Pine Deep Trilogy, Spider-Gwen, Great Reviews, and More

It has been an interesting week, and I have a lot of topics to cover, so I’ll get right to it.

First, on the creative side, the Nanotech Undead issue is getting very close to being finished. I haven’t put as much effort into it as I could have, and you can blame that entirely on ‘Buck Who’.

Anyhow, I only have 5 more entries to write up and then I can send it off to my editor. I WILL have it finished and sent this week.

One of the books I will be sending to my editor for Wisdom from the Wastelands is the rules covering mutations. It is currently a little thin, and I need to do some serious padding to it. One of the ways I can is by updating all the mutations from the core Mutant Future book.

Out of the blue it hit me… when someone is mutating, they should get sick and suffer from possible statistic loss, nausea, fatigue and of course pain. The more drastic the mutation they suffer, the worse it will be for them.

So that is going to be written up and covered.

On top of that, whenever someone gains a new mutation, they will not know how to use it right away. It will require practice and time before they become proficient with the mutation. So I will cover that as well.

Finally, since I am including the whole power score system in this, I will be adding rules governing how long it takes the mutation to gain its full potential when it comes to the power.

And of course I posted chapter 6 of ‘Buck Who?’ on Friday. Chapter 7 is finished and just requires the usual editing, so tomorrow I will begin work on chapter 8. At the rate I’m going, I should be almost finished chapter 9 by the time I post 7 this week.

I talked to Alfonso Maesa this week and he now has the description for Ra’naa Ahteen, Tara Buko, and Declan Starret. I asked him to do a character sketch for these characters, as he did with Viya, Jarem and Jaeger, the characters I created for my novels and short stories set in the Sword of Kos setting.

I’m hoping to see these and to be able to post them starting with next week’s blog.

Speaking of ‘Buck Who?’, my one co-worker, who actually wanted to read what I’ve been writing, brought up a very interesting fact about my novel. After describing the setting to him and what I was doing with it, he said it sounds very Japanese Anime-ish. I would tend to agree with him, but my best friend who has been reading them as I’ve been posting each chapter disagrees.

Food for thought.

I’ve also been considering posting my work on Deviantart and Fanfiction, although my ‘Buck Who?’ and original Zombie stories are not fan fiction. My Aliens novella is, so it could fit on that particular site.

It is something that I am thinking about doing, but haven’t made the final decision yet.

Last week was a bit of a milestone for my Wisdom from the Wastelands series. Issue 50: Artifact Quality, hit the virtual reality shelves. It made it to 34 on the top 100 small press best seller list, but what really made my week was in a single day it got two reviews!

I’m lucky to get one review for my work, let alone two in the same day!

That is not why I call it a milestone – the fact that we hit 50 issues is the milestone! And with that, issue 51 will be the new format, and publishing schedule. The issues will be four times as large after this and will also be published once a month.

This is really something for my readers to look forward to!  I’ve gone over the issues that I have coming out before, but I will update it now. Harvesting, Nanotech Undead, Animal and plant Genotypes, Android templates, Optional Skill System, Alternate Mutation Rules, and finally Alternate Advancement Rules.

Most of the work is already done on these, so it will require editing and fleshing out, but it won’t take me long to finish up all these issues. Issue 51 should be available in 30 days, at the beginning of April.

Speaking of Mutations, I recently discovered this via the Gamma World Online Facebook page and figured I would share it with my fellow old school post-apocalyptic gamers. This link has a list of all the mutations that have appeared in the various editions of Gamma World.

I did not purchase any new RPG material, but for those of you who happen to play the Pathfinder Adventure Card game, Drivethrucards now allows you to make your own, and you can also purchase cards created by fellow gamers.

Last week I also posted yet another top five list. This one covered my favorite top five post-apocalyptic movies. Already at least one person doesn’t consider ‘The Terminator’ to be a good fit, but the whole background of the movie and the franchise is set in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Besides, my list, my choices. End of story.

And I have enough ideas to cover the next three months for this. I’m pretty sure I can come up with more as time goes by.

As for my other topics, I finished reading the first issue of ‘Spider-Gwen’. I REALLY don't like the art, at all. As for the story, I guess I have to go and pick up the various spider-verse comics and read them so I can get a complete picture of what's going on. Too much, way too much background missing and that makes it kind of hard to jump in feet first.

So it's either read up on Spider Gwen online or purchase or read the other comics.

I'll continue to give the series an honest read, as hopefully more and more background will be revealed with each passing issue.

And just today I finished book three of Jonathan Maberry’s Pine Deep trilogy. This is a horror trilogy is set in a small town called Pine Deep and involves and evil that may or may not have been around for centuries.

30 years ago a ‘black harvest’ ravaged the town of Pine Deep and a killer terrorized this town known as ‘the most haunted town in the country’.

The killer is found and killed and everyone believes the horror is now a thing of the past.

Fast forward to the modern times. The town is once again facing a black harvest. A wanted murderer and his cronies find themselves in the town at the same time. Things start to get very strange and people begin to go missing.

I won’t go into too much detail, as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but as I suspected, I really enjoyed this trilogy. Jonathan Maberry has yet to disappoint me and even if you’re not into horror, this trilogy was great! Very well written and likeable characters.

Finally a little rant. One of my Facebook friends posted a picture showing the evil Nazi pricks in WW2 standing before a line of dead men and women, who they were shooting in the back of the head.

Below it was a similar image of the assholes in ISIS doing pulling off the same sick act. I took offense because the caption was Islamic Muslim Terrorists. I would not have taken offense if it stated ISIS terrorists.

Here is my view on that.

The assholes in ISIS are nothing more than murderous psychopaths. They use Islam as an excuse for their actions.

The Nazi's were likewise murdering psychopaths, and many considered themselves to be good Christians and Catholics.

True followers of Islam would NEVER do what these pricks are doing. Many Muslims are taking up arms against these fucktekards (sorry). Get to know a real follower of Islam and their beliefs. Not these radicals. You will find they are good people.

Don't let the actions of a fraction of the believers (who aren't) destroy your view of the rest.

Besides, if you want atrocities committed in the name of religion, just look in the past and Catholics. The inquisition, the crusades, witch trials...

And on that note, that covers this rather long blog.

As always please like my personal author Facebook page and follow me on Twitter!

Spring is only 3 weeks away! I know I’m glad to have this winter nearly over.

Until next week, stay happy, enjoy life and as always, peace!

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook  Creatures of the Tropical Wastes  sourcebook, co-author of its  Wisdom from the Wastelands  game supplement and contributor to the  'Sword of Kos: Hekaton'  Anthology.