A new fandom

2011-03-13T06:20:13Z

So as part of my unofficial effort to read more short fiction, I subscribed to Daily Science Fiction, a website which posts, well, a new SF story every day. They also email them to subscribers. Some of them are great, some not so great. A lot of it is a matter of taste, of course. Sometimes I really, really like a story, sometimes I don't, sometimes I read a few paragraphs and just can't bring myself to care.

Friday I got "Shark's Teeth" by T. A. Pratt in my daily email. It was a story about Marla Mason, a modern day sorceror. So it's urban fantasy, but not typical urban fantasy. To quote from the website, This series follows the adventures of Marla Mason, an ass-kicking sorcerer who doesn’t wear a leather catsuit, doesn’t suffer from low self-esteem, doesn’t wallow in angst, and is almost always absolutely certain she’s right… even when she’s dead wrong. It’s got monsters. It’s got sarcasm. It’s got death, destruction, sex parties, ancient gods, wisecracks, artifacts, oracles, dark alleys, and magical daggers. Come and see.

I really like this character, and I like the writing. The writer's sensibilities closely match mine, so I found the dialogue, characters, and worldbuilding very entertaining. I read a long prequel story online last night, laughing out loud repeatedly. Now, of course, I have to go out and buy all the novels. A very "First World" problem to have, to be sure.

Closer to home, a short story I was working on this week got shunted into the "unfinished, save for later" folder. I tried repeatedly to finish it, but there was no connecting thread holding the scenes together. So I've put it aside. Eventually I'll find a way to finish it, or pull out pieces to use in other works.

I've got a copy of an indie role-playing game called CAPES. (Someone on my friends list used to post about this game, but damned if I can remember who after all this time. A few weeks ago, I found a copy at a local game store, so I bought it.) It's a superhero role-playing game of the "no GM, distributed authority, collaborative storytelling" sort. Today my lovely and talented wife told me she'd picked it up and read some of it, and she really liked what she saw and wanted to try it out.

So tomorrow we're going to give it a whirl. It looks like it could be fun, I agree, and if it is perhaps when our gaming group gets done playing the current D&D 3.0 game, we'll try this for a bit.

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