My performance of Ready Player One has been named one of the ten best narrator and audiobook pairings of all time on Goodreads!
Category: Books
The joy of reading RPG books
I came across this fantastic article at The Guardian about RPG books as, well, books (as opposed to game manuals).
“By putting aside simple narrative storytelling and replacing it with detailed description, the RPG offers the total immersion in an imaginary world so valued by geek readers. The elaboration of leading characters, political factions and major historical events is sometimes a very dry exercise in world building, but done with enough skill it can spark a deeply satisfying response”
It’s a short read, but thought-provoking, and will hopefully inspire some people to pick up an RPG book, and just explore the world within its covers.
A bunch of stuff about Dread, Titansgrave, Armada, Brewing TV, and TNG
There’s a lot of stuff to share, which all happened in the last 24ish hours for some reason, so I’m just going to put all that stuff here in one post, instead of spreading it out.
- We released a video and some information about Hank Green’s Titansgrave character, Aankia. Similar introductions will be released throughout this week.
- I filmed a wrap-up thing for Dread, instead of a winner’s wall thing, because a winner’s wall felt inappropriate for that episode. For some reason I’ve forgotten, it didn’t get into the final cut of part 2, so we put it on Geek & Sundry today as a bonus.
- I talked to the Mission Log podcast about working on The Next Generation, in a way that I’ve never really talked about working on The Next Generation before. If you enjoy it, and you’d like some additional context, you may want to listen to The Big Goodbye, from my book The Happiest Days of Our Lives: The Extended Edition Or Whatever I Decided To Call It.
- I made a video with Brewing TV a couple months ago, where we made an IPA that was inspired by Pliny The Younger. The first part is online, now.
Huh. When I put it in a list like that, it doesn’t seem like that much stuff. In fact, it’s not as impressive as it felt when it all came into my inbox or whatever one at a time over the last couple of days. Maybe I should have split it up.
Anyway, I’m still working on the audiobook for Armada, and I’m about halfway through. It’s a really fun story, and I’m having a great time performing it. In the last two days, though, I’ve learned to have tremendous empathy for people who have a daily commute, and boy am I grateful that I don’t have a daily commute.
the point of view that creates the world
I imagine my creative process as a cycle of filling up a reservoir with inspirations and ideas, and then emptying it out into various creations. Sometimes that reservoir is drained in one explosive surge, but mostly it’s emptied out a little bit at a time, into different projects.
Recently, I’ve been using my creative reserves to power the writing on the Tabletop RPG show, and whatever is left is going into Radio Free Burrito. My stupid random thoughts and links, once the exclusive property of my blog, are filling up Twitter and Tumblr, and I haven’t had much to say here, anyway.
BUT.
I have a new Tabletop for you:
Most of the things I’ve been consuming are helping me power up and work on the Tabletop RPG show (all day today I have conference calls with our writers and designers!) and I would like to share some of the ways I’ve been refilling my creative reservoir, starting with books:
- The End is Now
- The End is Nigh
- Appendix N
- The White Mountains
- D&D 5E Dungeon Master’s Guide
- Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition and Science Fiction Companion
- Hamlet’s Hit Points
And Podcasts:
Also, movies:
Some TV:
And Anime:
So my reservoir is slowly being refilled, at a rate that is just slightly faster than it is being emptied … and neat stuff is happening.
Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free: The Audiobook
My pal Cory Doctorow says:
I’ve independently produced an audiobook edition of my nonfiction book Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age, paying Wil Wheaton to narrate it (he did *such* a great job on the Homeland audiobook, with a mixdown by the wonderful John Taylor Williams, and bed-music from Amanda Palmer and Dresden Dolls.
Both Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman contributed forewords to this one, and Wil reads them, too (of course). I could *not* be happier with how it came out. My sincere thanks to Wil, the Skyboat Media people (Cassandra and Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki), John Taylor Williams, and to Amanda for the music.
The book is $15, is DRM free, and has no EULA — you don’t need to give up any of your rights to buy it. It should be available in Downpour and other DRM-free outlets soon, but, of course, it won’t be in Itunes or Audible, because both companies insist that you use DRM with your works, and I don’t use DRM (for reasons that this book goes to some length to explain).
Audio edition:
http://craphound.com/?p=5387
Homeland audio:
http://craphound.com/?p=5146
I loved reading this book, which is described by the publisher, thusly:
In sharply argued, fast-moving chapters, Cory Doctorow’s Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free takes on the state of copyright and creative success in the digital age. Can small artists still thrive in the Internet era? Can giant record labels avoid alienating their audiences? This is a book about the pitfalls and the opportunities that creative industries (and individuals) are confronting today — about how the old models have failed or found new footing, and about what might soon replace them. An essential read for anyone with a stake in the future of the arts, Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free offers a vivid guide to the ways creativity and the Internet interact today, and to what might be coming next.
Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free takes its place next to The Purple Cow in my library of essential books for independent creators and Makers, and I’m proud and privileged to read the audio version.