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Oren, Mike, and Rhys rave about stories that handle diversity well. They detail what’s refreshing about each story and how works benefit from incorporating greater diversity. As they highlight the good aspects of many stories, they also discuss where a few stories fall short. Read more »
Chris, Oren, and Mike discuss how to craft villains that the audience can relate to. They describe different types of sympathetic villains, weigh the pros and cons of making villains relateable, and dissect examples of from popular media. Then they rejoice as Oren finally admits … read more »
Mythcreants hosted a panel at this year’s GeekGirlCon in Seattle. Chris, Oren, Rhys, and I discussed gender in spec fic and how you can create matriarchal, patriarchal, or egalitarian societies for your stories. It was a lively event with many challenging questions from the audience. … read more »
Special guest Rhys joins Oren, Mike, and Chris for a question and answer session about the speculative fiction they loved as kids. They describe how they got into spec fic, what their favorite books and franchises were, and how their tastes changed as they got … read more »
Roleplaying games never go the way you expect, which is the entire point. Predictable campaigns are boring campaigns. Players are smart, and they need room to experiment. When things veer into strange territory, you get the best stories, tales you’ll still be talking about years … read more »
Mike, Chris, and Oren offer tips for depicting factions in stories. They describe how competing groups manifest in real life and list their favorite factions from Star Wars, Star Trek, Hunger Games, and Game of Thrones. Then they debate which Hogwarts houses they’re in. Read more »
Sometimes technology is too good to be true. It might be so powerful that problems become trivial. Get into a jam? Just pull out that deus ex machina, it’ll clear it right up for you. Or the tech’s power level is fine, but taken to … read more »
Sarah Gould joins Oren and Mike in discussing The Prime Directive, the most sacred law of Starfleet. They debate whether The Prime Directive is wise or moral. Oren questions the practicality of hiding all alien life, Mike describes ethics in anthropology, and Sarah vents about … read more »
Chris, Mike, and Oren discuss what a good beginning should accomplish. They analyze their favorite and least favorite openings, and describe different opening techniques. Mike raves about military scifi, Chris rants about unnecessary framing devices, and Oren actually defends something from criticism. Read more »
Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced an amazing piece of technology, the replicator. These devices work by the same principle as transporters – making matter out of energy (or reorganizing existing matter into new forms, depending on which technical specs you’re reading). They were mainly … read more »