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NEWS AND VIEWS - FEBRUARY 2026
WRITING NEWS Hi, everyone! Not a hugely productive month, writing-wise, but I did finish a new Signalverse short story (called "War Stories") and I added several more chapters to Hardcore -- in fact I finally cracked 100,000 words on it. This story really got away from me; I never intended for it to run so long. As I mentioned last month, my plan is to finish Hardcore by the end of April and to spend the rest of the year writing Signalverse stuff -- Masters of a Million Stars (an outer space adventure), Special Squad EX (a police adventure), and at least one more short story. I'm having a little trouble deciding what the next short story should be, though. Here's the contenders: Last Night. A dark tale, set in the 1970s. The heroine Antoinette spends a night working with a reckless young hero who turns out to have a death wish. Relay Race. A story explaining why it was necessary for Relay (the Wright family dog) to accompany Jack to Liberty Park at the conclusion of City of Strange Gods. Basically a Time League story, starring Lucy Wright, Blake Hunter, speedster Hannah Hanson, and some other members of the League. Velvet Glove, Iron Fist. A story set in the 1950s. The Iron Bombard convinces his gal-pal Mildred "Millie" Pilette to infiltrate an underworld auction arranged by the villain Doctor Madd. She teams up with Mistress Velvet and the Velvet Girls. Glow Up. An unquenchable magical fire is raging across Signal City. The heroine Protectress shows up to help evacuate those citizens trapped in the path of the fire, but Miracle Girl shows up, too, and their ongoing rivalry complicates things. Molly Miles, Girl Reporter. Another story set in the 1950s, starring Molly Miles, fearless reporter for the Signal City Sentinel. Likely a supernatural story, and probably starring the Sage and the villainess Mary Mortuary. The Seal of the Wilds. An Ataxal/Zin story. If any of these sound interesting to you, let me know! * * * * * * * * RECOMMENDS I used to attach all kinds of little essays, reviews, and personal reminiscences to these monthly updates (check out the archives page on my website). I stopped doing that a couple years ago, because nobody seemed to be interested in that stuff, but maybe it's time to bring those features back -- I'm starting to feel like these monthly updates are getting kind of boring and repetitive. One feature I ran pretty regularly was "what I'm watching/reading/playing," where I talked about those TV shows, movies, books, and video games I've been enjoying and offered some recommendations. That seems like a good place to start, but I should warn readers that my tastes are maybe a little eccentric. For example, I don't really watch American TV shows and I almost never watch modern movies (the only American show I'm watching right now is Mike Judge's revived Beavis and Butt-head). Instead, I watch Korean dramas, anime, really old Hollywood movies (1920s and 1930s), the occasional documentary, and terrible B-movies like R.O.T.O.R. and the Coleman Francis trilogy. My reading tastes run toward popular histories (books about ancient peoples like the Hittites and Assyrians), classics, hard-boiled detective fiction, and fantasy, although I confess I haven't been reading much fantasy lately -- I don't know where to look for good fantasy recommendations, and most of my favorite authors aren't writing anymore. Lawrence Watt-Evans, for example, seems to be semi-retired, and despite my incessant nagging he still hasn't gotten around to writing Azraya of Ethshar, alas. As for video games, I'm mainly interested in JRPG's and obscure retro games, but I'll play pretty much anything. I almost never play modern games, but if I do they're usually Japanese. So with all that said, what am I watching/reading/playing? Well, I'm watching several Korean shows at the moment. Probably the best is Cashero, a superhero story about a guy who inherits super-strength and a Wolverine-like healing ability from his father. The catch is, it costs him money -- he has to be carrying cash in order to perform these super-feats, and the cash disappears into thin air as he uses his powers. It has to be his money, too; while he can make use of other people's money, this has unpleasant side effects. Eventually he meets up with some other people with super powers, who are fighting an evil organization that is attempting to collect and harness these abilities. The special effects look kind of cheap sometimes, and some scenes and situations are silly and overly stylized -- for example, in one episode, a group of SWAT-team dudes attack our hero. They shoot him about a million times, which does nothing, and then, having run out of ammo, they throw down their guns and try to fight him hand-to-hand. Who in their right mind would do this? He's obviously superhuman, punching guys through walls and tossing them around like nothing, but these SWAT guys just keep coming at him, like idiots, because them getting wrecked makes the hero look cool. That sort of thing aside, it's a fun and very watchable little show. Another show I'm watching is Good Boy, which is about a group of five Korean former Olympians who all get jobs as police officers (you have to suspend your disbelief here) and wind up working together to take down a dangerous underworld operation led by a sadistic customs official. Pretty fun so far. Books? I finished The Underground Man, a pretty good Ross Macdonald mystery, a few weeks ago. After that I read a book called Military Blunders, by Saul David, and then I started in on the first book in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, The Shadow of the Torturer. This series, and this book in particular, are critically acclaimed and regarded as some of the best fantasy ever, which makes me kind of embarrassed to admit that I haven't really been enjoying it. I find the prose style pretentious and show-offy, and the weird archasims and long digressions tend to make my eyes glaze over. Call me a philistine if you want, but this dreamy, literary style of fantasy, where everyone (including uneducated shopgirls) speaks like a philosophy major...well, it just isn't my thing. Games? I started playing Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin this month. This is one of the three Castlevania games released for the Nintendo DS; I played Order of Ecclesia last year and liked it, so I figured I'd give this one a try, too. It's good. I also started playing a fan translation of an old MSX computer game called Illusion City, which has kind of a cyberpunk aesthetic. Cool stuff. |