Ask Me Anything: WhtKnt

What is your favorite way to consume your science fiction, fantasy and horror?

What are some horror movies that you like?

Backstory on your name?
A game opinion everyone is wrong about?

I need to know everything about
and

A DS9 (DeepSpace 9) fan you say? What is your thoughts on Babelyn 5? Of the two I'm more to B5

I have to ask about your Savage Worlds supplement in the works! What setting is it?

Movies, mostly. I don't read nearly as much as I should, these days.
Name one. I enjoy them all. I guess my favorites are films where they don't show the monster until the last scene, leaving it to your imagination. J-horror is good for this.

Rather than the best book you've ever read, what is the book you most like to recommend to other people? (Feel free to also post up the what you think is the best book you ever read!)

What is your favorite video game you played as a kid? What is your favorite video game to play now?

What is it about the Cyberpunk genre that you don't like?

Now that's quite the story and it goes back a long way. In the 80's, I was active on local BBSes as Caramon Majere, a character I identify strongly with from the Dragonlance Saga. As time went on, it occurred to me that using a copywritten character name, even for personal use, could be problematic, so I developed a character called the Knight of the White Rose and began using that name regularly. Come the Internet and AOL.com and the Knight of the White Rose was a bitch to type every time, so I shortened it to White Knight. Eventually, it got shortened again to WhtKnt and that's where we are today.

Hmmm. I've had a lot of people tell me about the "oversimplification" of Savage Worlds, but I don't find it so. It's supposed to be "fast, furious, fun!" and it plays as such. It was largely intended to emulate the old west dramas and it works for that. It's an action game and it plays like one.

My novels are perpetual projects that I go back to now and again. One day, one of them might actually be finished and ready for editing. The main one is a steampunk novel titled "Jonathon Cross and the Temples of Venus". It's part of a trilogy: "Johnathon Cross and the Caverns of Mars" and Jonathon Cross and the Craters of Luna". It's set on an alternate Earth in the late Victorian Era. In this universe, the planets float in something called the aether, as opposed to a vacuum. Venus, being a younger planet than Earth, is like Earth of the past, a jungle world complete with dinosaurs and lizard people. Mars is an older world and contains the remnants of a past civilization. And Luna, well, I'll keep that a secret for now. Jonathon Cross is an ordinary young man who longs for adventure, and it finds him in the form of an elven princess, a self-aware steam-powered automaton, and a dwarf named Dugger. The princess is being pursued by... well, I don't want to give too much away.

The cats are a 14-year old black domestic shorthair named Salem, a much younger black domestic shorthair named Wingnut, and the baby, Lunar, a part-Maine Coon whose picture is my profile pic. Salem was named by my wife. Wingnut's name comes from a character of mine; a mechanic on a starship who had a cat named Wingnut. Lunar was named Luna, but we discovered that we were mistaken about his gender, so since he had already learned that name, we just added an R.

Oddly enough, I have never watched Bab5. I need to borrow my friend's copy of the series and check it out.

My Savage Worlds setting emulates the world of my novel. It is a fantasy steampunk setting in Earth's Victorian Era, but elves, dwarves, and other trappings of fantasy exist. Magic is real and great airships travel the aether with the aid of oxigum, a gum arabic substance infused with pure oxygen crystals. The solar system is as it was thought of in the Victorian Era; Venus is a hothouse jungle with dinosaurs and lizard people, Mars is a desert world with the remnants of canals of a once-great civilization.

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. Don't see the movie; read the book! The book is so much better. I first read it when I was 14 years old and I've worn out six copies since that time. Other great books I recommend are the Riverworld saga by Philip José Farmer and the Dragonlance series (the original trilogy and the Time of the Twins trilogy) by Margaret Wise and Tracy Hickman.

I remember watching a Riverworld movie ages ago and finding it kind of interesting. And then reading it's based on a series of novels that are supposed to be much better. Never got around to reading them, but they've always been kind of on my list since then.

As a kid, it was the Atari 2600 (and later, the 5200). In arcades, I often played Tempest, Black Tiger, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Dragon's Lair. Nowadays. I enjoy two different styles of games. When I want to play strategy, I play Civilization. When I just want to relax and have some fun, I play any of several Lego games that I own.

I just never developed a taste for it. I've tried a couple of times to get into it, but I just can't grok it. I think that a lot of it stems from my preference for bright and shiny futures instead of dystopian.

Definitely worth a read! The books are infinitely better than the half-assed crappy movies that were made by the SciFy channel.

Babylon 5 is a masterpiece of storytelling. I cannot think of a series I'd recommend more highly!

The Riverworld books are quite a trip and well worth a read through. I want to say there's a GURPS supplement available for the setting although I don't think I've ever seen it in the wild.

As we're all currently living in a dystopian future, I'd like to believe a shinier future is waiting for us...