Author: Charlie Brooks

Award-winning author of "Fantasy as you Like It" and "Eight-Bit Heaven," Season 9 finalist in RPG Superstar, author of the young adult fantasy novel Greystone Valley, and super-opinionated nerd dad.

Site News: And We’re Back!

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Welcome to 2025! Updates to the Screamsheet will resume next week, with the same diverse grab-bag of content that I usually do.

I am hoping to structure my updates a bit more formally starting in 2025. Ideally, I’m hoping for updates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

If I stick to this format, Mondays will be a port of old content to the this site, such as my BabyCenter blogs, information on my books, and old content that I retrieve using the Internet Archive. Wednesdays will be new content, including digging through more Comics & Quests, ramblings about history and literature, and other eclectic thoughts. Fridays, I hope, will be a fiction update, either a short story or a segment of something longer akin to a serial. I tend to get more motivated to write when I’m putting stuff in front of the public, even if it is a rough draft.

If I stick to that schedule, that’s a total of about 150 updates in 2025 and a potential novel’s worth of new fiction. That seems ambitious, but there’s nothing wrong with aiming high.

Happy 2025! Here’s hoping I manage to keep my nose to the grindstone!

Site News: Happy Holidays!

On By Charlie BrooksIn Site NewsLeave a comment

Here we are, approaching the end of 2024. While there are many things I don’t like about this year, I am happy that I’ve found a routing of regular updates to the Screamsheet after several inconsistent years.

I’m going to take a bit of a winter hibernation for a couple weeks, returning in early January. I plan to keep site updates to the Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule I’ve established, and am hoping to make Fridays a day for new fiction, posting some rough drafts of new stories.

Whatever you celebrate, enjoy some happy holidays and have a great new year. I’ll see you in 2025!

Superhero Evolutions: Spider-Man, part two

On By Charlie BrooksIn ComicsLeave a comment

I maintain that Spider-Man’s deal with Mephisto was one of the biggest missteps in comic book history. It’s one thing to have a hero make a mistake, but to make a bargain with a stand-in for the actual devil is a pretty terrible idea for someone who is supposed to be an everyman hero.

But that damage was done in 2007, and it’s been almost two decades since then. So let’s see where our friendly neighborhood wall crawler has gone in the years following that disastrous deal.

Continue reading “Superhero Evolutions: Spider-Man, part two” →

Comics & Quests: Triangles

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After a couple issues focused on providing some backstory for the crew, “Triangles” kicks off a longer story for the crew of the Realms Master and brings a new member into the adventuring party. True to this arc’s name, it also establishes a love triangle that puts the character of Ishi Barasume to the test.

I complained previously when “Spell Games” did Vajra dirty by running through a checklist of “strong female character” tropes that were already tired by 1990. Ishi is this title’s strong female character, and she also provides east Asian representation, since her homeland of Kara-Tur is a hodgepodge of legends and stereotypes taken from our real world. Is Ishi bound for the same tone-deaf treatment that Vajra got, or does “Triangles” offer something better? Read on and judge for yourself.

Continue reading “Comics & Quests: Triangles” →

Bonding with Your Babies Over Books

On By Charlie BrooksIn ParentingLeave a comment

Originally posted on BabyCenter.com February 22, 2013

Books are one of the truly great things in life. Yes, there is lots of newer media crowding them out these days, but a good book is still better at unlocking the imagination and building language skills than anything else out there.

Reading to my son is probably the biggest thing I looked forward to as a dad. I started reading to him while he was still in utero and now make sure to give him a bedtime story each night. One thing I learned quickly is that bedtime stories don’t have to always be kids’ books.

When you’re reading with a child during the day, it’s good to have something with simple words and lots of pictures, but when you’re winding down at night, just about anything goes. (Well, almost anything – it is my personal opinion that reading Stephen King’s It can probably wait until puberty, at least.)

Continue reading “Bonding with Your Babies Over Books” →

How Excited is too Excited when it Comes to Birthday Presents?

On By Charlie BrooksIn ParentingLeave a comment

Originally posted on BabyCenter.com June 7, 2018

Seven years into this parenting thing, I still don’t know how to strike the right balance with anything. Am I too hard on them or too lax with discipline? Do I give them a suitable number of presents or do I spoil them? If there’s one thing I’m sure about, it’s that I overthink things.

This week’s lesson in self-doubt comes from my son’s birthday. By now, he knows the drill: for several days on end, every friend of ours he meets will give him a present of some sort. And I’m sitting here trying to temper his excitement by focusing on that old nugget, “It’s the thought that counts.”

Continue reading “How Excited is too Excited when it Comes to Birthday Presents?” →

Some Thoughts about Parenting with Depression

On By Charlie BrooksIn ParentingLeave a comment

Originally posted on BabyCenter.com on January 25, 2018

I’m not an expert when it comes to the clinical side of depression. I’m just one of the millions who have to deal with it on a fairly regular basis. Because I focus so much on my kids’ well-being, I sometimes forget to take time out for myself. That’s when depression catches up.

Continue reading “Some Thoughts about Parenting with Depression” →

Comics & Quests: Head Cheeese

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The 1990s were rife with heavy-handed anti-drug messages. Many of them rang false because they didn’t connect with kids or simply went too over-the-top in their presentation. The message of “don’t do drugs” even landed in the pages of the Forgotten Realms comic, but I feel it’s more effective here than in many ad campaigns.

Perhaps it’s because the Forgotten Realms is already filled with over-the-top situations, or perhaps it’s because the story focuses on an addict’s perspective, but “Head Cheeese” works pretty well as an exploration of addiction and recovery. Don’t let the goofy title fool you–this is a pretty serious story that has a lot of heart.

Continue reading “Comics & Quests: Head Cheeese” →

Comics & Quests: The Morning After

On By Charlie BrooksIn Comics, Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

Following some epic adventures in “The Hand of Vaprak” and “The Dragonreach Saga,” the Forgotten Realms comic series pivoted toward some more personal stories. After all, we had seen the crew of the Realms Master in action, but aside from Agrivar, whose struggles we were familiar with from his previous adventures in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons title, we didn’t know much about the unusual crew.

First up for examination: Captain Dwalimor Omen. We know he’s hunting artifacts throughout the Realms, but why?

Continue reading “Comics & Quests: The Morning After” →

Superhero Evolutions: The Incredible Hulk, part six

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When we last left off, the Hulk was dead. Although he came back briefly as part of a Hydra plot, that resurrection didn’t take and he soon returned to his dirt nap. But the Hulk is a primal force, and death doesn’t tend to last long for such things. In fact, the next story arc would reveal that the Hulk was immortal.

Continue reading “Superhero Evolutions: The Incredible Hulk, part six” →