The short explanation for the long silence after I posted my last article here is simple: I’ve been posting on Patreon. For several years now I’ve been posting about two chapters of the book I’m working on every week there along with any extra information I have.
There are other reasons, sure. I worked on an unrelated article for this site over the last few months, and after two drafts, decided that the subject matter just doesn’t come out the way I want it to. It was about Magic: The Gathering, a collectable trading card game that I play from time to time. The question the article set out to answer was: Is Magic: The Gathering a Pay To Win game? The answer was an undeniable “yes” but even more so than any other collectable trading card game in history, since Hasbro is busy pushing their customer base to their spending tolerance limit and beyond. When I started researching the article, things weren’t so bad in my opinion, but their current release schedule and conduct expose such greedy behaviour, that some of the most dogged fans of the game have quit altogether. It’s a shame, because there are still a few inexpensive ways to get into the hobby, which I used to socialize as Covid lockdowns ended, but it’s difficult to ignore the negatives. In short, the article isn’t coming out mainly out of respect for the amazing creative designers who work on the game and have no part in deciding how its presented, priced or when it’s released. Fans of Magic: The Gathering also don’t need me to talk about the trouble surrounding our game because they already know all about it. Let’s move on, shall we?
My latest book, Spinward Fringe Broadcast 19: Samurai Squadron Part II, is almost finished. The manuscript is complete and the final editing pass is in the works. It’ll be released this November, but I won’t be offering a preorder this time around. I go into more detail on that and a couple of other things on Patreon, where I post most of my content now, so take a trip over. You can make a free account and see some of what I do there without having to chip in.
Randolph Lalonde 