An RPG you have time to play
Sleeping Gods is a different sort of RPG. Or board game. Or both. See, this is where it gets a little hybridy. It’s a board game with a map book, storybook, character placards, beautifully-illustrated encounter and monster cards, and XP that carries over between...
The Rosie / Terminator Continuum
Imagine a future where you wake up to a freshly brewed coffee and the morning news, provided by your personal robotic assistant. You dodge deftly aside as another robot cleans your floors, already started on the daily household chores; it would have avoided you, but...
Who’s Your Crew?
A starship is just a hull with some engines and maybe guns. It’s the crew inside that makes it truly special. Zipping back and forth across the cosmos would be boring (and probably more dangerous) alone. A good captain makes sure to surround themselves with the best...
Futurama, but in the past
While movie theaters have been shut down and people staying home, Netflix has become the heartbeat of the entertainment world (and maybe it has been for a while, but now it’s more obvious). It’s where new shows are discovered, where my “I’ve been meaning to watch that...
“What If…?” but for Star Wars
OK, so all of us have some free time on our hands now and then. Even before “What If…?” became a big thing on Disney+, I’d had a version in my mind for the Star Wars universe. The “why this will never turn into a book” should be painfully obvious (I don’t own the IP...
You had me at lightsabers
Ask any child from the Star Wars era whether they’d like to play with a lightsaber, and it’s a good bet you’ll get an enthusiastic "YES!" Yet from cardboard tubes to telescoping light-up plastic replicas, nothing quite did the trick.Why?First and foremost, you...
Your new genes won’t be denim
Science news is an endless drumbeat of “on the verge” when it comes to gene therapy. It’s almost become background noise by now. In and of itself, the potential applications are as amazing as the promise that we're getting closer every day. AIDS, MS, blindness,...
Wizarding Real Estate
Fantasy stories take us to wondrous places, whisking us off to the impossible, the breathtaking, occasionally the terrifying. Crystalline forests, volcanic islands, floating continents, cities of twisting spires and perilous bridges; the list is nigh endless.It seems,...
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Sequel
When I first heard that there was going to be a third movie in the Bill & Ted “franchise,” I cringed. Hollywood has been awash for years in the lazy, bottom-feeding nostalgia that dredged up Willy Wonka, Point Break, and every attempt to adapt the Fantastic...
A License to Spoof
When Author Scrapheap comes around, you’re often subjected to half-baked or off-kilter ideas that had little hope of turning into anything worthwhile. Well, this entry into the list is the end-all, be-all of poor ideas.FOOPS.It’s just “spoof,” backward. It only gets...