Stardate 60598.26 - New Launch

Since Jessica Stover has launched a new upgrade to her site, and since a few people asked me at the family events over the past week, "How do you know this Jessica person?", and since my reunion pictures from Sunday didn't turn out the greatest and I want Cheryl's opinion on which ones I should post, today I decided to explain how I know Jessica.

Wil Wheaton played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek:The Next Generation (don't you know - everything starts or ends with Star Trek!). I was one of the many fans who disliked his character - a genius child who knew more than all the adults on the show and seemed to save the day more times than I could count.

Anyway, he started writing a column in one of the Dungeons & Dragons magazines I read, and with a lot of doubts, I went ahead and read it. I was surprised! It was really quite good. So I went to his blog. It was pretty well written also, and I started reading it regularly. I e-mailed a couple of time (we have the same taste in beer, especially the Stone Brewery), and left a few comments to some of his posts. He has a pretty large audience so I never heard from him. But three things came from reading his blog - a new appreciation of Wil the actor, a better understanding of Wesley the character, and an introduction to Jessica Stover.

In one of his posts, he mentioned Jessica's Blog and that she was someone worth reading. On his referral, I started reading her stuff and it was quite good and I found that I really enjoyed it. I read for a few months before I started adding some comments to some of her posts and then while in Germany I sent her a quick e-mail (I think I asked her how many e-mails she gets a day from fans). I was surprised that she wrote back, and pretty quickly. So when I ran across something I thought she'd be interested in, I sent it along. She has always been very responsive to her fans, both in individual e-mails and in responding to comments left on her blog.

Meanwhile, Wil had some technical issues with his blog, and then he really got into poker (a topic I am not interested in) and I stopped reading his stuff. But I stuck with Jessica's blog, and I even snagged the very first signed copy of her book, Aidmheil.

After a year and a half of reading her posts and corresponding with her, I really believe in her talents and her projects and I try to support her in my own small way - payback for all those entertaining posts and e-mails. Her latest project is the screenplay trilogy The Silver Legacy, "an original, epic-fantasy feature film about what its like to live in your times, in your days". I've been encouraging people to demand a screening in their hometowns as a way to generate interest in the movie and potentially leading to a deal with a major movie studio to fund her screenplays. Any fan of fantasy should read my original post on the topic and then follow the links to the Eventful site and DemandIt!

So to answer the biggest question I get - No, I've never met her (even though she is from Northern Virginia), but I've chatted with her over e-mail and blog comments for some time. If you want to know more about Jessica, read her bio. It is quite interesting. Even without having met her in person, I have an appreciation for her work. I put her work in the same quality, entertaining category as authors such as Peter David, R.A. Salvatore, Terry Brooks, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Robert Jordan.

And I believe in her stuff.

And so should you.

Go to her site and read.

(Click on the "Random Scroll" button if you are looking for somewhere to start. Or if you prefer, start at the beginning.)

You will believe, too.

It is inevitable.

NYC