Ken Newquist 
In January 2020, my son and I started on the trail to Philmont – a six-month training project aimed at developing the strength, endurance, and skills needed for a 12-day, 60-mile backpacking trek at Philmont Scout Rank in Cimarron, New Mexico. We were supposed to go in late-June/early July 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced … Read more
Infinity Storm, my Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition campaign, ran from mid-2007 through early 2008. Featuring eight issues (aka episodes), it’s notable for being the first superheroes game I ever ran and featuring the first in-character blog I ever wrote. A dozen years later, the campaign still stays with me, despite its relatively short run. Two things stand out: … Read more
The Labyrinth – New Narrative Art Book by Simon Stålenhag – The creator of Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood is back on Kickstarter with a new art/fiction book. The Mysterious Bronze Objects That Have Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries – Stashing this away for use in my Weird Pulp campaign. ‘Superhabitable’ planets could be better for life than Earth – … Read more
Everyone keeps things. Some people keep a lot of things … and, as we learned from Fight Club, the stuff we own ends up owning us. While I’m far from a minimalist, I do think it’s possible to keep too much stuff, and it’s good to be mindful about what you keep, and what you throw … Read more
Tor: A Games’ Short Star Wars: Squadrons Film Hunted is Everything I Want in an X-Wing Series – Damn you, EA … you’re making me want to love this game. On Venus, mysterious traces of gas tease the possibility of extraterrestrial life – As Dr. Ian Malcolm says, life finds a way. Blade Runner: San … Read more
The trailing edge of this summer’s reading list included David Brin’s The Ancient Ones, Iain Bank’s Excession, and Patrick Rothfuss’s The Wise Man’s Fear. It also saw a considerable slow down in my reading pace due to the style of book I was reading. While The Ancient Ones was a breezy comedy, Bank’s Excession – … Read more
After six months on the trail to Philmont … we finally got on the trail. In August, we went hiking twice: first a 5-mile day hike on the Monocacy Creek Trail in Bethlehem, Pa., then a more rigorous 5-mile day hike on the Rattlesnake Swamp Trail and Appalachian Trail (AT) in Delaware Water Gap National … Read more
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Returning To Planet-Of-The-Week Stories & TOS Optimism, Says Alex Kurtzman – Yes, please! Invisible rogue planets without stars? NASA’s new space telescope could find hundreds of them – Speaking of strange new worlds, NASA is looking for some. Racing to Stay Alive – When I run, I just run. I don’t give a … Read more
There could be 36 communicating intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, study says – The most famous equation for calculating the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy is based on the Drake Equation, which equally famously has a lot of variables that can’t be known. This study tries to get at the same answer through … Read more
Nuketown’s Summer Reading List for 2020 is in full swing. During my summer vacation at Lake Champlain, I finished up Fall (or Dodge in Hell) and knocked out The Last Emperox, The Dreaming Stars, and Auberon (an Expanse novella). I also launched into The Bohr Maker, which I completed when I got back from the … Read more