About

I’m Jonathan Lovelace, a 2009 graduate of Calvin College in computer science. This is the online home of my two major works: the Shine Cycle, my science fiction/fantasy series-in-progress, and Strategic Primer, a unique strategy game.

I never introduced myself properly when I began this blog in December 2008, so in July 2011 I reintroduced myself, the Shine Cycle, and Strategic Primer at some length; this page is intended to serve as a shorter introduction to me, my work, and this blog.

The Shine Cycle is my magnum opus (with “great” merely meaning “very large” here), a story that primarily spans two continents (though at times stretching to other worlds and even other universes) from the beginning of that world for over two hundred years. Most of its text will be located on Google Docs or WEbook, if posted publicly at all, but much of the background material and some stories are and will be posted here.

I also write poetry. I’ve posted most of my presentable poems on this blog—one a week since November 2009—and mirrored the collection on Google Docs and WEbook. I’m soliciting reader opinions as to which poems are my best as I prepare to self-publish a collection. But since these archives of my poetry have become so large as to be unwieldy, I’m posting links to small, more manageable groups each week for your perusal.

My second magnum opus (again merely meaning “very large”) is a strategy game called Strategic Primer, which began as the experiment in my eighth grade science fair project (”what effect does age have on performance in a game of strategy?”, as I recall) but within the year had grown completely out of hand. During high school I conceived of turning it into a computer game, but as that too snowballed with every idea I’d ever had about how a strategy game should be I now intend for it to be both a pen-and-paper and a computer game. The computer game’s design is now being thoroughly overhauled, and I am currently running a preliminary campaign of the “pen-and-paper version” over the Internet—which still needs players!

In addition to these three major projects, which I try to write about weekly (the Shine Cycle on Mondays, Strategic Primer on Wednesdays, and a poem each Friday), I also write essays about various topics.