphones on before I get down to business.  I also used to play flute and piano, sing and do theater (including musical theater), and though I was never very good at any of that, it all had a huge impact.

Technically I don’t listen to music during the process of writing (I can’t handle the distraction, though I keep my headphones on to continue blocking out incidental noise) but it’s always had a huge impact on my characters and the flow of my prose — and sometimes even the visuals.  Since I’m about halfway done with the rewrite of Book 3, I feel like it’s time to talk a bit more about the process.

Plus I can highlight some of my favorite bands!

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Tough Traveling with Fantasy Review Barn — Companions

Posted on September 26, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

A bit late this week, but I got nabbed to do actual Social Things last night when normally I would have been hammering out a post, so!  I’m not terribly social on my own, and therefore must take the opportunity when it presents itself.

Today’s (or, well, yesterday’s) Tough Traveling deals with the trope of Companions.  I couldn’t not do this one, really, because though Book 1 doesn’t saddle Cob with an adventuring party, Book 2 assembles one around him pretty quickly.  And with some grease and a crowbar, most of his cohorts can fit into at least one of the Companion roles.

A few of them might need a mallet though.  Bash bash bash.

Companions are chosen for you by the Management.  You will normally meet them for the first time at the outset of the Tour.  They are picked from among the following: Bard, Female Mercenary, Gay Mage, Imperious Female, Large Man, Serious Soldier, Slender Youth, Small Man, Talented Girl, Teenage Boy, Unpleasant Stranger, and Wise Old Stranger.  Most parties will have at least one of these and may include one or two of the other Peoples, usually small ones.

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Posted in Fluff, World Info | Tagged | 3 Comments

Tough Traveling with Fantasy Review Barn — Witches

Posted on September 18, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

As usual, I’m taking advantage of the Tough Traveling feature at Fantasy Review Barn to talk about a story-related topic.  Unusually though, I don’t have anything from the actual text to highlight — there have been no real witches in the story thus far.

Oh, there have been people who were called witches.  And there are witches around.

But I wanted to talk about a broader topic of small magics, because it’s a concept that underlies my worldbuilding even if it doesn’t show through very often.

I’m also going to truncate the entry, as previously.  While some Tough Guide entries are still highly relevant, others have aged badly…

Witches are special and probably at least the equal of Wizards.  They come in several kinds:

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Posted in Magic, World Info | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Ten Books

Posted on September 11, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

Since everyone has been doing the ’10 Books That Have Stayed With You’ challenge recently — so many that Facebook actually compiled 130k of them to make a set of statistics — I figured I might as well.  After all, I was already tagged for it.  But as always, I have a lot to say about these books, and I can’t post my usual wealth of links on Facebook, so why not here?

I sorted these chronologically, but they all tip to the younger end of the scale.  That’s been noted on the statistics overall, and it’s posited that this is because early influences stay with us most strongly — they help us form our initial opinions, which tend to deflect other influences later in life.  I’ve noticed recently that a lot of books, even really good ones, don’t leave much of an impression on me anymore…  Guess that means I’m a grown-up!

For some value of grown-up, anyway.

Without further ado:

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Posted in Fluff, Influences | Tagged | 2 Comments

Search Terms 2: Electric Boogaloo

Posted on September 4, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

I feel the need to post a bit of fluff today; ye olde brain isn’t firing on all cylinders and Tough Traveling is doing ‘Turncoats’, so I can’t say anything.  :X

Therefore, I shall go through the new weird search terms I’ve netted since the last time I did this in March!

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Miscellaneous Art 1

Posted on August 28, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

I’ve got nothing for Tough Traveling again this week, so I thought I’d share some art Deb and I did either at the convention or around that time.

Deb had her art laptop while she was camped out at our booth, and though we lost a few things to program crashing (alas goblin #1!  alas my terrible attempt at drawing trees!  alas our inability to press ‘save’!), one actually got completed and two more got started!  Yay!

First, the completed one, whom we shall call Sexy Warrior Goblin:
goblinSeriously, he’s not bad-looking for a goblin!

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Posted in Art, Writing | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Tough Traveling with Fantasy Review Barn — Shapeshifting

Posted on August 21, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

Now this one, I can do!

Once again, I’m taking a cue from Nathan over at Fantasy Review Barn and babbling about one of the tropes in my writing, as identified in Diana Wynne Jones’ satiric take on fantasy worlds.  This time, the topic is near and dear to my heart — and, in fact, the entire basis of my War of Memory world.  Which happens to be (with just the pertinent parts)…

Shapeshifting is frequent among both Weres and Magic Users.  The usual form taken is that of a Wolf (see Werewolves), but lions, eagles, serpents, owls, and cats are common too.  In all cases the Rule is that the Shapeshifter can not stay too long in Animal form without actually becoming that Animal and losing touch with his/her human thoughts.  There are two schools of Shapeshifting:

1) Illusory.  …

2) Actual.  Here you really are the Animal or thing.  In this case it is better not to become furniture.  You will end up being an armchair for the rest of your life.  There are two methods here:

a) Change on land from human to Animal.  This is usually swift and painless, though some Weres seem to suffer rather as their faces turn inside out.  However, the most you will feel is discomfort and disorientation, shortly replaced by a wonderful sense of Smell or the realization you can fly.  The problem here is your clothes.  They will not Shift with you and must be discarded.  When you change back you will be naked.

b) Change at sea.  …

There is an absolute Rule that any wounds sustained in another form go back with you into human form.

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Posted in History, World Info | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Post-Convention Wrapup

Posted on August 19, 2014 by H. Anthe Davis

wom2x6bookmark copy

Hey all!  I have just recently returned from my first vending experience at the SOE Live convention, where I had a great time and met a bunch of great people.  I thought I’d wrap up the experience with a run-down of it.

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Posted in Fluff | Tagged , , | 8 Comments