Welcome to the Screamsheet!

Welcome to the Screamsheet, my little corner of the Internet for fiction, rants, gaming, and more. Some of what you can find here includes:

• Fights: Celebrity death matches of the bizarre kind.
• Fiction: I’m a published novelist and award-winning short story writer. Here you’ll find a sample of some of my work.
• Rants: Rumblings about anything from comic book movies to religion and politics, and everything in between.
• Role-Playing Games: Custom material for a variety of role-playing games, including Pathfinder, Mutants & Masterminds, and more.
• Music and Videos: Music video projects of mine, as well as independent music volunteered by a few artists.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to email me.

Random Blogness: Reality Check

The Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Awards are underway again, and my entry this year is an old friend. With most of my novels in a state of revision, I trotted out Reality Check, which was the first novel I ever finished and is still one of my best works to this day. As of today, Reality Check has cleared the first round of the contest, surviving the cut from 10,000 entries down to 2,000.

Sexy Women in Comics

I just want to be very clear here: I have no problem with boobies.

The Shadow Queen, Chapter 29: Queen of Shadows, Lady of Light

Previous Chapter

A white plume erupted from the ground as the woman’s magical force sent a burst of snow in all directions. Garyl and Samuel separated, diving away from each other and rolling off the road to dodge the attack. Garyl found his feet quickly, but not quickly enough to dodge an attack from the newly created shadow-woman. The witch’s claws raked across his chest, cutting him as deeply as a knife and sending a familiar burn through his body. Despite the pain, Garyl brought up his own sword to bear, catching the woman’s black claws against its sharp point.

The Shadow Queen, Chapter 28: Darkness Inside

Previous Chapter

Kajeel woke up underneath the snow-covered pine bough of a hastily built lean-to. She felt the familiar stiffness that came with a night sleeping on the ground, but that was the only discomfort she had to deal with. Despite the snow storm and the freezing temperatures of the night, her body had stayed warm all night – a small sampling of Shade’s power.

You’ll keep traveling north today. We’re going further than Nevermoor this time. I want to get out of Blackwood and see the Northern Realms. Shade’s voice was in her head now, and she didn’t see the shadow-woman anywhere. More accurately, she saw Shade everywhere. Every shadow, every nook and cranny of the landscape that could possibly hide anyone held Shade. The witch was out there, watching her. As long as Kajeel followed her orders, no one else would be hurt. Especially not Garyl.

Contest of Champions: Captain America versus Indiana Jones

Captain America is the current site champion, standing for truth, justice, and the American ideal. Indiana Jones has a mixed record of success here, but is becoming one of the most frequent contenders in the Contest of Champions. He stands for bull whips, unprotected sex, and terrible archaeology. But they both fought lots of Nazis, which makes this a worthwhile matchup in my book.

Review Roundup: World War Hulk, act two

There are a lot of crossovers to World War Hulk. This time around, my reviews cover the space between World War Hulk #2 and World War Hulk #3. For an event that unfolds over the course of roughly 48 hours, it’s pretty remarkable that so very much happened between the pages.

World War Hulk: Front Line #2

Avengers: The Initiative #4 (Green Zone)

Ghost Rider #13 (Apocalypse Soon, part two)

Iron Man #20 (In Absentia)

Heroes for Hire #12 (Subjugation)

Also, the Giants won the Super Bowl! (Just had to slip that in there.)

The Shadow Queen, Chapter 27: Might and Magic

Previous Chapter

The wound stung, but Garyl knew without even looking that it was only skin deep. The bounty hunter’s blade had cut just enough to draw blood, but no more.

“You’re sloppier than I thought,” he said, shifting in the snow to focus on the bounty hunter. “You could have severed my spine and killed me before I even knew you were there. Now you’ve lost the element of surprise.”

Samuel smirked and drew his second sword. “Do I look like a thief or a coward to you? I don’t steal from beggars, and I don’t kill helpless men. That cut was just my way of giving you a chance of drawing your weapon and dying like a man…even if you are a monster.”

The Shadow Queen, Chapter 26: Shadows and Light

Previous Chapter

Days after his encounter with the witch, Samuel’s body still ached all over. That pain didn’t compare to the bruises on his pride. He felt his blood boil as he return to the newly relocated bandit camp. Every lowlife who looked at him seemed to have a mocking grin on his face.

The Phantom of the Opera: The 1943 Film

What do Claude Rains, Lon Chaney, and Michael Crawford all have in common? They each starred as the titular antagonist in adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera which, while excellent on their own, missed key pieces of the puzzle that keep me from considering them to be on the same level as the original novel. The 1943 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, which we are going to talk about today, happens to go one step further in that, while solid on its own, I believe that it actually did some long-term damage to the franchise that carried over into subsequent adaptations.

The Shadow Queen, Chapter 25: Alone

Previous Chapter

By the standards of the monastery, the room was a luxurious one. While most quarters had little more than some tapestries, a few carved runes in the walls, and some soft mats to serve as a bed, Kajeel’s room had actual furniture – two well-made beds, which either implied a certain degree of trust or an equal degree of naiveté on the part of Kaoto. Most importantly, the monk had given them a room with a private bath – a luxury likely afforded only to important guests of the monastery.

Kajeel sank deep into steaming hot water, breathing out any tension left in her body. She drew the curtains about herself for privacy, although she hardly worried about that. Garyl was still in the library, and, considering the way he read, probably wouldn’t be back until the sun went down. Even if Garyl did make it back early, Kajeel didn’t feel that she had to worry about modesty anymore. It would be fun to see Garyl’s face flush when she raised her naked body out of the bath.