Rob at the Louisiana Book Festival

I'll be appearing at the Louisiana Book Festival this weekend talking about Devil's Cape, so if you're in that area, come by and say hi.

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New interview live on HeroPress

I had a fun being interviewed again by HeroPress, where Devil's Cape is the book of the month for September. 
Check out the interview, where I talk about who I'd cast in a Devil's Cape movie, among other things. And stick around that site for other cool stuff.

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Coke's new 100-flavor soda machine

From Engadget:

Your typical soda fountain in a fast-food joint features eight boring choices, usually offering nothing more exotic than "Orange." It's been that way for decades, but one of the oldest players in the market is finally shattering that paradigm. Coca-Cola is introducing a machine that can pour 100 different flavors. Early prototypes underwent testing earlier this summer and second-gen units are headed for limited markets early next year -- the same thing they said about those self-cooling bottles last year. Assuming they do come to market, swapping out the highly-concentrated flavors is likened to changing a print cartridge, meaning new choices can come and go quickly depending on popularity. It all sounds refreshing, but we're not looking forward to the lines as the thirsty yet indecisive ponder 15 different flavors of Diet Coke.

Sign me up! Before we moved, I used to make a morning religious pilgrimage to the local QuikTrip where I could mix up my coffee any way I wanted. I could have lots of fun playing around with a 100-flavor soda machine (as long as I could avoid diet flavors).

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Wordle

Gary Greenwood's Stained, Glass Windows blog (and, before it, Pop Candy, if I remember correctly) put me onto this cool tool called Wordle, which creates word clouds from any large chunk of type you enter or paste there. The clouds give some prominence to the words used most frequently. For the heck of it, I plugged in the text of Devil's Cape, and the results look pretty cool, methinks.

You can click the image for a larger version.

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Doctor Camelot picture

A much-belated post: As I reported a long time ago, I won a caption contest over at HeroMachine, and as a result, artist extraordinaire and all-around-cool-dude Jeff Hebert agreed to illustrate a Devil's Cape character for me. I'm very happy with the results. Thanks, Jeff!

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Devil's Cape is "Book of the Month" at HeroPress

I was excited to see that Devil's Cape has been featured as the "Book of the Month" at Acrobatic Flea's HeroPress web site.

Here's an excerpt:

Rob Rogers' debut novel, the superhero/crime story Devil's Cape is simply phenomenal.

It's difficult to believe this is actually his first full-length piece of published writing as the story is told with the assured professionalism of an old pro.

Check out his full review here. And while you're there, browse around a bit. This is an excellent site with lots of discussion of gaming, sci-fi, and more. Thanks, Flea!

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Cool buzz from the Hero boards

I've got several blog entries planned and haven't gotten to them yet, so I'll try just knocking one out whenever I get a chance, even if it's slightly outdated (gee, isn't that how blogging is supposed to work)?

I've been a big Hero Games fan for years and my love of the Champions game in particular is one of the roots of Devil's Cape.

A couple of nice items came up on the Hero discussion boards about Devil's Cape and I thought I'd share them here. The first is the cool animated-style image of Bedlam that my old buddy Noah created. I've posted it to the left (or above, depending on how your browser window is set up).

The second is that some nice reviews have been posted there. I wanted to share one in particular, from forum member Log-Man. If you're a board member, you can read the post here. In case you're not (and if you're a gamer, it's a great community!), then I'll include the review in its entirety after the jump.


And here it is:

I finally finished the book last night. I know. I started reading it as soon as it came out, but I've had myriad distractions. Long story short: I was finally able to devote time to reading Devil's Cape. Before I move on to the review let me just say this: I generally hate reading stories written by people I know, even online acquaintances, because if they're awful I don't know what to say. Generally, if the writing is awful, I just don't say anything. That is not a problem here. Please believe me when I say this book is good. Damn good. In fact, I was blown away.

There are generally two types of supers prose out there: fan-fiction and mockery. I am pleased to see that a third category, genuine storytelling, is emerging at last. Devil's Cape is a real novel that supers fans can sink their teeth into. (This is a very good sign for supers prose readers when combined With Soon I Will Be Invincible in my mind.) The book logs in at over 400 pages, which is very long for this genre. The overall story being told is very complex, though, and requires a lot of space to explain the relationships, sub plots, and character development. I loved the framework for the novel with the clippings and the timeline at the beginning of each chapter.

The characters are intriguing and genuine. There are a lot of characters here, with many receiving long stories individually. There are heroes; legends of the past, a modern super team from another city and a trio of new supers. The three new heroes embody a number of myths and legends, from ancient Greece to Camelot to Voodoo. Each one is given plenty of time to develop into a character that we can sympathize with and root for.

Of course there are villains, too; a mysterious mastermind, squabbling mob bosses, the freakish circus of mercenaries, a sexy vampiric psychopath, street gangs, and even the city of Devil's Cape itself. While some of them are quite developed, there are others I really wanted to know more about. The Cirque du Obsurite is a wonderful collection of villainy. They are bloodthirsty killers with incredible power, yet they have spent their lives on the run, fearful of what may happen when anybody catches up with them. (The Behemoth is a great character, a ten foot monstrosity of muscles upon muscles that distort his tattoos. He eats raw meat and quotes Faulkner. Awesome.) We don't get time with the entire Cirque, though, and that would be my main quibble with the book. These characters have a lot of potential (Gork? What the hell is that??) but we really only see inside the heads of a few.

The setting is amazing, both the world in general and the city of Devil's Cape specifically. Most fictional cities give you a place for the action to occur. Devil's Cape is a fully realized character in the novel. The details and descriptions are just delicious. You can feel the humidity as you read. The best part, though, is that the images aren't forced down your throat in overly wordy passages. It's more like a puzzle being revealed piece by piece through to the very end. The final picture of Devil's Cape is one of true, complex realism.

My imagination was piqued by the fantasy level in play. There is no invulnerability, for example. Take Argonaut. Argonaut is Greek for "punching bag." He takes some massive damage without dying, but as he learns the hard way, gunshots can hurt like hell. Poor guy. And he's the hardest to hurt, apparently. Then there's Doctor Camelot. If I didn't know better I would swear that this book was written after the Iron Man movie came out. The level of detail with her battle armor is incredible. However, I find Cain Ducett's story the most fascinating, personally. His hyper senses make Daredevil look blind…umm, you know what I mean…and the descriptions of his awareness really help to get inside his head. His is a redemption story that fascinates long before he becomes Bedlam.

Ok, this review is going on too long. A final note from a gamer's perspective. The instinct is to wonder when we'll see this information in game form. The city is just rife with possibilities. I'm not sure I want to see the characters converted, however. Sometimes attempting to quantify something like this can lessen the wonder. I say leave the characters in the novel…even though I would love to see the Cirque du Obscurite take on Eurostar Just my opinion, of course, but we know the author is a gamer and it's being published by WotC (whom I imagine retain gaming material rights as well) so it's quite possible we'll see Devil's Cape: The Setting at some point in the future.

Rob, this is an incredible book. When the worst thing I can find to say about it is that I don't like the cover art, you know you have something special. Congratulations!

Due to the anonymity of the Internet, I'm not sure who Log-Man is, exactly, but I appreciated the kind review (and Noah's Bedlam picture as well).

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Jack Kilby, Texas Instruments, and the 50th anniversary of the integrated circuit

One of the many reasons I've been slow to post lately is that I've transitioned into a video production job at work. This is all new territory to me and that learning curve has meant extra hours at work and some extra exhaustion after work.

But I'd like to share one of my first major projects with you here: a video that I produced about the fiftieth anniversary of the integrated circuit (or microchip) and its inventor, Jack Kilby, who has become something of a hero of mine. Our world would be a very different place without him. This project took a lot of hours of work (from me and many others), and I'm proud of the result. The video is also on TI's web site and playing at a couple of local museums. One really cool benefit of working on the video was the opportunity to work with an old, old friend of mine (like since fourth grade), Traylor Woodall, who did the outstanding animated opening.

It's 8 minutes and 39 seconds long. If you don't feel like investing that much time now, then I'd recommend at least reading a bit about the life of Jack Kilby here or elsewhere. He was an astounding man with an impact on our world comparable to Thomas Edison's.

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Stop in the name of corporate America

Not up to regular blogging yet, but this video is a must see.

Yes, some of my projects seem like this.


http://view.break.com/542649 - Watch more free videos

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Back from vacation

I seriously overestimated the amount of time and energy I would have to catch up on blogging and correspondance while on vacation. And of course now that I'm back, I'm busy playing catchup (and getting ready for the ArmadilloCon convention this weekend).

I'll try to post some more soon. I do have some reviews and other fun stuff I want to share.

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Conan caption contest

Jolly Jeff Hebert of HeroMachine fame has an ongoing caption contest feature where he strips the dialogue from a panel of a comic book and then gets readers to submit funny text to insert. Much comedy ensues. I've entered a caption or two here or there, but I've never won the contest.

Until now.
And what better place and time than in a contest supported by another Jeff buddy of mine, the Evil DM?

Here's the link to the contest announcement. Be sure to check out both Jeffs' sites.

And I'm very psyched about my prize: a black and white drawing from Jeff Hebert. I'm thinking I'll ask him to draw a character from Devil's Cape: it's just a question of which one.

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Why has Rob been slow to post?

Kind of a long story, but I've been kind of... tied up.



Yeah, okay. Sorry about that. Kind of disturbing, huh?

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Sticky problem in Sugar Land, Texas

According to numerous news outlets (this one picked up from Excite):

5,000 gallons of molasses spill on Texas highway

Jul 18, 6:37 AM (ET)

SUGAR LAND, Texas (AP) - A sticky mess has been cleaned up after an overturned tanker truck poured 5,000 gallons of molasses onto a major Texas highway.

Drivers heading to Sugar Land were rerouted Thursday after the afternoon accident shut down Texas 6 at Southwest Freeway for eight hours.

City of Sugar Land spokeswoman Pat Pollicoff told The Houston Chronicle the road was closed until midnight Thursday because of the coating of "healthy, all natural molasses." The spilled molasses was supposed to be used in cattle food.

The 26-year-old driver of the truck, Joe Albert Loya, was taken to a hospital with minor head injuries.

A huge molasses spill. In Sugar Land. The jokes practically write themselves, don't they? The road will be slow going for a while.

Sigh. Yeah, I know. The blog's awfully dusty. I'll try to pick up. This seemed like a place to start.

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Another Geekerati update

Sigh. We jumped in live so quickly I didn't get a chance to post a new message here. The interview is over--it looks like it had about 16 minutes of dead air. They're going to try to get that edited out so that it can be downloaded as a more or less clean whole, but I'm not sure what the time frame is on that. I'll post more when I find out. On the positive side, the interviewers were nice all around and I enjoyed the interview.

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Geekerati update

We seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties. They're trying to reschedule it for a few minutes later. I'll post again as soon as I know when that is. Sigh.

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