My High Fantasy BRICK Writing Project is a nascent writing project, in which I intend to write an epic fantasy novel of great length. For the word counters out there, something around 230,000 words. Whereas the My Huge Epic Fantasy Trilogy Writing Project is three shorter, semi-standalone books separated by a year each, this BRICK project is intended to be one giant book, with a months-long story, reminiscent of the bigger fantasy books of the 80’s and 90’s. I want this thing to be an absolute monster. For reference, think of Terry Brooks’s 726-page Sword of Shannara, or any of Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, and Throne volumes, which run about 900 pages each. Melanie Rawn and Dennis L. McKiernan had some pretty huge books during this period as well.

As stated above, this book is intended to be large single narrative and have all the trappings of 80’s and 90’s High Fantasy, mostly in terms of scale: a large cast of named characters, a few thousand years of history, some prophecies, miles and miles traversed by foot, looming war, monsters, maybe a magic sword or two, giant battles, and so on. (Unless I want to do away with those things, that is!)

I realized recently that, even though I love fast-paced stories, at the end of the day all of my favorite fantasy novels are the big, huge doorstoppers. It is unclear to me why this is. There is just something about getting lost in a giant book’s big world and getting to really know the characters. I am looking forward to recreating this feeling for readers when I get around to it.

But as stated before, it is in its earliest stages. So far I have a name for my wizard, an idea for an overall plot, a main character name (maybe), a few opening scenes, and the first semblances of a world map. And that’s about it. I brainstorm about this from time to time, but really my focus in on the Trilogy.

Fadenfreude (German for “Thread Joy”) is my industrial metal music project. First established for February Album Writing Month in 2012, Fadenfreude has had two full albums release. Because of lack of funds, all of the albums were recorded in my apartment and sound very homemade.

Beginnings

Coming Soon

Discography

2012 – Die Bäckerei is Geschlossen
2015 – Musen

2015 – Musen EP

Cat cat Productions is a film production company of which I share half the duties of writer, producer, director (among many other things) with Ralph Blanchard. We are centered around the comedy genre. Founded in 2013, as of 2024, we have made 9 short films, and a few other various online-style videos.

Filmography

Title	Genre (all comedies)	Year	Running Time
HOnTed DOG	Found footage horror/possession	2013	8 mins 06 secs
Old Saint Dick	Holiday	2013	4 mins 09 secs
Apple Die	Horror	2014	4 mins 47 secs
Old Saint Dick 2: Old Saint Dick Goes to Jail	Holiday	2014	3 mins 18 secs
U.PH.O.	1960’s science fiction	2015	6 mins 18 secs
Old Saint Dick 3: Slam Dunk Saint Dick	Holiday/Sports	2015	7 mins 17 secs
Salmonrai	Kurosawa films/fantasy	2016	11 mins 21 secs
Yeehawbanero	Sergio Leone westerns	2017	17 mins 42 secs
The Brat Snack	John Hughes 80’s teen films	2022	33 mins 06 secs

rammfan518.wordpress.com (and later rammfan518.com) was a blog that I ran from Feb 2007 to 2015. While the site is still active and live, I have not updated it or written for it since 2015. From 2007-2011, posts were frequent. At the height, the blog had around 210 articles, with topics mainly going over reviews and thought-pieces regarding movies, video games, television, and other media. The subtitle of the website was “A blog about movies and life, which are often one and the same.” Rarely, a post about real life would seep in there.

My most popular articles were Top 10s and also what I would now call my “hot take” articles, which were often long rants about a particular piece of media. Reception to these was often highly negative. Some nerves must have been struck!

Sometime around 2014, I removed the majority of the articles, and kept just the most traffic-driving articles on the site. Due to the high number of hits, I have considered posting on the blog again, although the I hardly feel like the rammfan518 persona anymore.

As of July 2024, the site has 194,747 hits.

Notable Articles

Why Star Wars: Revan was a HUGE disappointment – where I describe what a massive let-down the novel Star Wars Revan was over the course of 7,000 words.
Lord of the Rings Conquest Review – A review that starts off level and then quickly devolves into anger talking about the game’s bad controls. The rant continues when I bring up the game’s canonical differences from Tolkien lore. Perhaps the most nerd-rage thing I have ever written.
The Legend of Drizzt and Why I Stopped Reading – A lenghty article where I explain the Drizzt series of R.A. Salvatore went down in quality with subsequent books. This one received a lot of heat from his horde of loyal fans.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was a piece of crap…and how it could have been done better – where I take the truly dreadful, lazy, canon-breaking plotline of Star Wars: Force Unleashed II to task, and offer up an alternate take on the store.
The House M.D. Plot Formula – where I explain the plot formula for every episode I had seen of House. In truth, I had not seen many, but when I was forced to watch the show, it felt like I was watching the same episode over and over.



Negative Comments

From Jan 22, 2009: “my guess is that you just dont have any taste for good reading, so you can go and finish reading that collective lump of shit known as the twilight series, cuz someone without any ability to appreciate actual writing isnt worth my time.”

From Jan 29. 2009: “*smacks the writer of this*”

From June 10, 2010: “the books are genius and if u had any idea about forgotten realms nd all tht jazz then ud think so too so quit ur bitchin. seriously u deserve a smack by R.A salvatore himself. love the books and always will”

From July 30, 2011: “I really feel like america fucked up by giving idiots like you the ability to voice there ignorant opinions. Nothing you say makes any sense whatsoever. You sound like someone who jacks off to the wheel of time series. Please kill yourself. This is also my first time ever posting on a blog, and im 22 have been reading since 5. I wish I could see you so I could knock your fuckin lights out ppl like you make me wanna buy a sniper rifle. Goodbye sir and I hope you grow up”

Future

Gallery

**LIVING BLOG POST: Hello all. I am too busy to blog these days, but I nevertheless want to share some ideas with all of you. A “living” blog post is a blog post that is unfinished and can be added to later at any time, when time and fancy allows. Most of the time, the topics are big.**

Here is a list of fantasy media with reference to Tolkien’s Middle-Earth works, either by borrowing names or using concepts. This is by no means a comprehensive list. This is a list of creators who no doubt would have known about Tolkien and his works when they were making their own works. Perhaps authors had other reasons for borrowing such things.

Books

Forgotten Realms: Mithril making an appearance as the name of the Dwarven homeland, Mithril Hall. In the second book of the Icewind Dale trilogy, Streams of Silver, Bruenor Battlehammer and his friends decide to find the lost city of the Dwarves, called Mithril Hall. This is no doubt in a reference to Mithril, an Elvish term from Tolkien’s legendarium to describe the precious metal mined in Moria. Meaning “Grey Brilliance” in Elvish, mithril is also the material used for Bilbo (and later Frodo’s) chainmail vest. First editions of Streams of Silver write Mithril as such, but later editions spell it “Mithral”, replacing the I with an A. I have heard rumors that those behind Forgotten Realms thought Mithril was a generic mythological term having to do with Dwarves, and when they found out it was a pure Tolkien invention, they changed the spelling to avoid any legal trouble.
Terry Brooks – A bunch of shit from the early novels.
Luthien’s Gamble by R.A. Salvatore (Sword of Bedwyr) – Also, Eriador is just straight up the name of a country in that book?
The Dragon Prince trilogy by Melanie Rawn -Main character is named Rohan. From the book’s summary: “When Rohan became the new prince of the Desert, ruler of the kingdom granted to his family for as long as the Long Sands spewed fire, he took the crown with two goals in mind.”

Video Games

Wizards and Warriors (1987) – From the game booklet: “You are Kuros, the only knight warrior brave enough to enter the woods of Elrond.” From the back of the box: “Buried within the catacombs and dungeons of Elrond lies the key to your quest.”