the lost worlds of power Archives - Page 7 of 7

Updates: Fiction, Christmas and Voting Results

WELL HELLO.

I know things have been relatively quiet around here, but I promise that Noiseless Chatter isn’t gradually becoming an ALF review blog. It’s just a matter of the holidays coming up, and with them a pilgrimage back to my ancestral home: New Jersey. The ALF reviews should keep coming as planned, because I’ve got a bunch of them locked and loaded, but other updates might be slightly more sporadic. Nevertheless, you should visit this site every day, and if you don’t see anything new, just re-read everything else I’ve ever posted. It will enrich you as a human being.

But anyway, some updates!

– The Lost Worlds of Power anthology is going to be awesome. I’m not exaggerating, either. It’s going to be like walking into your bathroom in the morning and finding an angel taking a shower, and you can see all of her breasts and everything. THAT GOOD. So far we’ve received five complete stories for potential inclusion, which isn’t bad considering that it was only announced about a month ago, and I didn’t expect many people to immediately quit their jobs and start writing terrible novelizations of NES games for free. Anyway, you do still have a little over two months…the deadline is January 31, 2014, and it’s looking more and more likely that we will have physical copies available for purchase after all. In short, this is going to be great. Get writing, and email me (or comment) with any questions you may have!

– Don’t forget the First Annual Noiseless Chatter Christmas Party! It will be held on the night of Monday, December 23rd, right here online, at this website. That’s Christmas Eve Eve, traditionally referred to as the holiest day of the year. I’ll provide more details as the date approaches, but what I’ll do is set up a chat room and host a live stream, so that we can all watch the ALF Christmas special together and share our hilarious suggestions of why Max Wright’s voice sounds that way. There will also be a few other surprises to stream, with the idea being that we all drink too much, say stupid things, and enjoy the company of everyone else who has nothing to do that night. I just made myself sad.

– Oh, and if the spirit moves you I have a wishlist at Amazon. Nobody is required or even expected to get me anything, but if you do feel like showing your appreciation for the site or contributing to my ongoing accumulation of pop culture ephemera, this is a good way to do it. If you decide not to get me anything there will be no hard feelings, and if you do decide to get me anything you won’t get any preferential treatment, except that every time you leave a comment here I’ll agree to reply with “LOL that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever read!!!” The choice is yours.

– Loyal reader Ridley asked about the voting results from a while back. I declared ALF the winner, but that’s only because it was clear that that show got the most votes, and also I never did care what you think. But I didn’t actually tabulate them, so…here are the results of that unofficial poll that meant nothing to anyone:

ALF (6)
The IT Crowd (2)
The Simpsons (2)
The Venture Bros. (2)
Perfect Strangers (2)
Roseanne (2)

Then there was a whole mess of shows that received only one vote each. So let that be a lesson to you: never ask what the results of any polls are, because they’re never interesting, period.

– And, finally, be sure to like Noiseless Chatter on Facebook. I post a lot more often there, simply because I can quickly share interesting links and bad jokes that way. You’ll love it. It will change you as a person.

So, yes, I’ll do my best to keep some of the best writing ever to grace the internet coming, but with the holidays ahead it might get a bit slower. Regardless, for all my posturing and / or ironic self-deprecation, I love you guys.

Seriously. When I started this site, I would have been amazed that there was even one person who bothered to read it. Then there was, and I would have been amazed if there were two. Now fast-forward to today, and there are nearly four people who visit this place regularly, and I couldn’t be happier. I really do appreciate everyone who stops by, leaves a comment, or emails me to say I’m an idiot. It means a lot, and I look forward to continuing to do whatever it is exactly that I do in 2014.

The Lost Worlds of Power: Thanks, Announcements, and Physical Copies!

Don’t know what The Lost Worlds of Power is? Click here to find out everything you need to know about the upcoming one-off fiction anthology. And remember to submit!

Well, this has been an interesting couple of weeks! The Lost Worlds of Power has garnered some awesome attention. In addition to being tweeted, shared and plussed on the various social networks, there’s been some fantastic coverage on various sites.

I’m going to take a moment to thank them, but make sure you read ahead even if you’re not interested in that. Some announcements follow!

– The crown jewel is this excellent post on The Gameological Society…probably my favorite general gaming site on the internet. Due to this alone, I’ve received more emails than I can count from interested contributors. The comments section itself is worth a read (I really hope I get even a fraction of what was pitched there), and later in the week the project got mentioned in their Keyboard Geniuses roundup as well. Thanks!

– Nintendo Life was good enough to let me pimp it there as well. I wrote the post myself, to avoid any suggestions of a conflict of interest, but I appreciate them giving The Lost Worlds of Power some great visibility!

– Nintendo Okie also took the time to funnel interested folks this way, as did 100% Indie. Just yesterday, Digitally Downloaded joined the party as well, with a great (and hugely appreciated) call for submissions!

– Then there’s the great feeling that comes with stumbling across somebody’s blog or forum thread to see even more people spreading the word. Sarapen posted about being interested, and even provided an intriguing start to a novelization of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!. I sincerely hope to read that one in full. There’s also this thread on Talking Time, which was started in 2011 with a similar idea. Hopefully some of those adaptations will be submitted to the anthology. And, finally, there’s this brief writeup on the brilliantly named Glorious Trainwrecks.

So…wow. Thank you for all of the interest and attention!

I never imagined this idea would gain so much traction, and we still have a long way to go before the submission deadline of January 31, 2014.

Anyway…some announcements!

For starters, we’ve found our illustrator. All-around awesome guy Ron DelVillano will be providing an illustration for every story selected for inclusion in the anthology. Ron is both the brains and brawn behind Duane, Average High School Werewolf, and we’re very excited to have him on board.

Also, many of you have been asking me about the potential for physical copies of The Lost Worlds of Power. Here’s the thing: as great as it would be to have physical copies, the fear was that charging for the collection would transform this from harmless fan-fiction to full-on legal nightmare. Of course we could just pay for all of the associated fees ourselves and hand out the copies for no charge, but then we’d be homeless forever and probably pretty sad.

However, Ron (I told you he was awesome) figured out a potential work-around. We could set up a Kickstarter or otherwise collect donations from anyone interested in having a copy. We’d have to figure out an absolute, final cost for the printing of however many books, and use that as our goal. Should we exceed our goal, we’ll just donate the difference to charity. Which one? Maybe we’ll open it up to a vote or something.

That way anyone who wants a copy would be able to pay for one, we wouldn’t need to worry about funding some large print order out of pocket, and no “profit” would be made from selling it. So, hey, let us know if you’d be interested! (Personally, I know I would be. I can’t promise anything right now, but we still have time to figure out how viable this would be.) Your feedback will be very helpful in deciding what to do here!

And, finally, I’d just like to remind folks that The Lost Worlds of Power was actually the brainchild of co-editor James Lawless. It was his idea to write “new” Worlds of Power books, and while I might have taken the initiative to turn that into the larger anthology, open to submissions, I do feel a little bad that he hasn’t gotten much of the attention. Of course, if you read the posts linked above I’ve been referred to as everything from a “possibly deranged writer” to “some guy,” so it’s not like I’m getting all that much direct attention myself.

Either way, thanks James!

How are your submissions coming? I’m looking forward to reading them, collecting them, and foisting a wealth of ropey new video game adaptations on an unsuspecting readership!

Announcement: The Lost Worlds of Power, call for submissions!

Calling all writers / humorists / parodists / gamers / whatever else you are. This is an official announcement of a one-off fiction anthology that I will be assembling, and I need your submissions!

The anthology is called The Lost Worlds of Power, and I would love to get as many submissions as possible, so please pass this on to any writers you know who might be interested in being published in a collection!

THE LOST WORLDS OF POWER

The Concept: Worlds of Power was a series of notoriously awful and totally inaccurate novels based on popular video games. What we’re doing is writing more of them! I want you to choose a video game (see the rules below) and novelize it. If you aren’t familiar with Worlds of Power, you can read a bit about the series here. You can also read my reviews of two of the books (with excerpts) here and here.

The Final Product: The Lost Worlds of Power will be an electronic, one-off fiction anthology. I will not sell it, and will make no profit off of it. In fact, I will pay out of pocket to have it professionally designed and formatted…and hopefully illustrated. I will host it here for free download, and I’d encourage anyone interested to host it and distribute it themselves as well. It should be something a lot of people can enjoy, and your submission should see a wide and appreciative audience!

The Style: You’ll be writing a “lost” installment in the Worlds of Power series! The obvious route here would be to write something intentionally bad, but that’s not the route you have to take. All styles, lengths and degrees of artistic merit are wanted. If you want to be outlandish and silly, that’s perfect. If you want to write a heart-stopping work of emotional brilliance based on T&C Surf Designs, that’s equally perfect!

The Length: There’s no hard and fast length requirement. Use as much or as little space as you like. The original Worlds of Power books were only around 100 pages long, with large type, so probably around 40 or 45 pages of traditional text. You can shoot for that, or you can let the spirit move you. Personally, I’d encourage you to do the latter.

The Rules: Read carefully, and make sure you adhere to the following rules when submitting:

– Your “novel” must be based on a game that was released on the NES. It doesn’t have to be a game exclusive to the NES, there just needs to be a version of it that existed for the NES (or Famicom). If it was something that was originally an arcade game or was later ported to the SNES or Genesis, that’s fine!

– Games that were actually adapted into Worlds of Power books are not eligible. (Remember, the idea is to write a “lost” installment in the series.) Therefore Blaster Master, Metal Gear, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania II, Wizards and Warriors, Bionic Commando, Infiltrator, Shadowgate, Mega Man 2 and Bases Loaded 2 are all off limits. You can, however, base your submission on a different game from those series.

– Only one adaptation of any given game will be selected for inclusion. In essence, if I get five submissions based on Super Mario Bros., I will only choose one of them, even if they’re all very good. For this reason it’s probably best to either choose something relatively less popular, or make sure you’re confident that the adaptation you’re writing will be the absolute best I receive!

– Be creative! Don’t just write out the events of the game…have fun with them! Get things wrong. Grossly misunderstand your protagonist’s motives. Skip over the best fights and spend time on mundane interactions with townsfolk! The Worlds of Power books are legendarily off the mark, so warp your filter a little bit! Do your Goombas look like carrots instead of mushrooms? Is Link’s traveling companion a rapping leprechaun? Does the dog from Duck Hunt travel through time and solve mysteries? Are your ideas better than these? I hope so, and I can’t wait to find out!

– You retain the rights to your submission (barring, obviously, any trademarked characters or titles you incorporate). I will only have the rights to collect and distribute it if you are selected for inclusion.

– Multiple submissions from the same author are allowed.

– We reserve the right to edit submissions for spelling, punctuation and formatting reasons.

What if I Don’t Know Anything About Video Games? The original Worlds of Power authors didn’t either! Just use the characters, settings, and / or plots as a springboard. From there, this is your story to tell!

The Prize: There is no financial or physical prize…just inclusion in the one-off Lost Worlds of Power collection. Still, it’ll be fun, and being published in a fiction anthology, no matter how small, is something that will be a great credit toward getting your future work published elsewhere! You’ll also be eligible for the title of First Person to Ever Brag About Writing a Worlds of Power Book.

The Deadline: Januaray 31, 2014. I know. That’s soon. Believe me, that’s a good thing. The Worlds of Power books aren’t known for being particularly well thought-out.

All submissions and questions should be sent to reed.philipj at gmail.com. I’m not picky about the format of your submission, as long as it’s a common file type (.doc, .rtf, .txt, etc.) and you’ve taken the time to proofread before sending it in.

Please let me know if you are interested in submitting. If enough folks are I’ll be more flexible with the deadline. The more the merrier, and I look forward to seeing your submissions!

Credit to James Lawless, die-hard Worlds of Power fan, for the idea!