Fighting Fantasy 2014 - Official Press Release

For immediate release!

Fighting Fantasy Fest 2014

The first dedicated Fighting Fantasy convention, with Special Guests of Honour Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, featuring the official launch of YOU ARE THE HERO – A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks by Jonathan Green.

Sunday 7 September 2014 will see the first dedicated Fighting Fantasy convention take place at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in Ealing, West London. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, co-creators of the publishing and gaming phenomenon that is Fighting Fantasy, will be Special Guests of Honour at the event, where they will be joined by legendary fantasy artists Russ Nicholson, Chris Achilleos and Tony Hough. A highlight of the day will be Steve and Ian’s own talk on the History of Fighting Fantasy.

Fighting Fantasy Fest will see the official launch of Jonathan Green’s YOU ARE THE HERO – A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, along with an exhibition of rare FF memorabilia – including original artwork and other more obscure artefacts connected to the series – as well as trade stands, and an auction of Fighting Fantasy treasures. Arion Games will be running Advanced Fighting Fantasy role-playing game sessions during the day, while Tin Man Games and Inkle Studios will also be in attendance, talking about their digital versions of such classic gamebooks as Ian Livingstone’s The Forest of Doom and Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! epic.

Tickets for the event cost £50 each, and every attendee will receive an event-exclusive Adventurer’s Backpack containing various Fighting Fantasy Fest and YOU ARE THE HERO goodies.

“The success of the YOU ARE THE HERO Kickstarter project demonstrated that there is still an active community of Fighting Fantasy fans out in the world who would relish the chance to not only meet their heroes, but to get together and share their stories of battling the horrors of Deathtrap Dungeon or braving the perils of Kharé – Cityport of Traps,” says Jonathan Green, author of the History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, “ideally whilst quaffing a flagon of ale in Port Blacksand’s infamous Black Lobster Tavern.” (The event will even feature a themed bar!)

Ian Livingstone, co-creator of Fighting Fantasy said, “It’s crazy really that it’s taken 32 years for a dedicated Fighting Fantasy event to take place!  But that’s going to make it all the more special. It will be brilliant to see old friends, artists, authors and fans again after all this time. I’m going to bring along some special Fighting Fantasy items that have never been seen in public before. It certainly will be a Return to Firetop Mountain! I can’t wait.”

Steve Jackson, who is famed for his Sorcery! series, said, “Amazing to think it’s almost 40 years since the first Games Day was held, at Seymour Hall and Baths in Central London. There was a great buzz at that event. Visitors – and organisers – felt they were attending a special occasion. I’m sure it will be the same kind of buzz at Fighting Fantasy Fest. FF celebrities will be there, dealers and memorabilia, game demos and a special auction of items from the Jackson and Livingstone personal archives. This will be an event not to be missed by FF readers. I’m really looking forward to it.”

For more information, or to arrange interviews with the organisers of Fighting Fantasy Fest, please email Jonathan Green at info@jonathangreenauthor.com.

@fightingfantasy @stevejacksonuk @ian_livingstone @jonathangreen @You_Are_TheHero #FightingFantasyFest2014

Sunday 7 September 2014 • The DoubleTree Hilton, Ealing, London, UK

Artists • Panels • Book Signings • Games • Exhibition • Special Guests • Auction

www.FightingFantasy.com

Nine Worlds Geekfest 2013

At around 3.00pm today, the first ever Nine Worlds Geekfest gets under way at the Renaissance and Radisson Hotels in Heathrow, just outside London.

If you've not heard about this yet, (a) where have you been? and (b) you can find out more about the epic event here.

I am attending as part of the Steampunk contingent, who will be based in the Windsor Room at the Renaissance Hotel. I shall be selling my books (and other wares, including beer-flavoured fudge this time!) as well as taking part in various other events over the course of the weekend.

Here are the current timings of specific Pax Britannia/Jonathan Green-related goodness, but as with all such events, timings are inevitably subject to change, so best to check the Nine Worlds website for the most up to the minute info and at the event itself, just to be sure.

Saturday 10 August
3.15pm - Steampunk & Fiction - a panel hosted by Yours Truly and featuring Robert Rankin, Raven Dane and Stephen Hunt. (Windsor Room)

Sunday 11 August
11.45am - 1.00pm - Meet the Authors - book readings and signing session featuring Yours Truly, Raven Dane and Toby Frost.
1.00pm - 2.00pm - Signing at the Forbidden Planet stand.

I shall look forward to seeing you there!

Dragonmeet - Saturday 26 November

I shall be appearing at Dragonmeet tomorrow (Saturday 26 November), as the guest of Tin Man Games.

The event runs from 10.00am, at Kensington Town Hall, and I'm planning to be there for the whole day.

Fighting Fantasy's Warlock is going to be around as will Graham Bottley of Arion Games, publisher of Second Edition Advanced Fighting Fantasy. And Cubicle 7 will be selling my Pax Britannia books.

I'm on the 'Fiction and the Games Industry' panel with my esteemed colleagues Sarah Newton and Iain Lowson, starting at 1.30pm, whilst m'colleague James Wallis will be interviewing Ian Livingstone OBE, from 11.00am - 12.00pm with a Q&A session afterwards.

So, maybe I'll see you there...

JG at Weekend at the Asylum

Well, some might say it's about time, but I'm off to the Asylum in Lincoln on Saturday 10 September for the United Kingdom Steampunk Convivial.

Weekend at the Asylum is the largest steampunk festival in Europe, attracting more than 1,000 steampunks from across the World, and is taking place this year from 9-11 September 2011.

Special Guests will be Wilf Lunn, Robert Rankin and Fraser Hines, while I'll be there as a visiting author, along with Sam Stone, Toby Frost and Raven Dane.

I'll be in the Exhibition Hall on Saturday from 10.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m. so why not pop along to get your Pax Britannia collection signed and pick up the latest titles from Abaddon Books while you're at it. I've even had some special badges made to commemorate the occasion!

I'll also be giving a reading and talking about my work for an hour from 11.00 a.m.*

So hopefully I'll see some of you there. It should be most convivial.

* This is a provisional timing only and you should check again on the day, just in case.

House of Fear - Foyles launch

You know how I mentioned I've contributed a story to Solaris Books' House of Fear (edited by Jonathan Oliver and out this October)? Well the official Foyles launch has been announced.

It's taking place on 27th September 2011, 6:30pm - 7:30pm, at the Charing Cross Road store. You'll get a taste of the book's collection of new and original fiction and be able to join in the discussion of the ideas behind the writing of said stories with Sarah Pinborough, Christopher Priest, Paul Meloy and others.

Tickets are free but have to be booked via the Foyles website here.

Maybe I'll see you there...

Steampunk Creators Day at Kew Bridge Steam Museum

Just a reminder that I will be at the Steampunk Creators Day at Kew Bridge Steam Museum in Brentford tomorrow from 11.00am until around 3.30pm. I will be there selling and signing my Pax Britannia books. I will also be reading from one of my books at 1.00pm with a Q&A session to follow afterwards.

If you're in the area, why not drop by? A number of the steam engines in the Steam Hall will be running during the day and there is the The Greatest Steampunk Exhibition to visit of course.

Maybe I'll see you there...

Pax Britannia at the Greatest Steampunk Exhibition

The Greatest Steampunk Exhibition is the largest exhibition of Steampunk art, craft and engineering in the UK. It opened last weekend, on Saturday 4th June, at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum in West London. The includes Steampunk exhibits from all over the world, ranging from paintings and artworks through costumes and fabrics to machines and engines, together with sound installations and short films. Many of the exhibits have been specially created for the exhibition and have never been seen before.

The exhibition is running until Monday 29th August, and visitors to the exhibition will be able to enjoy all the other attractions of the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, including the giant Victorian pumping engines which will be operating most weekends. These will all be complemented by a range of Steampunk books and other products which will be available in the Museum shop during the exhibition.

And I'll be there, as part of a Steampunk creators' day, in a fortnight's time, on Saturday 25th June, selling, signing and reading from my Pax Britannia books, which will be available to buy from the museum bookshop.

So if you live anywhere near Brentford, why not pop along and check it out? More details about the exhibition can be found here.

JG at the UK Games Expo this weekend

Just a quick reminder that I'll be at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham this weekend helping to promote Advanced Fighting Fantasy (as well as traditional un-advanced Fighting Fantasy), but I'll also be selling some of my Ulysses Quicksilver Pax Britannia novels at a knock-down price.

So, if you fancy finding out all about the newly revised AFF RPG, drop by the Arion Games stand and, while you're there, why not pick up the PB titles missing from your collection?

I look forward to seeing you on Saturday or Sunday.

PS - If you can't make it up to Birmingham this weekend, I'll also be at the BFS Open Night at the Mug House, Tooley Street in London tonight. So, if you're around, do pop over and say "Hi!"

Fighting Fantasy at the UK Games Expo

The hotel's booked, the necessary weekend pass has been negotiated, so I can now confirm that I shall be attending this year's UK Games Expo in Birmingham (over the weekend of 4-5 June) helping Graham Bottley of Arion Games promote the Fighting Fantasy brand.

Graham will be there to talk about (and sell) the newly revised edition of the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG and between us we'll also have some Fighting Fantasy books to sell. So, if you want to see why people have been raving about the new AFF RPG, or you want to replace your dog-eared copies of Titan and Out of the Pit, or you want me to deface a book for you with my signature, or you just want to chat about the Good Old Days, then why not drop by on Saturday or Sunday and say "Hi!"

Maybe I'll see you there. Until then...

We have a winner! - update

It's been almost a fortnight since I announced a winner had been randomly selected to receive nearly a kilo's worth of books, signed by myself, just for joining my forum.

The winner was duly notified by email but I am still haven't heard back from them, nearly two weeks later. I'm going to give the original winner until Monday 7 March to get back to me and if they don't, then I'll be picking a new winner.

So, all you forum members, watch this space...

We have a winner!

As many of you are no doubt aware, this weekend I ran a competition on my forum to win nearly a kilo's worth of books, signed by myself.

Well, forty people signed up to my forum, on top of the fifteen who were already members, by 9.00am this morning and this afternoon a winner was selected at random from all fifty-five forum members.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Only fifty-three members qualified. I'm one of them - and so disqualified due to the fact that it would be too weird to sign books to myself - and one's a known spammer.

The winner has been notified by email this afternoon and now I'm just waiting on a reply so that I can send the lucky forum member their books. Who knows, in time maybe I'll be able to post a picture of the happy winner with their prize.

If you didn't win, have no fear - I'm planning another similar competition in a few weeks' time to boost forum membership past 100 after the great response this one garnered.

Forum giveaway

How would you like to own these four books, all signed by the author - for nothing?

Well, it's easy. All you have to do is register as a member of my new forum here and when we hit 50 members, I'll put everyone's names into a hat and pull out one winner.

That winner will then receive a copy of Howl of the Werewolf, the new edition of Curse of the Mummy, Pax Britannia: Dark Side and the Warhammer 40K short story anthology Victories of the Space Marines, which contains my Imperial Fists' story But Dust in the Wind. And I'll sign them all too.

So what are you waiting for? Don't delay, sign up today!

Curse of the Mummy (original Puffin edition) and others for sale!

Don't miss the chance of a lifetime! There's only a few hours to go on my Ebay offer, by which you could own an original Jonathan Green publication signed by the author.

As well as the hard-to-come-by original Fighting Fantasy edition of Curse of the Mummy, there are so a couple of Sonic the Hedgehog gamebooks available and Pax Britannia books too!

So follow this link now and get bidding - before it's too late!

Signed by the author

Family Green are on the move. As of a week on Friday, we're moving out of the house that we have lived in for the last half a decade - which means packing. And it's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in five years.

So it's goodbye to all this...

And this - my writing shelf...

And I find myself needing to off load myself of a large number of books. And this is where you come in.

You can own an original, first edition copy of the Jonathan Green book of your choice (pretty much) and it will, of course, be signed by the author.

So, follow this link to my Ebay page - but don't hang around, the items are only up for 5 days!

Pax Britannia at Forbidden Planet

So last night I went along to the Forbidden Planet store in London to sign copies of my latest Pax Britannia novel Human Nature. As it turned out, mine was the first signing of 2009. And the first signing of 2008 was... Henry 'The Fonz' Winkler!

I must have signed around 70 copies of Human Nature but a special shout-out goes to Sundaram. I even got to sign the signing desk, joining such luminaries as Robert Rankin, Graham McNeill, Dan Abnett and many others.

Talking of the 'many others', Gav Thorpe will be signing copies of his new Warhammer Time of Legends novel Malekith today (Saturday 10 January) from 1.00-2.00pm.

Thanks to Matt (for the delicious hot chocolate), John Harrison (for his support during the course of the evening) and Danie Ware (for sorting it out). Hopefully I'll see you guys there again when the next book comes out!

Signing this evening at Forbidden Planet, London

Jonathan Green

Pax Britannia: Human Nature

Join Jonathan Green at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, on Friday 9th January 6.00pm – 7.00pm.

Ulysses Quicksilver is chasing a mermaid – right up to the industrially polluted North of England and the fishing village where she was supposedly caught. What he finds are the horrors of man’s own selfishness; as he’s trapped within the very heart darkness, threatened in body and mind, he has to escape a fate that is literally worse than death.


This is a fantastical, steampunk science fiction novel from the co-creator of the Pax Britannia world!

The worst horrors are those spawned by Man's own selfish nature

Yes - it's here! Pax Britannia: Human Nature arrived at the Green household this morning and a very nice job of it Abaddon's designers have done too.

Here's what it's all about:

The Whitby Mermaid, prize exhibit of Cruickshanks’ Cabinet of Curiosities, has been stolen. But have no fear; consulting detective Gabriel Wraith is on the case. And he’s not the only one, for wherever there is a mystery to be solved, Ulysses Quicksilver is never very far away. What does the theft of what would appear to be a poorly-conceived fake have to do with the mysterious House of Monkeys? And what of the enigmatic criminal known only as the Magpie?

When Ulysses probes further into the case, he finds himself embarking upon an adventure that will take him to the industrially-polluted North of England and the fishing town where the curious creature was supposedly caught. But there are worse things awaiting him there than mermaids. The moors of Ghestdale are haunted by the savage Barghest beast, while in the abandoned mines beneath the Umbridge estate, impossible abominations lurk in the darkness, waiting. And yet Ulysses Quicksilver is about to discover that the worst horrors are those spawned by Man's own selfish nature.

Trapped within the very heart of darkness, with his body and sanity threatened, can he escape a fate worse than death ­ with both still intact ­ before one man's insane quest for immortality comes to fruition?

The novel includes the brand-new, specially-commissioned short story Christmas Past, and some unique Magna Britannia-style advertisements in the back.

Remember, you can pick up your copy of Human Nature, and get it signed by me at the same time, at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, tomorrow - Friday 9 January - between 6.00pm and 7.00pm.

Buy now in time for Christmas!

Don't forget, there's still time to buy your own signed copy of What is Myrrh Anyway? through this very website.

These hard-to-come-by signed copies only cost £6.00 each, and post and packing is free!

If you would like to purchase one of these future collector's items, simply email me at whatismyrrh@hotmail.co.uk, and I'll let you know how to proceed.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Get your own signed copy of What is Myrrh Anyway?

What would make the perfect Christmas gift for the man or woman in your life who has everything (or the sibling, parent, family friend... for that matter)? Why a signed copy of What is Myrrh Anyway? of course.

I have a few signed copies of the book available for discerning customers. They cost £6.00 each and post and packing is free.

If you would like to purchase one of these hard to come by collector's items, simply email me at whatismyrrh@hotmail.co.uk, and I'll let you know how to proceed.