A Good Brew is Hard to Find

In my last post, I dusted off the intro from the Tavern Wench Journal choose-your-own-adventure story, and I sort of got caught up in reading it. Turns out, despite being ten years old, it still holds up, and it's pretty damn funny (although, I admittedly have a warped sense of humor). I pitched the idea of self-releasing the story as an e-book to collaborator Ahimsa Kerp and artist Chris Turk, and they gave me the thumbs up, so—bam!—here it is.

I present to you A Good Brew is Hard to Find in its entirety, with active hyperlinks so you can lead the Wench, Captain, and Hunchback in the adventure of their lives. You'll find it to be very much in the vein of Douglas Adams, but a bit naughtier and sillier. Still, with pirates, ninja-vampires, big-headed aliens, a mad alchemist, and ensorcelled beer, what would you expect?

From Tavern Wench to Mettlefetchers and Beyond!

Alas, the Mettlefetchers Kickstarter campaign died last week with a pathetic little whimper. Collaborator Ahimsa Kerp and I really thought the project would elicit more attention and excitement, particularly with the great press it got from SF Signal and Wendy Wagner at Opera Buffo, but so it goes with crowdsourcing. We accept the judgment of the Internet masses and have shelved the project for now, but fret not—if you were excited about the prospect of an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure style spec-fiction book, rest assured I’ll be revisiting the concept again in the near future. With today’s e-reading technology, it just makes too much sense. Hell, Ahimsa and I explored the CYOA concept all the way back in 2003 with a little magazine called Tavern Wench Journal of Lore.

It all started back in the late 90’s. I was killing time during a summer internship and thought it’d be cool to launch my own fantasy e-zine. To set the tone I was shooting for—edgy, fun, and irreverent—I named the zine Tavern Wench.