Artist Craig J. Spearing—Portlander, zombie fan, and all-around nice guy—did a very cool thing and created for me a steampunked rendering of me as the Traveler, complete with pocket-watch time-traveling device and multi-lensed spectacles. You can see the full version here.

Perfect for author pictures! I'm astounded by it. Aside from doing tons of fantasy work (and in the past, children's book illustrations), he's a regular for Wizards of the Coast and DDI.

I should also add that Craig is a survivor of the Geesepocalypse. If you don't know what that is, consider yourself lucky.

I live in the Bronx. It many ways it's what you think. In many, it's not. This is a 5-minute bike ride from me:

Click here for larger image.

This is a photo I took in a newly discovered bookshop (like that one in Salem, Mass) in the town of Nyack only thirty minutes from where I live, just across the Hudson River. When I spotted it, I had to pick up this copy of Sheepfarmer's Daughter, book 1 of The Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy by Elizabeth Moon. I recently had reason to read these books and I enjoyed them immensely. While I already own the massive paperback of the trilogy, I had to pick it up: love old editions of some books and I really dig the original cover art of this one.

Sheepfarmer's Daughter, for those who don't know of it, seems at first like little more than a detailed account of a young woman’s experiences as a mercenary. The plot is straightforward in that way. The setting itself is a fairly generic, low-magic fantasy world, and the story is no more complex than simply keeping track of the many characters.

Despite all that, the story held me. I can't even explain why. There's something endearing about the character of Paksenarrion herself and her naiveté. There's also the camaraderie she shares with her new friends, the recurring moral struggle (fight for money vs. fight for good), and her burgeoning, mysterious powers. The trilogy as a whole dabbles with some common fantasy tropes I'm very familiar with, especially those derived from D&D: orcs, dwarves, elves, dark elves, magic, giant spiders, and paladins. As a Tolkien fan, I approve of Moon's non-preachy way of exploring spirituality, but the books' strength is the recurring contrast between regular soldiers (those serving a group, or themselves) and paladins (those serving a god or ideal), and the interaction between the two.

All in all, I'd recommend this trilogy to anyone who ever liked the character of Éowyn in The Lord of the Rings but felt her personal story was largely untold. Enter Paksenarrion! These books would make excellent reading for Women's Studies in high school or college, if you ask me: an epic tale whose protagonist is a likable, strong female character, and which doesn't for a second read like angry, militant feminism or like someone's agenda.

In any case, the bookshop also has a friendly old dog. All good bookstores should.

My third Eberron DDI article is available now: "Taer Lian Doresh: Agents & Enemies." The second and third installments of these 'Explore' articles are usually just fleshed out NPCs for heroes to deal with, usually as foes.

There are three illustrations in this article by artist Craig J. Spearing. And boy was I happy with what he came up with. I mean seriously happy. This guy's good. Just another example of how lucky I've been having my writing pared with top-notch illustrators in this industry.

Like part 1 of Taer Lian Doresh—which is a citadel of fey creatures twisted into nightmares by the realm of dreams—I'm particularly happy with this article. I introduced a warforged agent of the Lord of Blades, an agent of the Dreaming Dark (a quori spirit housed in a human vessel), a bloodthirsty eladrin warrior....and harlequin gnomes.

It's those gnomes I'm most proud of. Clownish, prankish, and sinister, offering choice audience members of their sideshow acts a confectionery potion of dubious intent.

As with a lot of the things I write, it was all made better by the creative suggestions of my brother John. Thanks, bro.

More than a year ago I announced that I was starting work on a novel, one of my own. I termed the project Savant, and stated that it would be published through Blindsided Books. This is all still true.

Life circumstances have continued to push it in the background, and though it's been slow-going, it's very much alive. I mean, it's really just one first book in a saga and setting that's pretty much my personal pet lifelong project. Means a hell of a lot to me.

That said, we've put out an issue of Blindsided's HEY Quarterly zine dedicated to Savant. It's essentially a preview of the novel, including a draft of Chapter 1, a Q&A with me and my brother, Savant Scrawlings 1-4, some concept art by Michael Keegan and myself, and so on.

Please feel free to check it out and support the book!

After several years of haunting and moderating the place, the Worlds of DnD website and boards are going away. We've kicked off a goodbye thread, but since the link won't last, I'll repeat some of what I said there:

I've been on those boards both as a fan and as an author...but mostly as a fan. And I've had a blast. I suspect that the edition update to 4E is what first dropped off a number of members—which is ironic, because we never much talked game rules a lot here—and then WotC's waning support for Eberron and other, older settings seemed to have turned the downward road into a slippery slope right off these boards. Okay, that's too many metaphors.

In the end, it was just a fan site, not something sanctioned by any of the powers that be. Just some fantasy enthusiasts who formed a community for a time. It became a place for discussions about the game, about the novels (particularly Eberron novels), and about speculation for things to come.

So...

What's going away: the Worlds of DnD website.

What's NOT going away: our love and enthusiasm for the game and the worlds that came of it, no matter who owns the copyrights.

We'll all still be out there, and hopefully we'll bounce into each other now and again. I'm grateful for the friends I've made here: Jim (Aureon) and Steven (DragonReader), JoeInPalmSprings (Joe Rixman), and a bunch more, not to mention some fellow writers, like Don Bassingthwaite, and my fellow Inquisitives, Marcy Rockwell, Ed Bolme, and Paul Crilley. And of course Mr. Creator Man, Keith Baker.

You know what else isn't going away? The Worlds of DnD Facebook page. So if you're on Facebook, join up. Perhaps we can find some sort of continuance there?

I owe a lot to Worlds of DnD. Not merely as a forum for discussion, but as a career stepping stone. Connections were made that have helped snowball into a number of writing opportunities. I'm honored to have spent time chatting with folks over there.

http://foreshadows.net/

Today my family's dog, Deja, passed away. She was a tough old girl, a Shetland Sheepdog who lived 2 years beyond her vet-given expiration date. One could say that she was just super-strong and staved off cancer like a trouper. But we often joked that she just didn't realize she was sick, that she was oblivious that she was supposed to be moving on from this world...some time ago. So she stuck around for quite a while and surprised everyone.

She made it through 15½ years.

My family, we're dog people, and we're the sort who consider our pets as family members. Our dogs get portraits painted of them—by my grandmother, Libby LaSala (you rock, Nana!)—and they each seem to have more photo albums than either my brother or I. We loved our dogs.

We lost Thumper, our previous dog, after only seven years—much too soon. It was a heart-breaking and fast-acting incident. But Deja? She more than doubled Thumper's age, lived out a long and happy doggy life, replete with good table scraps, sprinkler chases, frisbee-throwing runs, an endless stream of mischievous antics, and of course a hand-puppet penguin archenemy. (All dogs need their own nemesis.)

Her full name was Déjà Vu. I think we named her that, in part, because we tried to have another Thumper, and it's no coincidence we chose another Sheltie. What we got was no replacement, just another wonderful dog.

My brother, incidentally, wanted to name her Jabberwocky. Another day, John.

Deja was a howler. Shelties normally aren't. As a newborn pup, she hung out with a litter of Alaskan Malamute (the Siberian Husky lookalike breed), and they taught her their wolfish song. We heard it often: whenever she was lonely and sometimes, it seemed, just for the hell of it. It also became an unwelcome rooster wake-up call set to go off well before any conventional alarm clock. My parents, and many houses guests, can testify. It was sometimes adorable, but usually it was annoying, heard most often in the wee hours of the morning. Now we'll miss it badly.

And fondly remember 16 years of good memories. I was a junior in high school when we got her, just a fuzzy little dog in ball form that stuck to our family like canine Velcro®. Since 1995, I've only seen her when I've seen my parents—on holidays and occasional weekends.

My brother called Deja a positive force in the world. And she absolutely was. She was a furry little piece of the animal kingdom set loose in our civilized world. A tiny piece of the wild, a shard of chaos and levity running amok in our home that kept us sane with her insanity. Most dogs are that way. And Deja's particular brand of sweetness and sassiness made everyone like her. She was friendly with everyone, once she stopped barking at them. She embodied man's best friend.

Sleep well, Deja. We dearly miss you.

And say "hi" to Thumper for us, would you? She's most likely hanging out by the food bowls, eating the other dogs' breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Doggy Elysium.

Okay, this is a bit spoilerish.

As many predicted, the Lost finale seems to have polarized the fanbase. Most either loved it and thought it was the perfect ending or were thoroughly disappointed. And as always, I'm in the middle. I can see two sides. I rule.

There were flip sides to this show that made it great, two sides to the Lost coin: the characters and the mythology. Unfortunately, in the end the writers were only able to satisfy one side.

From the beginning, it was always a character-driven series. The heroes were forcibly upstaging the setting—as decided by the writers (and we let it happen)—because the characters were so unique and likeable. And diverse. Look how much time was devoted to flashbacks, starting in season 1 (which was the best season). Ultimately the acting, the popularity, and perhaps even the politics of the real world changed the plans. Some actors left the show for one reason or another, while others who were only supposed to be temporary stayed on because they impressed. In that way the creators of Lost allowed the show to evolve in ways they hadn’t originally planned. Clearly.

Then there’s the mythology, the milieu, of Lost. It just so happens that stuff was enormously appealing, to some of us more than to others. It created an epic mystique: Who are the shadow players on this island? What anomalies of science are at work here? How? Why? What does it all mean? Do fate or faith really play a part? Very intriguing sci-fi stuff, and Lost made it more interesting than just about any other TV show out there.

But in the end the writers only really addressed the characters. And from a ratings stand point, that’s probably what made the show so popular: the drama, the romances, the love triangles (blah!)—so much melodrama! And you know what? Most of it was awesome. Realistically, sci-fi still isn’t that mainstream. While it is getting more popular, American television, film, and audiences are still more occupied with cops, lawyers, criminals, crime scene investigators, coroners, philanderers, desperate wives, and pregnant teenagers.

Lost appealed to a pretty diverse group. Speculative fiction freaks (like me) got into it, and yet so did fans of bad reality TV and "good" reality TV and Survivor and readers of trashy romance novels and readers of good romance novels and lovers of social dramas and talk shows and celebrity gossip shows. And so on. That’s why Lost was popular. Somehow , the writers, producers, and director made a solid show which managed to please so many different types of people. Pretty amazing. The season finale brought to a close the character arcs that began in the very first episode. In that I found it very satisfying. And while I know many will disagree with this, I personally think they were bold about the ending, ambiguous as it was. To address the afterlife, faith, and spirituality at all is damned gutsy. Spirituality isn’t popular in our culture, and a lot of people are uncomfortable when you venture onto topics of an afterlife or belief in any kind. Makes them defensive, especially if they’re anti-spiritual. And yet Lost did touch on it without catering to any one faith. Or perhaps none. It was all very interpretive and adaptable. That frustrates some people but if they had been very definitive about what the afterlife was like, people would have been up in arms. All things considered, well done.

But I'll admit, it was a bit too afterlife-lite, much like in What Dreams May Come.

And Benjamin Linus, mass murderer and complex character, opting to sit out for a while and not "move on" with the others quite yet? Nice touch.

They didn’t bring any real closure to the mythology of the island, the nature of its original inhabitants, the Jacob role, the smoke monster, the "light," the Egyptian motifs, the Sobek statue, the powerful electromagnetism, teleportation, the mysteries of time travel . . . and plenty more. In that I feel the writers pulled an X-Files on us: they tossed out lots of cool mysteries but never really decided what they were all about. I’m sad about that. They could have, perhaps, if they’d trimmed out some of the less relevant material (the Temple, the freighter, the leaving-then-going-back-to-the-island stuff, the constant flux of running around and dissolving and reforming camps . . . something!).

But it’s apparent that the show was more about the characters than the mythology. And so the finale came full circle and addressed only them. And I think they did a good job with that. Could they have done more to satisfy everyone? Yes, they could have, but they waited too long to start tying things up.

So I’ll proudly stand between the love and hate camps. It was an awesome show with a frustrating and yet strangely mostly-satisfying ending. It will be difficult for anyone to match what Lost accomplished—not just in ratings but in diversity. It’s damned hard to tell a good story with that much diversity and get so many people to pay attention to it.

In conclusion, I’m just happy to see Vincent at very end. He was my favorite character. And the Hugo and Ben thing on the island, the new Jacob and his new Ricardo thing?

Dude.

Edit: Ken Hart made a pretty cool post about the finale, too, right here.

My second DDI article for Eberron, Explore Taer Lian Doresh (Fortress of Fading Dreams), is now live in Dungeon magazine. You do need to be a subscriber to D&D Insider to view or download the article.

This article is the first installment of a three-part 'Explore' series. I wrote a brief blog entry about it over at Worlds of DnD. But in short, this is the article I'm particularly excited about, as it allowed me to flesh out an important, if remote locale of Eberron.

It essentially asks the question, 'What do you get when you take a bunch of tree-loving faeries and fling them into a realm of pure nightmare for tens of thousands of years?'

Answer: Not very nice faeries.

Oh, and the artwork is officially kick-ass.

I'm also honored to see that this article went live alongside a preview of the upcoming Monster Manual 3, featuring one of my favorite oldschool D&D monsters: the mimic! (Which I even put in The Darkwood Mask.)