Anyone intrigued by my post about Demoncrawl a few days ago... it is not only now available for sale again, it is also 50% off for the next few days. Minesweeper roguelike. It either has you at that or it doesn't. It will crash sometimes. Somehow this doesn't dim my affection.

One of the joys of kids is sharing things with them, like when I mentioned the PC Master Race and Dirty Console Peasants to my son and got to go down a great rabbit hole together. Apparently he'd heard "PC Master Race" before but knew nothing of the context. Kid's gotta know his roots.

Yeah, this is us.

That's shady. Wearing the photos of fellow athletes who died in any particular way is CLEARLY an act of mourning and should not disqualify you from a medal. If the collection of photos paints a bad picture for someone... maybe that entity should do less killing.

Repeating my offer of Valentine's cringe, especially for parents with teens!

Three years after the last update, after over a year of crashing on open, I can finally play Demoncrawl again. The Minesweeper roguelite my heart needed.

Do you have kids? Do you like making them groan? I made these Valentines for my oldest last year and scattered them through their backpack to haunt them through the day, leaving the last on the door to our home. When they came in: "Mom, WHY?!" I replied: For those cringe vibes, pookie.

Want to try to read some authors of color during Black History month, but the rec thread from this year's r/Fantasy Bingo is pretty much exclusively horror recs and that is not gonna work for me right now. Anyone got some fun/lighthearted speculative fiction reads by Black authors?

You are probably not at your finest on any day where you wonder "Did I put my cell phone in the fridge?" (I did not. It was on the couch. Wondering was still a low moment.)

Whenever I have to do something hard that seems impossible, I think to myself "I CAN ROUN ARCOSS THE PARP!!! I CAN GO TO THE PARPY!!!" Thank you, @alliebrosh.bsky.social

Got a fun surprise when I went on Longwinded One's podcast last week!

As he says in the follow-up: "I refuse to look into this any further as this is now my emotional support fact." Praying for the people of Minneapolis.

2026 Micro-reviews: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer This cyberpunk fairytale mashup series starts with a volume following a cyborg mechanic Cinderella. Surprisingly, this works very well. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #fantasy

A momentous day! 1000 ratings on Goodreads! I no longer qualify for the "Hidden Gem" category on r/Fantasy Bingo! Thanks so much to everyone who has tossed me a review :) It absolutely helps. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg

The second-worst thing about your Kindle running out of battery is how absolutely you know you have only yourself to blame. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀

2026 Micro-reviews: Red X Wolf by Dakota Krout Take four-ish fairytales and smush them together with some game mechanics, shake vigorously, and get the Damsels of Distress series. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

2026 micro-reviews In Spite of the Inevitable by Morgan Biscup @vazdimet.com Ex-military fugitive necromancer is trying to raise his adopted son in peace when his former nation attacks his new planet. He wants to run, but his son convinces him to fight. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #&microreviews #spsfc

Behold, I have answered the question: "I finished Dungeon Crawler Carl and want to check out more LitRPG/Progression Fantasy. What should I read next?" #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff

2026 Micro-reviews Ab initio by Jacob Terracina Really cool story about the creation of humanlike intelligence, told through the lenses of courtroom drama and the hearts of the humans working on it. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #&microreviews #spsfc

This makes me deeply unhappy. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/c... #booksky

Really enjoying Oldest's meltdown during our family game of Codenames Duet because his teammates (Middlest and Youngest) wanted to guess "String" for "Vertical" over helicopter... And they ended up randomly getting a different right and feeling SO justified.

Well, gosh. Thanks fortune cookie with an actual prediction. Here's hoping.

2025 Micro Reviews The Terminus of All Things by Jay Neill @jayneill.com British man ends up in alternate reality for forgotten things. His efforts to get home lead him to discover a plot that threatens our reality. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #&microreviews #spsfc

Couldn't sleep last night, but I did improve my website. Fixed a few minor but prominent bugs and added a sidebar to my blog that has a tag cloud and a Bluesky feed. ...And now I'm realizing my main page rotator doesn't show book 4 is available. Oh well. Tomorrow, maybe. erinampersand.com

Time Traitors by @elidonovanwriter.bsky.social Dino scientist gets to go back in time again after her poacher husband’s arrest. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks she deserves a second chance, and her ex wasn’t the only one harvesting velociraptors. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #&microreviews #spsfc

2025 Micro-reviews: Wherever the Stars Call by S. Jean – An ace girl and her nonbinary cyborg buddy steal a space Porsche to escape from a controlling government. Things go wrong, but maybe running into vampire space pirates isn’t all bad? #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews #spsfc

Word to any parents who want to see their kids see the tree but don't want to get up at 5:43 am tomorrow: streamers and painter's tape make a festive barricade. My kids actually get excited for it and I am not a Christmas zombie :D

One of Middlest's gifts arrived in its own packaging, and said child was the one to spot it first and bring it inside. I thought that when I assembled and wrapped it very, uh, specifically, then claimed it was a potato, the child would instantly recognize my deception. Apparently not!

2025 Micro-reviews: Apocalypse Me by Noct The world has gone mad and the MC is told he’s an apocalypse of hunger. He’s gotta eat some real weird stuff, do his best not to destroy the world, and get strong enough to keep anyone else from doing it. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

2025 Micro-reviews: Gravesong by Pirateaba Girl pirates Earth music to fantasy world in order to survive the ghosts and zombies. Look, it actually makes sense when Pirateaba tells it, okay? #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

All set up for Nerdy Noel! Indoor, zero admission, Christmas craft fair at Stovehouse in Huntsville from 11-5 today. Support small creators and take care of your Christmas list in one fell swoop. :)

2025 Micro-reviews: Interstellar Pig by William Sleator One of the earliest gamelit books. For reasons of their own, an eclectic group of aliens teach a young human a complex board game that may – or may not – be more real and more serious than it seems. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

Something very unfortunate happened for my husband today. A child whose ears had recently been pierced lost an earring. Whereupon, I pulled out my old piercing stud I'd kept for decades, sterilized it, and popped it in. Packrat tendencies SO vindicated right now. Keep everything forever. YESSS.

2025 Micro-reviews: Bioshifter by Natalie Maher A lifetime of repetitive dreams turns out to be the “slow burn” part of a transdimensional transformation process for a girl who thought she was human. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #&microreviews

This is adorable. I also love how most of the characters have fancied themselves up at least slightly and Hornet is just like "Whatever, I was born fancy."

2025 Micro-reviews: Tower of Jack by Sean Loomer A professional assassin wants to leave his job. Unfortunately, he’s sucked into a magical world and told that if he doesn’t successfully slay an unkillable hero, a powerful faction will wipe out humanity. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

2025 Micro-reviews: 1% Lifesteal by Robert Blaise A poor young man is scraping by at the bottom of a stratified society. He’s “lucky” enough to find a possible path to bettering his life, but the road ahead is painful and dangerous. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

Shrinkflation is always infuriating, but it's extra infuriating to have a recipe that calls for "1 package (16 oz)" and every package on the store shelf is between 14 oz and 15.5. Recently made banana pudding and had to get multiple packages of three "1 package" ingredients. Came home seething.

2025 Micro-reviews: Discount Dan by James A. Hunter – A guy teleported to a malfunctioning dungeon immediately ends up as a spectator in a superpower battle. He’s lucky enough to grab a few discards that might just be the tools he needs to survive. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

This is my Christmas energy. www.instagram.com/p/DRzsZ_YAIs...

2025 micro-reviews Player Manager by Ted Steel – Guy secretly gets FIFA game powers in real life. It sounds terrible, but it’s actually great. I don’t even like sports. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg #&microreviews

Man, fairytale retellings are such comfort reads for me. I tend to keep them on my TBR after I discover them as an "in case of emotional emergency, break glass" situation. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff

Working on getting ready for Nerdy Noel and pretty pleased with how these little signs turned out. 🔥🎄🔥🎄 #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg

Anyone know of a medical book or website targeted to authors or writers? I want to hurt my characters and save them realistically, but my confidence level at properly interpreting medical papers whose intended audience is "qualified surgeons" is low. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff

2025 Mini-Reviews: Game at Carousel by Rob M. Lastrel – The town of Carousel is alive, forcing those it traps to act out horror stories in order to survive. In a storyline, even death can be survived, as long as your companions finish the story successfully. #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg

2025 Mini-reviews: Calamity (Knights of Eternity #1) by @quirkiltons.bsky.social Woman is sucked into her favorite arcade game and inhabits the body of one of the game’s most terrifying villains. Things get worse from there. Bonus: The author is super nice & cool :D #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg

Oldest: Didn't you and Dad finish that game? Like all the achievements. Me: Yeah, I can't explain why I'm doing this when I'm not accomplishing anything. Oldest: Well... it's not like you were really accomplishing anything before. Me, trying to figure out if my child is trying to be mean or nice:

Excited to share that I'll have a table at this year's Nerdy Noel! Pick up a copy of my books, a vinyl Apocalypse Parenting sticker, get books signed, or just stop by to chat!

2025 Mini-reviews: I’m Not the Hero by Tommy Kerper A boy is sent to a magical land to be their fabled hero. This story is about the kid who accidentally went with him. Bonus: I've met the author, and he's super nice :D #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg

2025 mini-reviews: Ends of Magic: Antimage by Alexander Olson A grad student is yanked into a fantasy world, where he immediately has to fight off mind-control attempts. After he escapes, he uses his Earth knowledge to find unique ways to use the world’s magic #booksky 🪐📚💙📚👀 #sff #litrpg