More Creature Videos

Here are a few more crazy creature videos:

Hoymanator


Lumbard


Centrod

The Creatures are Coming

The Spore Creature Creator has proven to be a quite powerful tool. In just the last seven days over twelve thousand new creatures have been uploaded to the interesting Sporepedia™.

Here are some of the creatures I've made with the free trial version (containing only 25% of the full version's creature parts).

---

---

---

---

Here's one my wife made in about 10 minutes:

---

I haven't made any creatures specific to my writing yet... waiting on the full version before attempting that. But I'll post here as I continue exploring this fun tool.

You can learn more about the creature creator at www.spore.com

Spore: Creature Creator

Now here is something that is right up my alley.

I've been following the development of a game called Spore for a few years now. This is an open-ended game that lets the player take a creature of their own creation from a single-celled organism to a galaxy roving civilization.

But what excites me most about this game is that later this month (June 17th), a stand-alone module is being released. The Creature Creator. This will be available as a free download (with partial content, about 25%) or as a $9.99 retail package with all the creature creation tools and parts.

I look forward to this as a tool to help me visualize and bring to life some of my own creations. They have some examples of fan created creatures that the developers re-created with the creature creator here (half-way down the page).

Check out this video of the tool in action.

A New Face in Christian Fantasy

This October Marcher Lord Press, a new publisher specializing in Christian Speculative Fiction, will be launching it's three inaugural titles.

The first of these is the Fantasy lampoon,
Hero, Second Class by new author Mitchell Bonds.

Hero, Second Class tells the tale of a young Hero's apprentice named Cyrus, who's apprenticeship just happens to fall during a True-Crisis, an time full of incredible opportunities for an "ambitious hero-in-training". But Cyruses plans are complicated by "wise-cracking dragon, a self-narrating knight, a droll zombie, and an attractive young woman who also happens to kind of be a cat."

Click Here to see the cover.
Click Here to read the prologue.
Click Here to read an interview with Mitchell Bonds.

This is defenitely one to watch.

Getting back in the wierd of things.

I'm slowly getting back into the flow of writing and getting a steady pattern going. Finished one scene of my current WIP this week (which is also the one that finaled in the ACFW Genesis Contest). I'm hoping to get it done by September so that if the story manages to end up in the top three I can maximize the exposure as much as possible.

Though already the story took a somewhat unexpected turn. The scene featured one of the major supporting characters rescuing some others from a cursed village. Originally this scene was simply to be there for showing the rising stakes in the world, and just how bold the evil forces were becoming. However one of the characters being rescued seemed to be a little more important than I was expecting and the focus of the scene shifted to highlight that, costing the other two characters their lives.

I was a bit sad about that, but this new path ads a whole new sub-plot and depth to the story. One that I think will play out a theme of emotional healing and strength. It will be interesting to see just how this new character develops.

Have you ever had one of those twists jump up in your writing? Or do you have a favorite twist from a novel or a movie?

Running in Place

Ever feel like you're just running in place? Maybe inside some giant hamster wheel?

I know I have, it's one of the reasons I burnt out last year. I felt like I was running as hard as I could, into a brick wall over and over again. Talking about how we need more sci-fi and fantasy in the CBA or at least from a Christian world view. In the end I felt like I was just beginning to repeat myself and had nothing new to the equation. I still pretty much feel that way.

So instead of me talking about it, I'll point you in some directions of places where you can find others who can give the arguments much better than I can. I'll also try and highlight places of success and interest for those of us interested in Sci-fi and Fantasy from a Christian Worldview.

Finally, I'm going to talk about things that come up in my own writing and reading and general life and what they make me think about. Which could be interesting... or perhaps just a good way to put yourself to sleep.

For now, head over to A Christian Worldview of Fiction for a discussion on why we need Christian SFF in relation to the defenition of good.

Be sure to check out The Anomaly, a growing community of readers and fans of SFF, especially from a Christian Worldview. And while you're there, swing by Where the Map Ends, and Marcher Lord Press for some very cool interviews, news, and a look at three very promising titles coming out later this year.

What's that word again... oh yeah Consistency!

The problem with starting fresh... is starting. :)

Sorry for the big gap here, from now on, barring any big issues I plan on doing a Mon, Wed, Fri posting schedule here from now on. At least until one other change I have planned comes along, though that may be a while out yet.

I mentioned on the 21st how the healing method shown in The Begotten raised some questions for me and wondered if there wasn't something Christian fantasy writers could glean from the instance.

The main reason I started down this train of thought is that usually when a character in the story is "gifted" there tends to be more of an emphasis on the power emanating from that character themselves in a drastic and obvious way, even if the character doesn't know about the gift.

That is what struck me most about the first instance of healing, and shifted me from reading this as a fantasy mindset into a historical with spiritual elements mindset. Daria felt to me like she played just a small roll in that first healing, that came with so much effort, that she didn't feel particularly "gifted".

Though the second instance of healing was much more dramatic, and leads me to think there is a progression of the gift as Daria accepts it and grows in her faith.

So what do I take away from this?

Perhaps when we're writing fantasy, we can easily tend to fall toward the gifts of our characters (especially the supernatual ones) being too focused around that character and less around them being a conduit for God's power.

Just a thought.