Maps for TTSS

While excavating the drawers of my former desk, I came across a bunch of development sketches for Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre (TTSS), my Mass Effect novel from 2019. It’s mostly maps and scenography plans.

Here’s an evolution of the overall itinerary:

Status Report

It’s been a while! I regretfully admit that I’ve all but forgotten about this website and my self-imposed obligation to post monthly. Ah, well. It’s happened before, and it will surely happen again. At least this time, I have a decent excuse.

I’ve been working on a story — an original piece — that’s been on my mind a long time now, but lacked a setting till recently. I know that sounds weird — how can you even conceptualize a story without a setting? Well, I totally can! I had some vague ideas but the vagueness was so vast that it was barely discernible from void. And then, pretty much out of nowhere, I knew how to fill that void; this in turn allowed me to start getting things from my head and onto the page.

A New Home for Themed Challenges and Halls of Fame – Redux

Five years after I wrote a post with the same title, announcing the move of the community archives of recorded Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer games from their original abode on the Bioware Social Network forums (that were being shut down at the time) to a dedicated website at www.prestaciouschallenges.com, I made my old dream come true and turned those archives into an online database accessible through a website of my own making at mehof.smehur.com.

This project has taken me over half a year (and counting) of daily work, fueled in equal parts by the intractable passion for programming and the undying fandom zeal, and laced with so much fun that I’m sure to remember it fondly forever. I’m so very glad and proud that it’s finally live (although it’s still not 100% done).

My 2020 in Books

I managed to read 26 books in 2020. That’s 6 more than last year and more than twice as many as in 2017. I dare say I’m moving up in the world! As usual, it was a mixed bag: most were good, a few were bad, and one or two were amazing. Here’s the list with short reviews:

An Exercise in Self-Critique 4

This is the fourth post in the series where I critique the beginnings of my own stories, written long ago, and try to make them better. Here are the previous posts:

The usual method is to look at the first 250 words and examine/edit that excerpt in detail. But today I’ll do something different. I want to talk about some of the material that I cut from Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre, the Mass Effect fanfiction novel I finished last year, and explain why it never made it into the final version.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light

I’ve been playing Destiny 2 on a daily basis for over a year now. Needless to say, I mostly find it enjoyable. Its environments are incredibly beautiful, the movement is smooth and the combat satisfying. For the most part, it’s a rather brainless, easy game; a far cry from ME3MP, which I found (and still find) difficult and stressful, or Rocket League, with its constant pressure to get good or get lost. The challenging parts of Destiny 2 are neatly segregated away so you must opt into them if challenge is what you desire. Otherwise it’s a safe and relaxing experience that many find repetitive and boring; but I like it.