Greg Stolze: Forums

If you've ever wondered what "The Hurt Locker" would be like if it had been scripted by H.P. Lovecraft (or, to be more modest, August Derlith), that's the brief synopsis of "Mask of the Other." It's now available, for a mere $5.00 in electronic format.

You can get both PDF and ePub versions at RPGNOW.
Lulu has the PDF and you can also get a bound, printed hardcopy.
Or, it's on Amazon.

What's the book about? Well, it started with me finding some kewl pictures on the internet of modern ghost towns. Specifically, the Varosha area of Cyprus, and Hashima Island, better known as "Gunkanjima" in Japan.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that both island dead zones were abandoned in the same year, 1974!

The Lovecraft Mythos has plenty of perils from the sea, and I blended those with the invisible creatures from A Wind at the Window. Then, in the middle of the whole mess, I threw an unprepared squad of US soldiers who just happened to bumble across Saddam's underfunded occult weapons program in 1991.

You can read a free chapter, if you're still undecided. (That free sample's also available as an ePub.)

-G.

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You like stories? I got stories. http://www.gregstolze.com/fiction_library/index.html

I've noticed a discrepancy or anomaly is some of the chapter dates and wanted to check if I was going mad.

Chapters 8 and 18 are dated November 2002
Chapters 19 and 20 are dated June 2002

However the action in Chapters 19 and 20 should seem to occur after that in Chapters 8 and 18.

Have I missed something or is this genuinely an error?

It shows up in both the PDF and ePub.

- Neil.

Crud. That's a genuine error.

Well, that's something for the To Do list. Does it horribly distort the story?

-G.

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You like stories? I got stories. http://www.gregstolze.com/fiction_library/index.html

No, I didn't find it distorted the story at all. At first I had to go back and check the dates to make sure I wasn't mistaken, but once I'd checked, I just carried on reading, assuming the it would either all be explained, or that it was an error.

Have now finished the book and it was fantastic. The final action scene was intense and the ending is a superb twist.

I'm awful at writing reviews, but I will try to put something up on RPGNow, Amazon and Goodreads.

BTW - the chapter headings seem a little broken in the ePub, they are split over two pages. When you fix the dates, you might want to look at that too. Shout if a screen shot would help explain it. I read the file in iBooks on the iPad.

- Neil.

Yeah, put up that screen shot, but I'm not sure how much (if anything) I can do to fix it.

-G.

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You like stories? I got stories. http://www.gregstolze.com/fiction_library/index.html

Screen shot as promised. Looks to be some kind of page break / section break issue.

- Neil.

...huh. Man, I'm not sure how much I can do - given that this is going from one program to another format, then uploaded, then downloaded... I'll take a look when I get around to it, though. Could be a while, I should warn you.

-G.

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You like stories? I got stories. http://www.gregstolze.com/fiction_library/index.html

I really pointed it out so you were aware. I've finished the book, so it's not problem for me.

I have some other options to read the file on, so I'll check those out and see if it's an iBooks issue.

And you need a hand testing things, I'm more than happy to help. I'm currently out of work, so I have copious free time.

- Neil.