Drew Karpyshyn's Blog
July 21, 2023
Autograph… scam???
I know, I know… way too long since my last update. But I’ve come across something odd that I wanted to share with folks.
Over the last couple months I have gotten about a half-dozen “fan letters” asking for my autograph. The cover letters are weirdly generic and non-specific – as if it was written by ChatGPT, with random details changed, or based off a plug-and-play template.
The cover letters all give a brief bio (age, occupation) and then talk about how the sender is collecting autographs with a group of friends. Also included is a pre-addressed return envelope (including postage) and 10-12 3×5 glossy cards for me to sign. None of these requests have come from the same person or address as far as I can tell, though the last two did come from the same state. (Different cities, though.)
At first I thought this was some sort of weird scam. Maybe they are trying to get copies of my signature to forge something? But my autograph is a simple “Drew K”, not my signature for legal docs. (No way in hell I’m writing out “Karpyshyn” every time I sign a book!). And why would they need 12 versions if they were just going to foge it?
Then I thought it might be some weird game or internet challenge I’m too old and out of touch to understand. Or maybe it’s an automated program that glitched and keeps sending stuff my way – the IRL equivalent of spam email.
So I jumped on Google (sorry, Bing!) and started digging into it. Eventually, I figured it out (I think).
Apparently there are numerous people out there who send letters to “barely famous” celebrities and request numerous autographs in the hope that one day down the road the celeb strikes it big, so they then can sell the autographs for lots of $$$. All it costs them is a couple bucks for an envelope, stamp, and index cards. Basically, I’ve become a lottery ticket for random fans.
On the one hand, it’s kind of cool. People are speculating that I may one day rise to heights of fame so lofty that they will be able to cash in just by having my name on a glossy index card. On the other hand, it’s a bit insulting… they clearly think I’m obscure enough that I’ll just give away my autograph for free! (I mean, I do give it away for free… but it’s still a bit insulting for them to assume that.)
I guess it’s not as bad as the e-mail scam I keep getting from China. That one’s interesting. First, I get an email alerting that someone is trying to purchase the “drewkarpyshyn.cn” domain in China, and asking if I approve. If I respond saying I don’t approve (what “celebrity” wants their identity stolen for a Chinese domain name?), then I get a follow up email saying my only legal option is to register it myself first. Of course, they offer me the opportunity to do exactly that for a very convenient price.
Don’t get me wrong – these are very small annoyances I pay for the price of my rather limited fame. But I can’t help but feel a bit bad when this happens. It shows how I’m a truly “mid-list” author – well-known enough to be a target for scammers and folks hoping to get rich quick, but not well known-enough to profit solely from my name and fame.
That’s partly my fault. I don’t work hard enough to engage with my fans or build a following. Time Kings of Las Vegas – my Kickstarter novel from last year – was my first full-length book since 2015. I’ve done a lot of contract work for games the past few years, but nothing as high-profile as my time at BioWare. And I’ve been involved in a number of TV pitches and pilots, but none of them have turned into anything that saw the light of day.
Even my current gig at Archetype Entertainment is still mostly under wraps. Eventually that will change, but right now we are still keeping a low profile.
So for the time being I’ll just keep chugging along in semi-obscurity, hoping that I strike it big… and all those folks hoarding my autographs can finally cash in. For their sake, not mine. 
September 30, 2022
Time Kings Update
It’s been a while since my last update, so I figured I should let everyone know how things are going. As many of you know, my Kickstarter campaign for Time Kings of Las Vegas successfully funded. I was blown away by all the support, as we more than doubled my goal of 10K!
But securing the funding was only the beginning. Over the past six weeks I’ve been working on putting together the digital and print versions of the book. I’m not going to lie – it’s been a LOT of work.
I’m happy to announce that the first copies of the digital version of Time Kings of Las Vegas are being sent out – if you supported my Kickstarter campaign you should get your copy within a few days!
The print copies are still in progress; I just got my hands on the prototype… and I have to say, it looks great! So we’re going into full production! It’s going to take a few weeks to get all the copies printed, but I hope to start sending them out before the end of October.
Now, I realize not everyone seeing this was part of the Kickstarter campaign. Well, guess what? You can still get your hands on a copy… you’ll just have to wait until the November 1 release date. But you can pre-order digital or paperback versions of Time Kings of Las Vegas here! And you can read more about the book and download a preview on my NOVELS page!
So buckle up… the next few weeks are going to be a whirlwind as I launch my first self-published novel into the world!
August 2, 2022
21 Vegas Style
Only a few days left in the Kickstarter for Time Kings of Las Vegas! Still time to grab your personalized, signed copy of my new novel… along with autographed copies of all my other books! (And still a few VIP packages left for the exclusive meet and greet dinner in Sin City on Saturday, December 10.)
I continue to be amazed at all the support I’ve received already – right now we’re sitting a little over 18K in pledges, well over my original 10K goal. And I’m very, very grateful to everyone who has contributed so far… but as we move into the final few days of the campaign, I’ve decided I have a new goal: 21K!
You see, 21 is a very special number when it comes to Las Vegas. Anyone who’s played blackjack knows the goal is to get 21, and you can’t even gamble in Vegas if you’re not at least 21 years old. And, since my new novel is set in Vegas, it feels like hitting 21K on the Kickstarter would have a nice little symmetry to it.
It also happens that 21 is one of my go-to numbers when I play roulette, in honor of the my favorite athlete of all time: Tim Duncan, the all time GOAT NBA power forward! (He’s also the inspiration for some of The Onion’s greatest sports-themed articles!)
So maybe I’m just looking for patterns where none exist. Maybe this is just a cheap ploy to squeeze out a few more $$$ for my Kickstarter. Or maybe – just maybe – the universe is trying to tell me something. Whatever the answer, lets make it happen – 21K for Time Kings, baby!
July 25, 2022
Happy Birthday To Me!
Order Time Kings of Las Vegas Exclusively from Kickstarter!
Time for another update. In case you couldn’t guess from the title – it’s my birthday! Well, almost. July 28. So I’m posting this a couple days early, but… meh, close enough.
This will mark 51 revolutions around the sun for me. That’s a long time. Realistically, I’m probably much closer to the end of my life than the beginning. Ugh. But I’m not here to dwell on my own mortality. Because this birthday will mark a very special occasion for me: my 30th anniversary of going to Las Vegas!
The summer I turned 21 my wife and I hopped in my Dodge Shadow and drove from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada down to Las Vegas: just a shade under 1,500 miles. It took us 2 days, and we arrived right on my birthday. The temperature was north of 115, and you could hear the metal on the car groaning from the heat as we pulled into the parking garage of the Excalibur hotel.
Back then, the Excalibur was still the HOT NEW THING on the Vegas strip. An animatronic wizard fought a fire-breathing dragon in the moat outside the main entrance at 15 minutes past the hour, every hour. Inside the hotel jesters, jugglers, magicians, and wandering minstrels amused the patrons milling about. Beneath the hotel was a jousting ring, where knights in full armor engaged in a glorious battle-royal every evening. And, to top it all off, there was a brand new shiny casino!
I was absolutely blown away. I had been to casinos before: the gambling age in Canada was 18, so I already knew how to play blackjack and a few other games. But this was something different. The Excalibur was more than a casino – it was a palace of wonder! And right across the street was the Luxor – a hotel shaped like an actual Egyptian pyramid! Walk another block, and suddenly you were in the streets of Manhattan at the New York, New York!
By the time we left, I realized Vegas was more than just a city in the desert – it was a literal oasis. A place where the drudgery of real life was swept away by glittering lights and the adrenaline rush of that next big win, always hovering just out of reach. And I knew I’d found my second home.
That was 30 years ago. I’m older now. Supposedly wiser. But Vegas still has its hooks in me. I keep coming back, over and over. And not just once in a while. I typically go four or five times a year. Every year. For the last 30 years. Because I love this city. There’s nowhere else like it in the world.
And that’s why I wrote Time Kings of Las Vegas. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – this book is my sci-fi love letter to Sin City. When I released it on Kickstarter a few weeks ago, all I was hoping was to get enough support to make self-publishing this book a reality. But my expectations were blown away! The project fully funded in only 5 days, and Time Kings has now raised over $17,000 in pledges!
As much as I love Vegas – and as much as I think Time Kings is a great story – I know a lot of the support is coming from fans of my Star Wars and Mass Effect novels who want to get autographed copies of their favorite books for their collections. And I’m perfectly okay with that. If I’ve learned anything from Vegas, it’s to give the people what they want!
So thank you to everyone who has signed up for a copy of my new novel. Thank you to everyone who is getting my Mass Effect and Star Wars packages. Extra thanks to everyone who is supporting my Chaos Born fantasy series, or getting my Super Fan package and grabbing copies of all my books!
And for those of you who have signed up for the Vegas VIP experience, I promise we’re going to have a great time in December. Because this is my town – my home away from home.
Thank you – all of you – for taking a gamble on Time Kings of Las Vegas!
Order Time Kings of Las Vegas Exclusively from Kickstarter!
July 15, 2022
Fully Funded!
It’s been one week since I launched the Kickstarter for Time Kings of Las Vegas, and I’m already fully funded! Obviously, I owe a huge thank you to all my family, friends, and fans who supported me. I honestly had no idea who this campaign would go. I hoped my readers would be willing to step outside their normal comfort zone, but to actually see how many people were willing to take a gamble on Time Kings of Las Vegas was both humbling and inspiring… and exhausting!
I’ve been swept up in a whirlwind of activity since my last post. In addition to launching the Kickstarter, I also hosted an AMA on Reddit. Check it out if you want to see my answers to questions on a range of topics from Mass Effect, to Star Wars, to what tacos I prefer in my Torchy’s Tacos orders!
I’ve also been promoting Time Kings across social media. I’ve been very active on Twitter and in several Facebook Groups, and I’ll be doing a podcast over at Rule the Galaxy next week. We’re recording Wednesday night, and I think they plan to have it up by Thursday!
So much has happened in only seven days, but there’s still so much more to go! The Kickstarter is running until August 7, so there’s still time to pledge your support! If you’re not sure if Time Kings is the right kind of book for you, you can check out the prologue and first chapter before you make your decision!
And in case you were wondering, the Kickstarter has plenty of bonus rewards up for grabs when you pledge. In addition to getting a copy of Time Kings, you can also get an autographed copy of my Revan novel. Or the Darth Bane trilogy. Or my Chaos Born books, or the Mass Effect novels… hell, just get the Super Fan package and scoop up autographed copies of the whole bunch – 13 books in total!
And if you’re looking for something really special, you could sign up for the Vegas VIP package – in addition to everything in the Super Fan package, you also get an exclusive meet and greet with me at one of Vegas’s finest restaurants. And I’ll even pay for dinner!
So, if you’ve already pledged for the Kickstarter, THANK YOU! And if you haven’t, what the hell are you waiting for?
July 7, 2022
Time Kings of Las Vegas
This is it! Tomorrow – July 8 – Time Kings of Las Vegas goes live on Kickstarter!
The day before a Kickstarter goes live is a little bit like Christmas Eve: the excitement, the nervous anticipation. Only, in this case, there’s a chance Santa Claus won’t like you enough to fund your project, and you could end up crashing and burning in a humiliating, public, epic fail. But otherwise… yeah, it’s like Christmas Eve!
You can learn more about Time Kings on the Novels page of my website – including a sample chapter. But today I’d like to talk a bit more about what’s actually going to be in the Kickstarter.
Time Kings will be available in digital and trade paperback format. For now there’s no audio book, and no hard cover – the cost and the numbers just didn’t make sense for my first ever Kickstarter. But on the bright side, every copy of the trade paperbacks will be personalized and autographed!
But wait… there’s more! Are you a fan of my Star Wars novels? Were you thinking… damn, I’d love to get some autographed copies of the Darth Bane series with those new kick-ass covers at the same time I get a copy of Time Kings? Well, today is your lucky day! You want a side of autographed Mass Effect novels to go with your Time Kings order? I got some of that! How about a bit of Revan thrown in? Yep! Maybe you’ve been thinking about checking out my Chaos Born trilogy along with Time Kings. Good news – I’ve got a package for that, too!
Now, some of you might be saying, “Wait a minute, what if I just want autographed copies of ALL the books – Star Wars, Mass Effect, Chaos Born, Time Kings, the short story collection… the whole damn enchilada! Well, my friend, the SUPERFAN package will be just what you’re looking for!
And if you’re looking for the ultimate Drew Karpyshyn experience, you’ll want to act fast and scoop up one of my Vegas VIP meet and greets to enjoy an exclusive dinner with me in Sin City!
Basically, there’s something here for everyone; new fans and old. So I hope you’ll support me in this venture, and thank you in advance for taking a gamble on Time Kings of Las Vegas!
June 28, 2022
Kickstarter Pre-Launch!
It’s almost time. I’m *this* close to launching Time Kings of Las Vegas on the world! Check out this preview from my Kickstarter welcome video!
But this Kickstarter campaign is more than just Time Kings – I’ve got something special for fans of all my work! Whether you’re into Star Wars, or Mass Effect, or my Chaos Born novels, you’ll find an exclusive package just for you!
So head on over to the Kickstarter Pre-Launch and sign up to be notified when the campaign goes live!
Time Kings of Las Vegas
Carson Gaines is a professional gambler and card counter with a very special gift – he can literally stop time! There’s just one drawback: whenever he stops the world, he finds himself just as frozen and helpless as everyone else.
Cursed with the world’s most frustrating superpower, Carson finds himself on the wrong side of a local mobster, the CIA, and a secret government research project operating out of Area 51. And he soon learns that in Sin City, the house always wins…
Read a sample here!
