Dan F. Bispo

(also known as Barrows)

non-fictional writer of fiction writing

welcomes you to his

WEBSITE

and shall here display his awards when he has any

The year is 2568, and humanity has spread itself thin and wide across the galaxy.A refugee named Yana finds her new, post-scarcity home just as asphyxiating as the ruins of her homeworld. Though all her needs are met, a deep discontentment still brews.The situation changes when Yana is accidentally recruited into the Galaxy's foremost peacekeeping organization, and realizes it might hold the answers she seeks.Now, with her last shot at happiness on the line, she must either prove her worth to her new employers, or lose all her prospects--for good.Buy on Itch.io

LUMINOUS TAPESTRY

Charlotte Snow sees too much.After dropping out of University, Charlotte returns to her hometown and finds it the way she left it: the buildings are still old, the air still smells of fish, and supernatural creatures still walk the streets, invisible to everyone else. It’s up to her to rebuild her life while haunted by these hallucinations.Then the monsters notice her back.Buy on Itch.io

THE CRYPTIC PARADE & A WORLD UNFURLING

THE CRYPTIC PARADE. A bestiary of things that dwell where we dare not look.A WORLD UNFURLING. Records and reports from a reality fraying at the edges.A collection of 40 short stories about the weird, creepy, and unseen.FREE on Itch.io

BOOKS:
BEAR MY HEART by Karen Lykkebo

GAMES:
FORBIDDEN SOLITAIRE by Night Signal Entertainment and Grey Alien Games

Review: Forbidden Solitaire

Night Signal Entertainment, Grey Alien Games

As someone who considers Home Safety Hotline one of his all-time favorite games, I was cheering for Forbidden Solitaire from the minute it was announced. Night Signal Entertainment has yet to miss, as far as I'm concerned—even their eponymous first game, frustrating as it could be, still oozed enough of the company's trademark horror-comedy charm to make it a memorable and endearing experience. And with Grey Alien Games at their side to smooth out the gameplay side of things, I expected greatness from the get-go.What I did not expect, however, was an auspicious mashup of many of my personal interests (the Satanic Panic, 90s computer video game history, lost and cursed media), a lightweight but enthralling narrative, devilishly addictive gameplay, and a hefty sprinkle of cheeky references to 90s gaming culture.Forbidden Solitaire has you playing as Will Roberta—yes, all the references are about as subtle as this, and I wouldn't have it any other way—a lost media aficionado who just came into the possession of a treasure from the good old Lieberman days of gaming discourse: a copy of the hyperviolent, and long thought lost, Forbidden Solitaire. All that's left now is to play it.There's no way around it: this game is pure Night Signal. It's charming, often cheesy, and surprisingly scary, and knows exactly when to bring each of these qualities to the forefront. From the moment I launched the .exe file in my simulated desktop, I couldn't put it down, nor could I stop myself from getting invested into the gritty, Fighting Fantasy-esque story-within-a-story. The game knows it's addicting, and that its atmosphere is enthralling, and delights in snapping the player out of it with instant messages from Will's sister Emily, whose research into the history of the game and its sordid history become more and more unwelcome as we get closer to the finish line...Forbidden Solitaire is a gem of a game. More than anything, I feel, it is a love letter to the art of making games, its pioneers, and its champions. To those who subject themselves to the whims of megalomaniacal project leads and inhospitable industries, just this is what they love doing. Like all of Night Signal's repertoire, it's fun, and not just in a gameplay sense—it embodies fun as a concept. Whenever I saw the period-accurate CGI intro to the game-within-a-game, or the cheap costume worn in one of its fake ads, I couldn't help thinking, these people must have been having a blast making this!And that's to say nothing of the ending, which is so Night Signal, it might as well be their signature at this point.Forbidden Solitaire is cool, and you should play it.

Review: Bear My Heart

a novella by Karen Lykkebo, pub. April 2026

There are books that are efficient. They understand their purpose is to tell a story, and to do so, refine themselves to a point. I like these books. They do everything a good book should do, and they do it well. They give you a narrative, strongly realized, with engaging characters and satisfying plotlines.Then there are book that are anything but. Books that embrace excess and beauty, and try to get not at the brain, but at the heart.The latter have always been my favorite, and among these, Bear My Heart shines.Told from the perspective of Terra, a werebear living alone in the wilderness, Bear My Heart seems to be, at first, a simple but endearing love story. One day, while transformed, she accidentally strikes down Sayran, a girl from a nearby village, and in the process of nursing her back to health, finds the companionship that she never thought she needed. But where this story shines is not in the technicalities, however well-executed, but in the viscerality of the emotion present.In these pages, through the character of Terra, Karen Lykkebo bares her heart to us. Terra's anxieties, her loneliness, her love, and her unresolved grief all feel like more than just words on paper--they are truths so raw and real that they made themselves my own. It's rare to see an author of fiction make herself so vulnerable before the reader, to weave feelings so strongly felt into a tapestry of words. It will seem presumptuous of me, and I can be completely wrong--and if I am, it speaks just as highly of her skills, that she could summon such power out of simple abstractions--but I cannot interpret these joys and pains as only imagined, if they're so vivid that they call out to those of my own lived experience.So yes, it is a 'cozy' story, by definition. There are no big tragedies or action scenes, and even though the tone can grow heavy, Sayran's lighthearted charm anchors the narrative, just as it does Terra herself, and never allows it to dip into true darkness. But it is also a thematically and emotionally rich read, layered with love and loss, and one that stuck with me long after I finished it. And just as Terra found Sayran, and through her companionship found the courage to step out of the wilderness for the first time in many years, so was I glad to have found this wonderful tale.Sometimes, all you need is a kind hand to hold.

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