gaming

Vacation Report

What an incredible vacation our trip to Seattle for PAX West was! Allow me to spam you with 154 - I mean 8 - photos.

Seattle brought its A-game, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I *know* it's usually overcast and drizzly, but 3/4 of our visits, the weather's been great. Makes it difficult not to move there...but I know better, dammit.

Despite the fact that PAX has grown into a juggernaut of a worldwide gaming convention empire, it honestly felt exactly the same as it did when we attended 14 years ago. A heavy emphasis on small, independent PC gaming studios, tabletop gaming and TCGs. Tons of playable demos, tournaments and freeplay for fun.

There weren't many AAA game studios there, but we did go to a jaw-dropping The Witcher 3 panel, where we saw half an hour of gameplay from the upcoming Songs of the Past expansion. And Mr. Jennsen got to immerse himself in the nostalgia of his beloved '80s adventure games at a panel with Sierra Online alumns, including Jane Jensen (no relation, lol, but I did write about her Gabriel Knight series just a few weeks ago), and the FMV gaming retrospective museum.

Somehow, despite visiting Seattle at least 5 previous times over the years, we had never gone to Pike Place Market. Why didn't anyone tell us how cool it is? Fresh fish and flower stands, hidden alleys with quirky stores full of genuinely unique items, endless levels that wind down to the waterfront.

10/10, do recommend. Good show PAX. Good show, Seattle.

Pictures:

1) How much fun did I have? This much fun.

2) and 3) Seattle was seriously showing off all weekend.

4) Then and Now: me playing game demos at PAX in 2012 and 2026. Not much has changed, lol.

5) Do I have a weakness for giant robots shooting lasers in space? YES I DO.

6) I somehow did not know that this game released earlier this year. It's a survival/strategy/base builder game, and you get to play as Janeway. YOU GET TO PLAY AS JANEWAY.

7) Golden Age Collectibles at Pike Place Market. This is one of the coolest stores I have ever had the pleasure of entering. At first glance, you think they have the standard geeky memoriabilia and trinkets you find at every geek store or convention. But no; 80% of the items, I had never seen anywhere before. We made out like bandits.

8) BLMF Literary Saloon (also at Pike Place Market). When you walk in, it looks like just another hole-in-the-wall used bookstore. It is not. You wouldn't believe the SF gems hiding in this chaos. Interesting astronomy/physics books, too! And I assume all the other genres. The owner was delightful & displayed ready knowledge of any book we mentioned (including its location in the store if he had it). He and Mr. Jennsen geeked out over Neuromancer - then he and I geeked out over Foundation. What a wonderful store!

So there you go. Now to finish the first draft of Naked Singularity!

Gabriel Knight

I've talked often about how important the Mass Effect video games were to my becoming a writer. But long before there was Mass Effect, there was Gabriel Knight. Gabriel Knight 3, to be precise.

My husband was a lifelong PC gamer and Sierra Online fanatic, and GK1 and 2 had already won multiple Game of the Year awards and much critical acclaim. But me? I was an attorney, a former bookworm who no longer had much desire to read, write, or generally have any fun whatsoever. Well, GK3 came along, and he saw his chance. He wooed me in with teasers of a fabulous mystery, vampires, the Holy Grail, and a female computer nerd as a playable secondary main character. So I gave it a try.

I was enraptured! I devoured the game, twice in a row - the first video game I'd played since Super Mario Bros on the NES. Enraptured enough to then go back and play GK1 and 2, both equally incredible stories. So why were they incredible? A couple of reasons, but above all, due to creater and writer Jane Jensen. She envisioned telling complex, nuanced, novel-worthy stories within the medium of video games - then figured out how to do it.

Right person, right idea, right time. The Gabriel Knight trilogy spans several leaps in the technological capabilities of video games, from the 2D point-and-click adventure style of GK1, to the industry's brief (and weird to our modern eyes) experiment with full-motion video in GK2, to the arrival of 3D graphics and a free camera in GK3. Each leap forward gave Jensen more tools with which to tell a deeper story, and she took full advantage of them all. The gameplay of each installment can be clunky to modern gamers (each one in its own particular way), but the stories are as rich and compelling as anything we have today.

I didn't rush off to embrace my inner writer immediately upon completing my Gabriel Knight binge. But I DID become an avid video gamer because of it, and the first spark of creativity, that in time burnt away the lawyerly outer shell, was lit. And when Mass Effect crashed into my life 8 years later, I was ready for what happened next.

Why do I post this today? Because journalist Elías Casella has published an excellent deep dive into the making of these games and how their development interwove with Jane Jensen's journey, the rise and fall of Sierra Online, and the technological leaps that transformed PC gaming in the 1990s. If you are at all interested in this topic, give it a read: https://www.421.news/en/gabriel-knight-sierra-games-en/

Exodus Extended Gameplay Reveal

You all know I’m a gamer. Especially story/character-driven RPGs. Story/character-driven SCIFI RPGs? My happy place.

This past weekend was a big one for gaming, with a ton of trailers and reveals from the Summer GameFest, Future Gaming Show and PC Gaming Show. Most importantly, we got to see 20 minutes of EXODUS!

And I’m really happy with what I saw. The character animations, cut scenes and combat all looked much improved over earlier glimpses. Cue the hype meter! EXODUS will release in early 2027 (hopefully).

You can watch the full 20 minutes of gameplay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOLJh9EEQOw.

P.S.: The Jun PC shown is just the default - you can customize your character’s gender and appearance.

P.P.S.: You get an Awakened dog as a companion! (Not a pet, a friend - he’s sentient.)

P.P.P.S.: They should’ve let a marketing person or voice actor do the commentary. The game producer is not exactly charismatic, lol.

2025 Year In Review

It's time for a 2025 Year in Review! The immediacy of social media means important posts are quickly forgotten in favor of the Next New Thing, and I think it's important to pause every now and then and celebrate the many good things that happened as the year flew by.

I published 2 novels: THE UNIVERSE WITHIN (wrapping up the Cosmic Shores trilogy of stand-alone sci-fi adventure novels) and LIMINAL SPACE (the first book in the final trilogy of the Amaranthe universe).

THE THIEF was a rock-star of a novel this year, winning the Indie Author Project Sci-Fi Book of the Year and being named one of the best Alien Sci-Fi Novels of the Year by Discover Sci-Fi. (Yes, yes, and there was a tiny kerfuffle around the SPSFC in which The Thief was thrust into a semi-starring role. Let me tell you, going viral on X is not for the faint of heart....)

Five of my short stories landed on the moon! Thanks to the incredible Lunar Codex project and Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines' groundbreaking missions, "Apogee," "Solatium," "Venatoris," "Re/Genesis" and "Chrysalis" will reside forever in the stars.

I was a Pro at Dragon Con again this year, speaking on some fascinating panels, selling books and meeting awesome readers and authors at what is seriously the craziest geek con on the planet. I also attended Lilac City Comicon and the Local Author Celebration by the Community Library Network, fulfilling a promise to myself to put down roots in my new Inland Northwest home by getting involved in the regional author community.

Oh, and I sold my 700,000th story. Thank you, all of you, for enabling me to do what I love!

Favorite book I read this year? House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds; I deeply love that book. But it was a reread, so favorite first-time read of the year? Probably Ancilliary Justice by Ann Leckie; it deserves all the accolades it received. Favorite non-fiction? The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene; the prospect of multiverses is real science, guys.

Favorite video game? Baldur's Gate 3, again. It should be Clair Obscur, but I disliked the narrative rug-pull at the end. Also, Kingdoms Reborn turned out to be a delightful city-builder of a game!

What about 2026? THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING will definitely release, and I'll start writing NAKED SINGULARITY, the final novel in the 25-book Amaranthe saga (* sobs *). More regional author events are on tap, including my first time appearing at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle. I believe there's another lunar landing or two (or...four??) on the schedule, too.

I'm genuinely happy with the year 2025 shaped up to be, and excited for the opportunities waiting to ambush me in 2026.

How about you? What were the highlights of your 2025?