To paraphrase a personal icon of mine: ‘To Business!’
Katsucon was, summarily, amazing. The panels were huge hits, and then some. I was really delighted by how the panels filled up and how engaging they were. In years past, it’s been hard to guess how a specific panel might be received but every event this weekend was pretty much standing-room only. It was a delight and thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came out. Continue reading
There’s a lot going on!
When I sat down to write this update, I couldn’t figure out which direction to begin. So how about all of them?
Rhest of the Time (Rhest for the Wicked 2) is nearing completion. The manuscript is going through the last few edits and will be going to a copyeditor at the end of the week. Assuming that goes well, it will be off to the presses shortly thereafter. I don’t have a release date yet, but I expect before the summer. Maybe even sooner? Continue reading
To celebrate the Rhest for the Wicked Short Film Kickstarter, there’s a new Rhest short story today! Rhest and the Polar Bear is a quick, simple smash-n-grab story for anybody curious about who this crazy street merc and what kind of a world he inhabits. If you’re a new reader, or been following Rhest’s adventures for a while, you’ll get a kick out of it. Check it out, in the Short & Serials section now.
It’s my week off and I’m buried in dayjob-work and family obligations, so instead of a text update, how about a trailer a friend of mine made? Enjoy!
Rhest for the Wicked Short Film Update #10
A characteristic of Rhest for the Wicked and several of the short stories (as well as subsequent books in the continuity) is that of the unknown. Rhest’s world was inspired by Robert Howard and similar writers from the dawn of the 20th Century. Howard – famous for Conan among many other stories – created a very rough outline for his world but never felt beholden to it.
Rhest comes from that thinking. Much of modern fiction today is replete with stories that are tangible, they are so realistic. Even far-out stories of sci-fi and fantasy often have deeply developed and highly plausible systems.
That is truly masterful and inspired storytelling, but it isn’t universally necessary. Sometimes, it’s even problematic. I don’t care for Rhest’s stories to ever explain what a ghost is (or isn’t). I don’t want the existence of zombies to be explained in physiologically-plausible detail.
The world needs more mystery.
As such, Rhest’s stories are often devoid of a few lines here and there that might explain the hows and whys. That’s deliberate. Rhest inhabits a world he doesn’t fully understand because nobody fully understands their world. Much of what we see and interact with, we take on trust. We focus less on the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ and worry more about the ‘what’s next’.
It’s that spirit I want to help bring back in small fashion to movies and television. It’s that spirit, that commitment to internally-consistent-yet-narratively-ambiguous storytelling, that this film is meant to promote.
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If you’d like to contribute, please learn more about the kickstarter by going here.
Teach The Sky 