Fighting Dantasy?

Came across this rather unusual review today of Spellbreaker - my first ever published book - and didn't know quite what to make of it.

See what you think of it here.

FIghting Fantazine #2 - out now!

Rather late with this news, but I've very pleased to say that the second issue of Fighting Fantazine (the Fighting Fantasy fanzine) is out now and includes the second half of the comprehensive interview the editorial team carried out with me.

As well as reading about how I first got into writing Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, you can also indulge yourself with the frankly incredible Shrine of the Salamander original FF adventure, there are reviews and news of forthcoming titles and an article on FF maps, which includes a couple of mine! And it's all wrapped up in a superb Natalie Roberts (a.k.a Nat the Rat) cover.

The guys have done a fantastic job, once again, and you can download it here for yourself.

An Assassin in Orlandes - coming soon!

Exciting news from Tin Man Games in Australia... An Assassin in Orlandes has been submitted to Apple and should be available from next week. To read more about this story, click this link.

Crisis on Coruscant - out today!

Yes, it feels like it's been a long time coming, but finally my Star War The Clone Wars Decide Your Destiny adventure Crisis on Coruscant is released today.

The Galactic Senate is under attack! As Padawan to Jedi Master Shaak Ti, your mission is to rescue Chancellor Palpatine, then find out who is responsible for the plot. Your adventure will take you from the depths of the underlevels on Coruscant, to the Great Mesra Plateau and Jabba the Hutt’s Palace on Tatooine. Will you prove yourself worthy of your Jedi training or turn to the dark side when the going gets tough?

Not only can you now buy the book, you can also enjoy the online content created especially for it - including the totally brilliant lightsaber duel game seen here:


Jump in and out of cyberspace to continue the experience online with exclusive content, amazing animated scenes and games!





















If you would like to immerse yourself in the world of Star War The Clone Wars Decide Your Destiny adventures, click here. To buy the book, click here.

And may the force be with you.

Can you tell what it is yet?

I've finally got Wordle to work on my computer and as a result have had a bit of a splurge this afternoon creating word clouds of some of my recent projects.

But can you tell which stories or books the following represent?

One stop short of the Orion Nebula

The Iron Man Cometh

Pax Britannia is just great

Not my words, but the words of Pablo Cheesecake, who says other very nice things about the Pax Britannia books - and Evolution Expects in particular - here!

Who's Who?

New Doctor Who show-runner Steven Moffat has revealed who will be writing the first season of the Eleventh Doctor's adventures.

As well as the Moff himself writing six episodes, we can also expect episodes from Chris Chibnall (Torchwood), Toby Whithouse (Being Human - who wrote the 10th Doctor story School Reunion), Simon Nye (Men Behaving Badly!), Mark Gatiss (The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot's Lantern) and Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral).

If there are 13 episodes in total, I would guess that as well as the Moff's episodes we can expect two two-parters, probably by Chibnall and Whithouse. And news already leaked from the set/the new DW trailer suggests the return of River Song and the Weeping Angels and something about Vampires...

The spring can't come soon enough!

Geronimo!

Meet the Bat-barrow

Howl of the Werewolf

You can buy Howl of the Werewolf here.

"Howl of the Werewolf is an excellent book... Some of the Fighting Fantasy books have been so difficult as to be impossible to win. This one is not one of them. Complex, large and full of adventures, with excellent art, Howl of the Werewolf is a good way to have a good time away from a computer."

Currently reading...

It has not escaped my notice that other authors frequently post an update as to whatever it is that's currently distracting them from the job in hand, in terms of reading material, music and gaming.

Well, currently I am reading Blood Pact* by Dan Abnett. It's the twelfth book in the astonishing successful - and damn fine! - Gaunt's Ghost series and, let me tell you, it doesn't disappoint. About a third of the way through but progress has been slow today due to me writing my own stuff - namely White Rabbit. (But more on that another time.)

You can find out more about Gaunt's Ghosts and Blood Pact here, and listen to Dan himself talking about the experience of writing the book here...



* I had a tot up the other day and I think that Blood Pact is the 61st Black Library novel I've read - out of the hundreds they've published...

Night of the Necromancer - competition winner

I've got a bit of a treat for all you Fighting Fantasy fans out there, desperate to see some more of Martin McKenna's frankly astounding artwork for the forthcoming Night of the Necromancer.

Today I can reveal, for the first time, Martin's portrait of NOTN competition winner Nicki Gray, alongside the posed photograph she sent in to Wizard Towers. (In case you don't know what I'm talking about, click here, and pop back again in a minute.)

But anyway, on with the good stuff...

Martin McKenna's finished illustration


Nicki's winning shot


Nicki's frankly astonishing FF collection

Seeing the photo and the finished illustration together you can see how fine a portraitist Martin really is.


As it happens, I'm proof-reading the typeset manuscript at the moment and, without wanting to sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet, I'm getting excited about it all over again.

As to who the other figures in the picture are... you'll just have to wait until April to find out!

Until next time...

Spider-Man 4 is no more

All I can say is b*****!

You can read more about this story here.

Darksiders: Wrath of War

I wish I'd thought of this idea for a gamebook first...

Rebecca Levene's Infernal Game

M'colleague, fellow writer Rebecca Levene has created her own original series for Abaddon Books. It's called The Infernal Game and the first book in the series, Cold Warriors, is out later this year.

You can read more about Cold Warriors here, while over at Pornokitsch you can read an interview they've conducted with Rebecca. Part one is here and part two is here. Enjoy, and check out her Afterblight book Kill or Cure and her Tomes of the Dead title Anno Mortis as well!

Creating a buzz

It would appear that with five books in the series in print already and another three due over the next 12 months or so, Pax Britannia is starting to create something of a buzz.

The books have received consistently good reviews from the SF press and was even voted Unnatural History SFcrowsnest's 16th most popular book of the year!

And now one senor Pablo Cheesecake has even list the forthcoming Blood Royal and Dark Side as two of the publications he is most looking forward to this year.

If you're inspired, intrigued or simply incredulous about Ulysses Quicksilver's adventures and the world of Pax Britannia why not drop me a line. You never know, you could end up with a cameo in a forthcoming adventure, rather like Michelle Powell.

Anyway, here's to 2010 (or 1998, as it is in the World of Pax Britannia)!

Gamebook Adventures - Orlandes revealed

The guys at Tin Man Games have just finished adding the final touches to the map of Orlandes, the fantastical location for their upcoming Gamebook Adventures titles.


An Assassin in Orlandes begins in Orlandes City, situated to the East of the country, while The Siege of the Necromancer is based on the West coast of Orlandes in the township of Myr, where a mysterious dark presence has the Emery Lands in the grip of fear.

To see the map in greater detail, click here.

The Known Universe

Now this is something just a little bit special... and awe-inspiring!

Drunk Doctor

Before recording his list of instructions for Martha, when he turned himself into a human in Human Nature, the Doctor had a few banana daiquiris to calm his nerves... Here's what happened on the first take!

Public Lending Right loans - 2008/2009

I came back from a few days away yesterday to be greeted by a very pleasant surprise - my Public Lending Right statement for the year July 2008 to June 2009.

Once a year I, like other registered authors, receive a statement from the kind people at PLR (Public Lending Right) informing me how many people have borrowed my books from libraries over the past year. For each loan I earn a few pence which, at the end of the day, add up to a fair few pounds (now that I've established a bit of a back catalogue of publications).

The idea behind the PLR is to reimburse authors for what are effectively lost earnings, as a result of people borrowing books rather than buying them. There is a limit to how much an author can receive from the PLR (it's £6600 if you're interested) so that the likes of Terry Pratchett and J K Rowling don't wipe out the total fund.

Just like the year before, July 2008 - June 2009 saw an increase in the number of my books being borrowed, because I've continued to have more books published. However, one book more than any other made a huge difference to my loans and hence my earnings, bringing in more than my total PLR earnings for last year all by itself!

For those of you who may be interested, here are my top ten most borrowed books for July 2008 - June 2009 (with last year's placing in brackets):

1. (2) The Horror of Howling Hill (Mar 08)
2. (1) Howl of the Werewolf (Sep 07)
3. (6) Spellbreaker (Jun 07)
4. (9) Unnatural History (Feb 07)
5. (10) Leviathan Rising (Mar 08)
6. (5) Curse of the Mummy (Apr 07)
7. (3) Bloodbones (Sep 06)
8. (2) Human Nature (Jan 09)
9. (-) What is Myrrh Anyway? (Oct 08)
10. (7) Iron Hands (Aug 04)

10,576 loans last year alone!

Night of the Necromancer - competition winner

From the official Fighting Fantasy gamebooks Facebook page:

Huge congratulations to Nicki Gray for winning the Night of the Necromancer competition! She will now have her image included in one of the illustrations for the next brilliant brand-new Fighting Fantasy, due out in April. Full announcement due on the website shortly!

I would just like to say, "Well done, Nicki" and to add that Martin McKenna, the book's illustrator, has done a superb job of your portrait.

Look out for more news about Night of the Necromancer soon!

The Smell of Books... in a can!

Something for the eBook owner in your life...

Set spines to tingling

The Robot Revolution has begun...

Angry Robot Books Christmas Speech

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Knights of Doom - a question

The other day I came across a reference to Knights of Doom that wasn't anything to do with the second of my Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebooks.

It's a song by a band called The Sorrow. Now I know that it's perfectly possible that this it is purely a coincidence that my book and their song have the same name, but does anyone know anything about the origin of The Sorrow's track?

It's from the album Blessings From A Blackened Sky and the lyrics are as follows:

This time no light will shine through
When skies are falling
The age of bloodlust is dawning
My sole is seeking solace
No god above us
Our bones are feeding the fire

Knights of doom
Blades cut deep
Knights of doom
At the gates

Through the night
Set our bodies ablaze
Turn the darkness to light
We are feeding the fire / We carry on

This time I stand alone amongst the demons
The battle for hope is calling
My eyes ablazed by fury
I'm armed with despair
I kill for the grace of my loved ones

Through the night
Set our bodies ablaze
Turn the darkness to light
We are feeding the fire / We carry on

A battle for honour
A battle for grace

If anyone does know anything, I'd be most grateful if you replied to this post. Yours, in anticipation...

Happy New Year

'Nuff said... ;-)