Baycon is coming up this weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area ( http://baycon.org/bcwp/ ), with the theme “It’s all about the Space” featuring guest of honor and star trek alumni, David Gerrold. Because of this, and some speculation I saw, I decided to put my list together of who I’d like to play the next […]
Top 5 Games of 2015
Those of you who know me well or follow my writings through Doomtown: Reloaded know I’m quite a bit of a gamer and gambler, specially with https://www.slotsbaby.com I don’t really do video games, partially because I stare at a screen enough for day job and writing, partially because I have pretty bad tendinitis in my wrists/elbows […]
Blog Neglect Correction!
Well I haven’t posted here in forrrrrever. Sorry about that, folk! Things over on my side have been rather busy. I have at least 4-5 new Doomtown: Reloaded fictions out that rather than link individually, can be easily found here as they’ve been compiled by an awesome fan: https://doomtownarchives.wordpress.com/ It is missing the “Dirty Deeds” set […]
Writing Through Tendonitis
Anyone who knows me well knows I have terrible tendinitis in my wrists. I type a lot for the day job, and on top of that my favorite hobbies are: playing piano, playing guitar and writing — of which I type about 120 words per minute or so, which is probably in no small part […]
Doomtown Frontier Justice Set Review
Doomtown: Reloaded Frontier Justice – The Definitive Set Review! At least definitive to me. I go by card by card assigning a grade to each card in the set. Did this for the first two and people have contacted me saying they missed it, so here we go. I usually like to post these up […]
That’s Entertainment!
Okay, so I stole the title of this blog from my good buddy, Robert Neilson’s short story collection, which I’d super link right here to promote but I seem to be unable to find it online. He stole it, likely, from the song from The Band Wagon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik8igCUb2i8 Ahh… Fred Astaire. The good ol days […]
Some Trips To Gomorra and a Semi-Announcement Wow! A lot has gone on these last couple months. Been plugging away at the Doomtown: Reloaded stories, which you’ve seen if you follow my facebook feed at all. If not, here’s a bunch of them for you to catch up on with some brief commentary which you […]
Doomtown: Reloaded – Wrting in the Weird, Weird West!
Well I’ve certainly been remiss in updating my blog for a long time. I’m still writing quite a bit, more than ever truth be told. Around November last year my first fiction piece came out for the card game Doomtown: Reloaded. For those that don’t know, Doomtown is an expandable card game where you build […]
Shake It Off, Shake it Off — A Follow Up Conversation About Bullying
Something amazing happened this last week. Something so rare that it’s sent waves across the internet because of pure awesomeness and generosity. What’s that? Is it an empowering message via Taylor Swift about pointless criticism? Even better! Stephenie Meyer is using her clout as one of the most successful writers of this century and as […]
A Time To Die!
Does this post mean it’s time to kill my blog? No! This is a review of a new book by debut author Nadine Brandes. A Dystopian book with a Christian outlook. What would you do if you knew you only had one more day? (Points for anyone who gets the reference) Anyway, I’m reviewing a […]
End Of Summer Update
Hello friends and readers! Answer: not updating my blog, certainly. I had a weird period over June/July where I kept getting sick repeatedly and it sapped my energy pretty bad. My goal for the summer was to write a hard science-fiction novella for the Panverse novella series edited by the glorious Dario Ciriello (who you […]
Haters Gonna Hate: Ending Exclusivity In Fandom
I attended a science fiction convention earlier this year, and as I’ve invariably seen at various cons around the country, a panel went off-topic to make snide remarks about the novel Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. Ever since wildly successful movies were made of her books, those involved in the science fiction community at large, professional […]
Interview of Me!
The wonderful folk over at geekgirlinlove.com did an interview of me which was posted today. You can find it here: http://geekgirlinlove.com/2014/02/03/author-interview-jonathan-del-arroz/
Re: On Honesty and Self-Censorship
http://dariospeaks.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/on-honesty-and-self-censorship/ My friend who is a great author, editor and publisher posted the above blog this morning which really got me thinking. One, I’m a bit shocked that writers are really afraid of government surveillance to that degree. While I think it’s definitely a bad road we’re going down, I don’t think there’s a danger […]
RustyCon 2014
I have a tendency to walk away from most cons saying “that was the most fun I had at a con in my life!” Well, I’m not certain anything can actually top Dragon*Con 2012, the last year where Anne McCaffrey’s Worlds had its own track, and I had the privilege of really dialing in the […]
Why The State of Journalism Is SCARY or “Mick Fleetwood, the Mainstream Media and Me!”
Well then, I’ve been super quiet on my blog which I’ve made an excuse before a couple of weeks ago, but things have just escalated more in life. First I was super sick over the new year, then I took a vacation to Maui, and then finally last weekend was RustyCon in Seattle (more on […]
Developing Characters In Comics Part 1
It’s hard to believe that Flying Sparks is midway through its 7th issue, with art being complete for issue 8 and writing half done for issue 9. It seems like just yesterday that I was uploading my first image to appear on the website August 23, 2010. I assume most folk who follow this […]
Only Superhuman Review
Well then, this is fast becoming a book review blog, though that’s not my intention. I just have a lot of books I feel like commenting on lately! Today I tackle Only Superhuman, by Christopher Bennett. I picked up this book based on a limited interaction with Mr.Bennett, in which I asked about a picture […]
What Am I Doing This Christmas?
Well, I’m going to hang with the family and eat food, watch my kid open presents and… oh, you didn’t mean what I’m doing for Christmas as in the mundane Christmas festivities? You meant what’s going on in the Jon Del Arroz wondrous world of writing. Well then… Flying Sparks Probably most of you care […]
Buy Your Friends Books For Christmas (And My Other Top Books of 2013)
Been quiet on my blog lately, will address that in a later post. For now… Are you looking for Christmas gifts? Well then, support some great writers, why don’t you? This week I’m making a big push to support authors I both love personally and professionally. These are all books that came out in 2013, […]
Ender’s Game (Movie) – A Critical Review
So, Ender’s Game. I recently reread the book so I could watch the movie, and like the nerd I am, point out where every little scene “got it wrong.” This was one of my favorite science fiction books of my youth, shaping my interest in military SF and space opera along with the epic TV […]
Con-Volution 2013: Post Con Thoughts
(Picture above: The State of Comics panel. I’m on the far right, moderating) This was my first Con-Volution in Burlingame, CA, and the second that these folk have put on. My reflections are going to be from a guest experience, and only attending one of the three days of the con (which was not my […]
Flying Sparks Issue 7 Page 10 and other stories
Almost halfway through the new issue, check it out. http://flyingsparkscomic.com/archive/issue-7-page-10/ In other news, finally started reading Robert Jordan’s final chapter of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light. I am considering doing a post of my whole reaction to the series, since I’ve spent so much time in it, recently rereading the whole thing so […]
Flying Sparks Issue 7 Page 9 / Tyler!
http://flyingsparkscomic.com/archive/issue-7-page-9/ New page of Flying Sparks is up! Don’t forget to check it out. I’ve been a bit quiet the last couple weeks. And that means I’ve not been doing much reading OR writing, which is a bummer on that level, but there’s a GREAT reason for it. And here he is! He’s keeping […]