Tag Archives: Iain Delaney

Toy Review: Futurama Bender Robot Action Toy

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Bite My Shiny Metal Ass – Bender

Review by Iain Delaney: Futurama is an animated science fiction comedy that aired on the Fox network in the United States from 1999 to 2003. After cancelation by Fox, the series was picked up by Comedy Central, where it ran from 2008 to 2013. Since last year, a third revival has been available on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in other parts of the world. The series originated from the creative minds of Matt Groening of The Simpsons fame and David X. Cohen.

One of the main characters of the series is the robot Bender (full name: Bender Bending Rodriguez). Bender is a foul-mouthed, cigar-smoking, beer-drinking (he uses it for fuel) kleptomaniac, and one of the funniest characters on the show. The Bender Robot Action Toy is not quite so amusing, but still elicits a smile.

The robot toy comes in a two-color print cardboard box, reminiscent of old-fashioned toy packages of the 1950s and 60s. Inside the box is a clear plastic tray containing Bender, his props, and a solid wind-up key. Bender stands about 8 inches tall and can be equipped with his trademark stogie and a bottle of beer. Put the cigar in a hole in his mouth, and his left hand is specifically shaped to hold the beer bottle. 

Bender is made mostly of tin in a tribute to the tin toy robots of days gone by. His arms and legs are plastic, as are his eyes and the antenna on the top of his head. In a nice touch of accuracy, his central compartment opens up, but there is no room to hide anything, since his clockwork mechanism completely occupies it.

You insert the winding key in a hole in the right side of his body and wind him up. The legs immediately start rolling forward; first one, then the other. A ratchet mechanism prevents them from rolling backwards so that Bender slowly walks across whatever surface you put him on. This is one of the two popular methods for walking toy robots; the other being a side-to-side walking motion that lifted one foot, then the other. I think I prefer the shuffling motion that Bender uses since it fits his character better.

Bender was made in the year 2000 by Rocket USA toys, but they sadly seem to no longer be in business. I think I bought him many years ago at a tin toy shop. Now, if you can find him on eBay, people are asking at least $100 and up. 

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.

Toy Review: Limited Edition Stingray Die-Cast

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Standby for Action – Intro, Stingray

Review by Iain Delaney: Stingray was a 1964 puppet series from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Like their other 1960s series, the show was a combination of sophisticated marionettes and miniatures. Stingray was the first color TV series to be made in the UK, with hopes of selling it to a US network. In the end, Stingray appeared on the ITV network in the UK and was syndicated in the US and the rest of the world.

The series lasted for 39 half-hour episodes and concerned the adventures of the titular submarine and her crew. Stingray is crewed by Captain Troy Tempest, navigator and hydrophone operator Lieutenant “Phones” Sheridan, and Marina, a refugee member of an amphibious race. Together they investigate nautical mysteries, explore the oceans, and defend the surface against Titan, the ruler of the undersea city of Titanica.

Stingray is housed in an underground pen beneath Marineville, the headquarters of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (W.A.S.P.). The launch sequence begins when Troy and Phones board Stingray by sitting in their command chairs, which descend into Stingray on poles. The chairs lock into position and the poles retract. The submarine pen floods, the round ocean door opens, and Stingray is launched into the sea like a torpedo.

As a submarine, Stingray is without peer. Atomic powered, it can reach a speed of 400 knots on the surface and 600 knots when submerged. Maximum depth is listed at over 36,000 feet.

The die-cast metal toy from Corgi is something that fans have been waiting for since the series first aired. It has arrived to mixed reaction, with some complaining about the accuracy, the lack of features, or the price. At £49.95, this isn’t a cheap toy, but fans have already bought out the limited edition of 750 copies on the official website.

The packaging is a black cardboard box with a large plastic window on the top and front. The toy is on a green cardboard plinth and is fastened down by a number of twist ties. The details, paint and decals are first rate, and the model looks screen-accurate to my eyes. Under the plinth are a collector’s card, a clear plastic stand, and a pair of ‘sting missile’ torpedoes. The torpedoes are spring-fired, but without removing all the twist ties I can’t find the launching mechanism, and I’m not prepared to do that just yet. Maybe I’ll get a second one when the standard edition is available.

I would say that the limited edition is a very fine but perhaps expensive addition to a Stingray fan’s collection. The standard edition at £39.99 is easier to recommend.

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.

Toy Review: Candygram! Deluxe Big Guy and Rusty, the Boy Robot

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Review by Iain Delaney: Big Guy and Rusty, the Boy Robot, began life as a comic book by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow. In 1999, the Fox Kids network produced an animated TV series for Big Guy and Rusty, the Boy Robot, and they made 26 episodes, although they originally aired only six on the Saturday morning line-up. The rest appeared a year later in the daytime afternoon rotation.

The series takes place in the near future and the show has a retro-futurist style. The Big Guy is a giant armored robot designed to defend New Tronic city against other robots and aliens. The company that built him, Quark Industries, has also built their next generation robot in the shape of a small boy and named him Rusty.

Quark’s secret is that Big Guy is not a real robot; his artificial intelligence never worked. Instead, he is piloted by Lieutenant Dwayne Hunter, who pretends to be Big Guy’s mechanic. A select few, including senior executives and Big Guy’s crew, are aware of this embarrassment to Quark. They keep the secret from Rusty for two reasons; the first is that Rusty idolizes the Big Guy and the truth could overload his emotional grid, and the second is that Rusty isn’t good at keeping secrets.

The Deluxe Big Guy toy is one of a range of spin-off toys produced by Bandai, but since the show never really reached a mass audience, the toys are rather rare.

The packaging is a very attractive cardboard box with a plastic window showing all the pieces of the toy. (Apologies for the water damage to the box.) Inside is a red plastic tray holding the robot and his accessories. Interestingly, there are only three accessories: Dwayne, Rusty, and a ray gun. All the other features are built into Big Guy, and there are a lot of them.

Pressing a button in the chest lights up the eyes and the robot speaks one of four phrases: “This is serious business”, “For the luvva Mike!”, “Fire in the Hole”, and “Candygram”. (The last one is my favorite; it’s Dwayne’s ‘battle cry’ when he unloads all the weapons at once. It’s nonsensical, but it works.)

The ray gun fits in his left hand and the left hand comes off so that Rusty attaches to the left arm for … reasons. The robot’s back opens up in three segments to reveal the highly detailed cockpit. Of course Dwayne fits inside the cockpit, and the cockpit periscope display lights up when you press the talk button. You don’t normally see this level of detail in a mass production toy.

Finally, with a little wiggling and coercion, the right elbow opens up to reveal a barrage of weapons. This is usually the ‘Candygram’ attack seen in the show.

This is a terrific toy for fans of the comic or the animated series. Unfortunately, it is now pretty rare and mint in box copies are expensive, running a few hundred dollars on eBay. Still, highly recommended.

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.

Toy Review: Captain Scarlet Angel Interceptor 

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This is the voice of the Mysterons – Intro, Captain Scarlet

Review by Iain Delaney: Captain Scarlet and the Mysterions is the 1967 follow-up to Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s phenomenally successful Thunderbirds series. The show followed the attempts of the Spectrum organization to foil the attacks of the Mysterons from Mars. Captain Scarlet, an agent of Spectrum, was rendered indestructible after the Mysterons took him over and later fell to his death. (Just go with it, okay? This show has a lot of plot holes.)

Spectrum had a lot of futuristic vehicles: cars, planes, helicopters, hovercraft. That’s a lot of potential toys, and the Andersons had a great marketing team. They released a huge number of toys during the initial run, and almost as many when the series ran again in the UK in the early 1990’s. And they keep trickling out to this day.

Corgi toys has been making die-cast toys in the UK since 1956. They make the best-selling toy car of all time: the James Bond Aston Martin DB5. They have recently released several toys based on vehicles from the Andersons’ TV series, including Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, with more to come in the new year.

The Spectrum organization was headquartered in a flying aircraft carrier called ’Cloudbase’. (Pedants note: the S.H.I.E.L.D. Heli carrier from the Marvel comics pre-dates Cloudbase by about three years.) The carrier is home to a squadron of Angel Interceptor fighter jets, flown by female pilots, the Angels.

The Angel Interceptor from Corgi is a die-cast metal model about six inches long with a 2-inch wingspan. There’s a clear plastic canopy covering the cockpit with a detailed pilot inside. The overall level of detail is very impressive. The aircraft is covered in little markings the same way real aircraft are. The model has a very solid, heavy feel to it. The only disappointing part of this model is that it has no parts. Nothing moves and nothing can be attached or detached. I would have preferred to be able to remove the front landing gear and put the model on a flying stand, but I guess Corgi was worried that the part would get lost.

Overall, though, I really like this model and the window box it comes in. It is definitely worth picking up by fans of the series.

The Captain Scarlet Angel Interceptor costs £29.95 and is available at stores in the UK and from UK websites. It may also be available from local importers.

Toy Review: Thunderbirds 2086 Moderoid Thunderbird Model Kit

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Review by Iain Delaney: Thunderbirds 2086 is the 1982 Japanese anime series loosely based on the original 1964 series, Thunderbirds. It is known as Scientific Rescue Team Technoboyger in Japan, thus the label on the box of this toy. Although not considered canon, the series is an indirect sequel to the original marionette show. International Rescue is now a large, multinational organization, an areology built on an island in the South Pacific has replaced Tracy Island, and instead of the original five Thunderbirds vehicles, there are now eighteen. In typical anime fashion, some of these vehicles can merge and form larger machines, but thankfully not a giant humanoid robot.

The box contains the pieces needed to build the first three ’TB’ vehicles: TB-1, TB-2, and TB-3. TB-1 is mostly white space plane, TB-2 is a large, blue, rectangular cargo carrier, and TB-3 is yellow, multi-wheeled all-terrain crawler. The party piece of the set is that the three combine into one large vehicle.

The models themselves are easy to build and molded in separate colors so that they don’t need painting. No glue is needed either, since all the parts snap together. The ’Moderoid’ brand is a relatively new line of plastic model kits from the Japanese toy manufacturer Good Smile Company. The snap-fit mechanism is reasonably tight but nowhere near as good as the kits from Bandai, especially the Gundam model kits. In either case, edge cutters are the best way to separate the parts from the plastic tree. This is the only tool you really need, but tweezers are useful in applying the decals which are tiny. I gave up trying to put the dashes in between the letters and numbers because they were too small to handle and position properly.

With the three ships assembled you can merge them by splitting TB-3 in half, attaching one half to either side of TB-2, then unfolding the undercarriage of TB-1 and snapping it into place on top of TB-2.

The result is something that is not really attractive or that makes much sense; but it is screen-accurate. It’s a must-have for fans of this obscure series, or Thunderbirds completists. The Thunderbirds 2086 model kit is priced at $74.99 US and is available from the Big Bad Toy Store.

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.

Toy Review: Exterminate! Exterminate! — A Dalek, Dr. Who

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By Iain Delaney: Dr Who started in 1963 and ran until 1989. They revived it in 2005 and has been running (more or less) continuously ever since. The series holds the record for the longest running sci-fi TV series and is arguably the longest running TV series.

The Daleks appeared in the second serial of the first series, and have been the Doctor’s nemesis ever since. Their non-human appearance, seeming invincibility, and single-minded desire to destroy all other lifeforms, have made them the terror of children everywhere for almost 60 years. So, of course, there had to be toys of them.

This example is from 1975 and was made by Palitoy in England. It stands roughly six inches tall and is made of tough plastic. Two AA batteries that you place in a compartment in the base power the toy. (These are called ’HP7’ batteries on box; thank goodness for standardization!) 

You trigger the talking feature is by pressing the button on top of the Dalek. It will then say one of four phrases, “Exterminate! Exterminate!”, “Attack! Attack! Attack”, “You Will Obey”, and “What are Your Orders?” The sounds are very authentic; I suspect they copied them from the original soundtrack.

I’ve dismantled the talking mechanism so many times that I now have a thorough understanding of its workings. A stylus rides the grooves and converts the bumps in the grooves into sound, much the same way that the stylus on a record player works. Unlike using a piezoelectric crystal and electrical amplifier, the toy has a simpler mechanism to produce sound. The arm holding the stylus has a curved cross-piece that makes direct contact with the base of a small speaker. So the vibrations from the disk are transferred directly to the speaker in the same way an old gramophone works. It’s a very clever use of an old technology and like a lot of simple techniques, it stands the test of time. This toy from the 1970s still works, while some toys that use electronics that are less than twenty years old have failed and are impossible to repair.

The BBC Talking Dalek is long out of print but may appear on eBay from time to time.

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.

Toy Review: NERF Amban Phase-Pulse Blaster

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This is not the way. – me

By Iain Delaney: In the Star Wars universe, the Amban Phase-Pulse Rifle is a modified sniper rifle capable of disintegrating its targets with a single shot. The bounty hunter Din Djarin (the titular Mandalorian) carries one to impressive effect during the first two seasons of the Disney+ series.

In our universe, though, the Amban Phase-Pulse Rifle is a disappointing, over-priced, inaccurate toy replica of the TV series prop. It starts off promisingly, with dark packaging ornately decorated and lettered in gold. Opening the box reveals a large plastic tray holding the blaster. Hasbro obviously made this product before they switched to plastic-free packaging.

The blaster is 50 inches long, making it probably the biggest Nerf toy ever made, but the designers did not take advantage of the added length. The first thing you’ll notice is that the colors are wrong with a lot of white broken up by splashes of orange. And, unlike the Aliens Pulse Rifle Nerf Blaster, it’s not a coherent color scheme. Unlike other blasters in the LTMD line, this is a disappointing look.

The disappointments continue in the features: there are almost no special features in the toy. The “sniper scope” which has an electronic display in the show, is useless on the Nerf toy. It’s opaque and its one function is a small, red LED in one corner. It’s a bit of a joke, really.

The loading and cocking mechanism is unique but cumbersome. You pull back on the cocking handle which opens the breech. Insert one Nerf dart into the breech (the toy comes with ten), close the breech, and push the cocking handle back to its starting position. The rifle is now ready to fire. Pulling the trigger launches the dart and then you have to repeat the process. So the blaster is one of the least efficient, most expensive Nerf guns on the market.

Unlike the Aliens M-41A Pulse Rifle, there are no electronic displays or sound effects. And at $150 US, 50% more than the M-41A’s $99.95, the Amban Phase-Pulse Rifle is a terrible deal. The market has realized this, and there are new copies of this ’Limited Edition’ still for sale, and heavily marked down. Even at discount prices, I can’t recommend this toy to anyone, hardcore Mandalorian fans or otherwise.

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.

Toy Review: NERF Pulse Rifle

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I want to introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41-A pulse rifle. –– Corporal Hicks, Aliens

By Iain Delaney:The M41-A “Pulse Rifle” has been an iconic sci-fi movie prop since they released the movie Aliens in 1986. The interest in the prop has endured even though, apart from Alien 3, it has not appeared in any subsequent Aliens movie. When fans learned it was derived from a Thompson machine gun and a SPAS-12 pump-action shotgun, cobbled together and wrapped in fibreglass, they immediately built their own replicas. Prop studios followed suit and high-priced replicas have been available for years now. But no one has released a toy version, compared to the wealth of toy Star Trek phasers, for example.

Until now. Hasbro has introduced their “Aliens M41-A” Nerf Rifle, a reasonably faithful replica of the movie prop that is also a functional Nerf dart gun. The toy is packaged in a cardboard box decorated with military markings, alien claw slashes, and holes made by acidic alien blood. Hasbro’s high-end collectible toys always seem to have great packaging and the Pulse Rifle is no exception.

Inside the box is the rifle itself, ten standard Nerf darts, three Nerf “Mega” darts, and the first major disappointment. In order to keep the toy more “parent-friendly” or for some equally strange reason, the pulse rifle has not been painted in its normal olive drab and black colors. Instead, Hasbro choose to paint it white, yellow, and black; colors “inspired by” the power loader from the movie. Many fans have bought the Nerf Pulse Rifle and re-painted it to the prop-accurate color scheme.

Other than that, there is very little to complain about with this toy. Insert 4 “C” batteries, load the darts into the clip, and fire away. Press the button to start the motor and pull the trigger to shoot one dart at a time or hold it down for continuous firing. The iconic ammo counter on the side actually works; counting down every shot that leaves the barrel. And each shot is accompanied by an electronic sound effect, supposedly “movie accurate”, but I didn’t think it was that close.

The grenade launcher works, too. Put a “Mega” dart in the launcher, pump the action, and pull the trigger forward of the magazine. The dart is launched with another sound effect.

This is a Nerf toy for fans of the movie, not hardcore Nerf fans. The magazine’s capacity is too small, and the toy is too cumbersome to use in Nerf skirmishes. But for Aliens fans who want a reasonably accurate prop replica that’s also a lot of fun to play with, the Nerf M41-A more than fills the bill.

The Nerf M41-A Pulse Rifle is available from https://hasbropulse.com for $99.99 (US).

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.

Toy Review: Staff of Ra Headpiece

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A bronze piece, about this size, 
with a hole in it, off-center,
with a crystal. – Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Review by Iain Delaney: The Headpiece of the Staff of Ra is the secondary Maguffin in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s the item that guides our hero, Indiana Jones, to the location of the titular Lost Ark of the Covenant. Indy first finds the headpiece in the possession of Marion Ravenwood at her bar in the Himalayas and takes both of them on his quest in search of the Ark.

42 years after the film’s debut, Hasbro Toys has put out the “Staff of Ra Headpiece”, part of their “Indiana Jones Adventure Series” of collectible toys. The Staff of Ra Headpiece is available in various toy stores, online shops, and directly from Hasbro Pulse. The list price is $50.99 (US).

The packaging is a simple cardboard box covered in images and graphics. There’s a large picture of the headpiece on the front and next to it is a still from the movie of Indy using the headpiece in the map room at Tanis. The back of the box has more pictures and descriptions of the features of the headpiece. The box notes it uses plastic-free packaging, which is a nice innovation after decades of injection molded plastic and tie downs or twist ties.

Inside the box is a cardboard tray holding the three pieces of the toy and the instructions and warnings that always come with an item like this. The three pieces are the headpiece, a piece of the staff about four and one-half inches long, and a base made to look like a small piece of the floor of the map room. Let’s look at each part.

Although it is detailed and screen-accurate, the headpiece appears plastic to me. A coat or two of bronze paint would have fixed this, but the lighting effects make it nearly impossible to do this after the fact. Still, it looks pretty good. The detail is all there, with the inscriptions, the phoenix (I think it’s a phoenix, the movie didn’t specify) and the crystal in the center. The size, from what I can tell, is the same as the movie prop and the proportions are similar.

The staff is a clever little piece of trickery that lets the headpiece light up by channeling light from the base to the headpiece. It has a notch on the top that the headpiece slots into and a socket on the bottom that plugs into the base. There’s a concealed triangular push button on the staff to turn the lighting effects on and off.

The base itself is another piece of plastic, molded to look like sandstone. On the underside is a battery compartment for 2 AA batteries. You’ll need a small slot or Phillips (cross-point) screwdriver to open the battery compartment, which is pretty typical for higher end toys.

With the batteries installed, assembly is very simple. The headpiece clips into the top of the staff, and the staff drops into the center hole in the base. Now the center jewel and the individual markings light up, as if each was separately lit. It’s a very impressive effect. The light turns itself off after about fifteen minutes; I assume to save battery life. This means you can’t use it as a night-light, which is too bad.

The only thing missing that I can think of is a chain so that you can wear the headpiece around your neck. It would make a nice cosplay accessory, so I guess the right kind of chain, plastic or metal, would work.

Overall, I’d say this is a very nice, screen accurate display piece; easy to find and reasonably affordable. The only way you could do better is to buy a real metal replica from Etsy or a similar website, and then you’d be missing out on the lighting effects. If you have room on your shelf next to your worn fedora and bullwhip, I strongly suggest considering the Staff of Ra Headpiece.

Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.