It’s that time again, my monthly recap of my writing progress, interesting articles, videos, and podcasts I read/watched/listened to, and books I finished. Check out the past installments here.

This past month saw the end of three things I’ve watched and read for a long time.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first big story arc came to a close in spectacular fashion (it was midnight on May 1 by the time I left the theater so I’m counting it in this month).

HBO’s Game of Thrones went out like a dumpster fire that was pushed off of the Grand Canyon. Enough ink has been spilled complaining about how the creators let everyone down (including the cast it seems), so I’ll just add two more things.

First, it’s a good lesson to everyone that it’s OK to move on from something you love. Clearly, the creators wanted to move on with their lives and not take another 3 years to properly close out the show (and who could blame them), but instead of stepping aside and letting someone else bring the show in for a smoother landing, they insisted on two shorter seasons and then spent a year writing and filming one of the most-rushed, lackluster endings I’ve ever seen to a TV show.

And second, I am actually more excited now than I have been in a long time to read the next book. Which I didn’t think was possible at this point.

Finally, I finished the last book of Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series. More on that below.

Writing update

I am THIS (puts thumb and forefinger very close to each other) close to finishing Guild of Tokens.

It will definitely be out next month, as I am entering the book in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, which opens for entries on June 15.

Links and things

• Jimmy Maher has been chronicling the history of computer entertainment year-by-year on his blog, The Digital Antiquarian, since 2011. As a lover of point-and-click adventure games, I wish I had found this site sooner. Luckily, Ron Gilbert, creator of Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island, linked to Jimmy’s Ten Great Adventure Game Puzzles last year, and I spent several hours digging through the voluminous archives to find posts about my favorite games, which I finally got around to reading this month. Here they are:
  • • A New Force in Games: inside the founding of LucasArts
    • The creation of the SCUMM engine and Maniac Mansion
    • How Loom broke the adventure game mold
    • How Ron Gilbert pushed back against bad adventure game design in The Secret of Monkey Island
    • How movies and games intersected in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ultimate preview
• I’ve been trying to convince my older kids to watch the new DuckTales show for two years, but they refuse. So I put on a random episode for my 2-year old, who proceeded to ignore it entirely, but what a doozy of an episode I picked!

Stuff for writers

• Time to ditch Mailchimp?
  • David Gaughran breaks down the latest changes to Mailchimp, which greatly increase monthly costs by counting unsubscribed subscribers in your audience and which removes features from the free and standard plans. Includes a robust discussion in the comments of mailing list alternatives.
• The Amazon conundrum, by Lindsay Buroker
• How to use Headliner to promote your audiobook on your social media channels

Books I read

• Assassin’s Fate, by Robin Hobb
  • I started reading this series in 2015, one trilogy/quadrilogy per year, so it’s been a long-ish journey, although not as long as those readers who have been there since the first book came out in 1996. Highly recommended if you like classic fantasy, as it features a great combination of characters, world-building, and magic.