David Lee Summers's Blog

Today finds me at R2-Doso Comicon in Ruidoso, New Mexico. If you happen to be in the area, I hope you’ll drop by and say hello. I’ll be in the vendor area sharing a booth with Tyree Campbell of Hiraeth Publishing, so we’ll have many books for your browsing pleasure. You can get more information about the convention at: https://r2dosocomcon.com/

1984 was a memorable year for me. It’s the year I graduated from San Bernardino High School and then started college at the New Mexico Institute of...

This coming weekend, I’ll be traveling to the nearby town of Ruidoso, New Mexico for the first ever R2Doso Comicon. The event is being held on October 18 and 19 at the Ruidoso Convention Center, which is located at 111 Sierra Blanca Drive in Ruidoso. You can find more information about the convention at https://r2dosocomcon.com

Among the guests will be Jesus Payan from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Also Susana Malak, Daniel Romero, Christine Galey, and Daniel Bohman who played roles i...

At this year’s Bubonicon, I was on a fascinating panel discussing the differences between writing short stories and novels. Jane Lindskold made an interesting observation that, in general, short stories should be able to work as the last chapter of a novel. The idea is that in a short story, the characters should either be facing or soon face a problem that can be resolved with a satisfyingly complete conclusion.

Soon after this, while recovering from hernia surgery, I continued my explora...

I have been continuing my exploration of the world developed for the roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade. This led me to the graphic novel Vampire: The Masquerade – The Complete Series published by Vault Comics. This turned out to be a nice introduction to the world of the game. The graphic novel transports the reader to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul into the heart of the cities’ vampire leadership as they deal with mysteries and crises that threaten to upend the status quo.

Back in 2001, my story called “The Slayers” was published in Realms of Fantasy Magazine. The story imagines an airship crew on a quest to hunt dragons in much the way sailing ship crews hunted whales in the nineteenth century. As I’ve noted before, I’m far from certain I’m the first author to put airships and dragons into a fantasy story together. However, I do think it’s possible I’m the first to imagine an airship on a mission to hunt dragons for profit. Since then, I have found other examples...

Reading Kim Newman’s fine Vampire Genevieve novels from the Warhammer gaming world left me with a desire to spend some time with a new game. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that I explored some of the Warhammer sets. That said, as I continued my explorations, I found I wanted a game that spent more time in the world of vampires than Warhammer did, which in turn led me to look closer at the world of Vampire: The Masquerade. I’ve read a couple of books based on Vampire: The Masquerade and es...

After watching and enjoying Ralph Bakshi’s movie Wizards earlier this year, I decided to go back and rewatch the one Ralph Bakshi film I’ve actually seen in a movie theater when it was released: Cool World. The movie came out in 1992 not long after I started my job at Kitt Peak National Observatory. At the time, I’d seen Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings and I was aware of his first film Fritz the Cat. I still haven’t seen his debut film, but likely will at some point. Cool World was released four year...

It’s now been just under three weeks since my hernia surgery. I’m starting to move around fairly well. The doctor says my recovery is progressing well and I’ve been cleared to return to work at Kitt Peak National Observatory. I’ll be starting my first shift since the surgery tomorrow night. This last week did involve time waiting around for doctor’s appointments, which gave me some time to read, so I decided to finish Kim Newman’s Vampire Genevieve cycle. The final book in the series is Silver N...

I have long been a fan of live theater. I started by attending musicals during my high school years San Bernardino, California and surrounding communities. I experienced musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Camelot, Man of La Mancha, The Music Man and even an early production of Barnum. Given my science and writing background, I never really thought about actually being part of a musical. However, I went to a university with no music or drama majors, but with a good music department headed by a ...

Last year, during my surgery for prostate cancer, I learned that I had hernias that would need to be attended to. I followed up with a local surgeon in Las Cruces and I had surgery to repair two hernias just about two weeks ago. The surgery went well and I’ve been recovering at home. At this stage, mostly the surgery site aches a little and I’m under strict limitations not to lift anything heavier than five pounds, which means I have to be very careful. I have a follow-up appointment with the su...