Noiseless Chatter Archive

It is a truth universally accepted that the year 2020 is the worst thing. Race riots, pandemics, voter suppression…it’s been a rough stretch. The fact that the second half of the year is being officially heralded in by ALF is evidence that things are only going to get worse. For those of you reading in the distant future — within the next seven or eight years that humanity has left — I’ll set the context a bit. Each summer for the previous 25 years, the Electronic Entertainment Expo gave teenagers a reason to stop masturbating for a couple of days. New video games, game consoles, and sometimes even chairs that vibrate would make their debuts. Eventually they’d be released in much worse shape than they seemed to be during their reveal, but, still, it was fun. Here in 2020, the event was cancelled due to the fact that everybody died. In its place, various companies and organizations have held their own roughly concurrent digital events. We still get the trailers and ...

I’m thrilled and honored to announce that I will be a special guest at Uplink, the digital convention by the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. I hope you can join me; it’s going to be a fun time! A while back I considered reaching out to conventions to help promote Resident Evil , but then the world collapsed and a plague killed everyone, so conventions were either cancelled or suddenly a Very Bad Idea. I figured I’d wait for next year and hope for the best. The Long Island Retro Gaming Expo changed my plans. Thanks to the pandemic, they are taking their annual convention online under the name Uplink. They reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in being a special guest and, after learning more about the event, I agreed. Uplink is interesting and ambitious. I hope it goes well, because it seems like they are taking the entire convention experience — barring the wealth of illnesses you’d take home with you — online. Guests, panels, discussions, activities, cosplay…...

The Kickstarter has ended with 615% funding. That makes it Boss Fight Books’ most successful campaign yet. To everyone who backed the campaign — whether for my book, somebody else’s book, or all or any combination of the books — I want to say thank you, sincerely. This was a long, challenging project. I’m very happy with how it turned out and I suspect you will be as well. If you did order my book specifically, you can expect updates directly from Boss Fight Books. As of right now, the anticipated month of publication is August. If there are any delays it will be due to the fact that the world is crumbling around us; the book itself is complete and ready to print. If you didn’t back the campaign but still want a copy of my book, just sit tight. I’ll have ordering information for you as soon as possible, but it will be available through Boss Fight Books directly, through Amazon, through Barnes & Noble, and almost certainly through any other book shop of your choic...

I had a wild idea early in the drafting phase of my Resident Evil book: I’d try to contact one of the actors or voice actors from the game, so that I could include some insight regarding those infamous performances. It was something I both really wanted to do and something I’d already resigned myself to failing at. I’m some nobody on the internet, after all, who wanted them to set aside their personal time to talk about the most embarrassing roles of their lives for free. It was important, though, that I’d try. If I couldn’t include any anecdotes or insights from these primary sources, I could rely on whatever information I could find and verify on my own, and that would be fine. But I at least had to give it a shot. I ended up getting not one actor from the game, which was the goal I set for myself, or two actors from the game, which I’d have considered a massive success. I got every known actor from the game, with only two exceptions. If we narrow the focus to onl...

As I write this, the Kickstarter campaign containing my Resident Evil book is nearing 350% funded. That’s astonishing; thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you haven’t pledged yet, please consider doing so. You’ll be supporting a great publisher and great writers. (I’m also pitching in an additional stretch goal for hitting 350%, so if you pledge now, you can make that happen yourself!) I didn’t expect the campaign to get funded so quickly, so I guess I’d better start actually posting some of the behind-the-pages stuff I’ve been meaning to. To start with, I wanted to spotlight a few of the experts I brought in who allowed me to provide a much larger view (and achieve a deeper understanding) of the material. I’m one person. I can perform my own research and provide my own interpretations, but there’s only so much I can show you from my own fixed angle. Getting some additional voices involved would enrich and enhance the book substantially. And, y’know, it would...

You absolute madmen. Or women! The campaign is sitting at nearly 250% funded, and it hasn’t even been 24 hours. It was fully funded in under two hours. There is still a full month to go. Thank you. A million times, thank you. What this means is…well, the book is happening. There’s no longer any question. Enough people threw enough support behind the campaign that every book in season five (and a few bonuses as well) will be released. The Kickstarter will continue, of course, but now when you back it you are essentially preordering it. You’re reserving your copy and you’ll get it immediately upon release. $15 gets you a physical and digital copy, but there are a lot more options and, of course, a lot of other great books. So check it out. Preorder it . You’ll like it. If you have already supported the campaign, I appreciate you. If you haven’t but will, I appreciate you, too! If you haven’t and aren’t interested…well, yeah, of course you have and deserve my a...

Three years in the making, it’s finally time for the official announcement: My book, Resident Evil , is part of season five of Boss Fight Books. Boss Fight Books is an excellent publisher, and I cannot express how profoundly honored I am to be included in their lineup. Each of their books focuses on one particular video game and then branches — to varying degrees — into larger topics, histories, personal journeys, and so much more. This season includes books about The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask , Red Dead Redemption , Silent Hill 2 , and Final Fantasy VI . My book is about Resident Evil . Here, I can prove it: Resident Evil is my central case study for discussing horror and how it works, with an extended tour through the deadly Spencer Mansion allowing us to discuss the writing, directing, and structuring of scares, along with the surprising power of horror to bring us together. It’s done. It’s as ready to be distributed as it can possibly be without actually bein...