Bennett North

WXR16 recap, finally!

I’m back from my brother’s wedding and the flood has been more or less taken care of, so I have time to sit down and write a cruise recap. Here goes!

Cruise vlog teaser trailer and bonus post-vacation disaster

My dad picked me up at the airport last night, after my flight home from Ft. Lauderdale and the Writing Excuses Retreat cruise to the eastern Caribbean. “I think a mouse died in the wall while you were gone,” he said offhandedly. “There’s a smell.” Yes, there was a smell. If you’ve ever had aContinue reading “Cruise vlog teaser trailer and bonus post-vacation disaster”

WorldCon recap!

Last Wednesday, I flew to Madison, WI, to meet up with Aimee Ogden so the two of us could undertake the 7 hour drive to Kansas City, MO. That meant I had to get up at 2:45 am for a 5:00 flight out of Boston, so I could get to Madison by 9:30 am, andContinue reading “WorldCon recap!”

WorldCon plans

In two days I’ll be at my first ever WorldCon. It’s the first SFF con I’ve ever gone to, though not the first con by a long shot. I’ll be traveling with Aimee Ogden, who just sold three short stories last week, like a rock star, and who I totally won’t be killing and eatingContinue reading “WorldCon plans”

Cold Turkey Writer

Here’s a thing you must do right now if you are easily distracted like me and can’t focus on writing: Go to Cold Turkey Writer and download the app. It’s free, unless you like it enough that you want the pro version. What it does is, when you open the app, it opens to fullContinue reading “Cold Turkey Writer”

Life update

My buddy Aimee Ogden received the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award at the International Space Development Conference yesterday in San Juan, Puerto Rico for her amazing short story “Dear Ammi.” Aimee has been letting me read her still unpublished stuff in the guise of critiquing it, as if it even needs it, and letContinue reading “Life update”

Anyone remember Fallout Shelter?

Hey, remember Fallout Shelter? That free iPhone game that everyone played the week it came out and then slowly stopped mentioning after that? Yeah, that one. I still play it now and then, mainly as a way to make myself wake up in the mornings. It’s more effective to open Fallout Shelter than hit theContinue reading “Anyone remember Fallout Shelter?”

Game Review: Rust

Last week, many players of the survival sandbox game Rust woke up to a sudden, surprising change in their characters—half of them were now female. This was a permanent change, and was linked to players’ accounts so it would stay the same across different servers. Previously, the game had randomly assigned skin color and, oddly,Continue reading “Game Review: Rust”

Game Review: Sunless Sea

Thirty years ago, the city of London was stolen by bats. Now it’s in the Unterzee, that dark ocean below the Earth’s surface, and you’re a zee captain, sailing from port to port. Sunless Sea is a Steam game that started as a browser game called Fallen London. You can still play Fallen London forContinue reading “Game Review: Sunless Sea”

This is, in fact, a review of ARK: Survival Evolved

Last August I bought ARK: Survival Evolved, the fun new early access dinosaur survival game, and just barely made it to the character creation screen before having to ask Steam for a refund, since it demanded way too much of my old, laggy laptop. This week, with my new iMac and 24 GB of RAM,Continue reading “This is, in fact, a review of ARK: Survival Evolved”