So, where have I been? Busy. For almost three years. Yup, that's about right.

Actually, there was some down time along the way when life wasn't overwhelming me, but even at those moments, it was hard to pull myself together enough to put together an issue of something that I'd be proud to have my name on, rather than something that was just slapped together. And with the lack of Car Wars support elsewhere, I didn't think that there was much demand for it anyway.

Three things combined into a perfect storm to change my mind. First, I was online looking at the assortment of web pages that I've created over the past ten years that have sat unsupported and not updated for the last two or three at least. Second, it's the end of the school year, which gives me a little bit of time to relax before starting the whole cycle over again. Third, while cleaning up at the end of the year, I was checking out some old floppy diskettes -- hard to believe that I still have some of those, but many of the PCs in the school require them -- and I found the files for Fortress Towns, a booklet written for Steve Jackson Games.

Hmmmmm, I think I might have a use for those files.

To answer some questions in advance, in case anyone is wondering: the files are mine. The material in the files are mine. I own them and I can do what I want with them ... within limits. (After all, they do involve the Car Wars universe, which is most definitely not mine.

Yes, this came from a manuscript that was written for release by SJGames as a Car Wars supplement. It was to be the first of two projects, the second being Interceptors. Unfortunately, the cycle gangs supplement had already been assigned to someone else although I happily agreed with Steve Jackson that "Road Wolves" was a great name for a cycle gang. But I digress . . .

The final draft of Fortress Towns was rejected for a couple of reasons. First, the new release of Car Wars wasn't doing as well as it should have been. Second, Steve didn't like the final result. I believe his word was "boring". Ouch. There were a few other criticisms, but that one stuck the most.

We had crammed a lot into a little book and stuffed a lot of information in there. Unfortunately, we left little room for the lighter side of gaming. (And in our own defense, we wrote a chapter on "Economics" for Heaven's sake. Whoa! Stop those galloping ponies, this is too much excitement for me! Ahem.)

By the way, the "we" in the previous paragraph refers to Robert Garitta, of course, who was the book's co-author. I haven't spoken to him yet since finding these files, so I'm not including any of his work in this issue. At least, not intentionally. It's been three years, so I'm not exactly sure who wrote what.

And I should let everyone know that these files that I found are what I believe to be the final, finished chapters that were submitted, but there is no way that I can be sure. I've given them a once-over, to make sure that they are readable. And I might've edited a little here and there to make them a little more enjoyable.

And, once again, the disclaimer, the Car Wars universe is property of Steve Jackson Games. Although the rights to the manuscript reverted back to Rob and me, the material is still based on their property, and some of the material in this issue's article may have appeared previously in one of their products. (This is possible since we were trying to piece together what was already "history" without throwing too many things out and starting all over again.)

So, I hope you enjoy it. And I hope I'm back with more before the summer is over.