Gamebook Friday: Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland is 10 years old today!

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland, the book that would become the first title in the ACE Gamebooks series, was launched at Dragonmeet on this day in 2015!

As you may have guessed, at the time, I didn't realise it was the start of a new creator-owned series, but just last weekend, the eighth ACE Gamebook was on sale at Dragonmeet 2025.

In the last 10 years, Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland has been published in 11 different languages, including Bulgarian and Japanese, and while the covers might change, they have all used Kev Crossley's original internal artwork. Not only that, but when Raven Distribution published the book in Italy, they commissioned Kev to draw a map of Wonderland, that then appeared in the 5th anniversary UK hardback.

Every year, somebody picks up Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland for the first time, which leads them to then check out the other books in the ACE Gamebooks series. And while other titles have also proved popular - The Wicked Wizard of Oz and Dracula: Curse of the Vampire in particular - none have knocked Queen Alice off the top spot. It has garnered 182 reviews on Amazon UK, and even spawned an adult colouring book that has now received over 1,700 reviews!

All being well, there will be a new edition of Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland in the next couple of years. But, for the time being, please raise your glasses and toast the most popular adventure in the ACE Gamebooks series - Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland!

Steampunk Thursday: Pax Britannia reaches Hungary!

It's been a while since I posted something for Steampunk Thursday. The reason for today's post is because yesterday I discovered that my first Pax Britannia novel, Unnatural History*, is published in Hungary this week by Chameleon Comix!

The title of the Hungarian edition translates at The Galapagos Formula, which sounds intriguing.

* Unnatural History currently has 299 reviews on Amazon, with a 3.9 average.

The Kingsport Metamorphosis - available to pre-order now!

The Kingsport Metamorphosis - the third title in the Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook - is now available for pre-order.

A mysterious letter summons you to the seaside town of Kingsport, where dreams leak into reality, to a wealthy estate transformed into a place of unspeakable nightmares in this new action-adventure gamebook set in the popular world of Arkham Horror.

Curious to meet your mysterious host, Elijah Harcourt, your excitement is dashed when you discover the recluse's purpose is far more nefarious than you realized, leaving you and his guests with riddles to solve if you are to survive. As each hour passes, your companions meet terrible fates, forcing you to navigate a spiderweb of betrayal…

The Kingsport Metamorphosis will be published by Aconyte Books on 3 February 2026.

The Box of Delights

Forty-one years ago today, at 5:00pm on 21st November 1984, the BBC dramatisation of John Masefield's The Box of Delights was first broadcast. I was one of those eager children who tuned in to watch and was hooked from the moment I heard Victor Hely-Hutchinson's orchestral arrangement of The First Nowell, taken from the third movement of his Carol Symphony, which formed the series' theme music.

40 years later, the child star of the TV show provided me with a cover quote for The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game.

"As a lifelong roleplayer I was genuinely interested to read an RPG based on The Box of Delights. I was pleased to find that Jon Green has done an excellent job of capturing the spirit of the piece in a tight, narrative framework that emphasizes storytelling and keeps the mechanics simple enough to be enjoyed by any age. I may run it for my own kids."

Devin Stanfield, Kay Harker in the 1984 BBC Television adaptation of The Box of Delights.

The Box of Delights – The Roleplaying Game is a rules-lite RPG for 2-6 Players, plus a Gamesmaster, inspired by John Masefield's Christmas classic.

Designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation, it nonetheless includes a well-developed character creation system, as well as rules for combat and magic.

Illustrated throughout by Tony Hough, it is ideal for a festive gaming session with an established group, or as an alternative to the family games usually played at Christmastime.

Time and Tide and Buttered Eggs wait for no man. So, grab your dice and playing cards, and prepare for adventure, for the Wolves are Running!

Cthulhu Thursday: Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu - What Dreams May Come

Available now from ACE Gamebooks is Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come, written by Jonathan Green and illustrated by Heraldo Mussolini.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on…”

The year is 1613, and England's foremost playwright is committed to finishing his latest magnum opus, Love's Labour’s Won, for his new patron, the Earl of Gloucester. However, after falling asleep while working late at the Globe, he wakes to find himself in a subtly altered world that is both familiar and yet strangely unfamiliar.

What follows is an epic quest through Shakespeare’s plays in which the Bard of Stratford is confronted by sinister eldritch forces in service of the Great Old Ones – malign beings of unimaginable power – the greatest of which is the cosmic entity known as Cthulhu.

______________________________________

Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come is an interactive fantasy novel, inspired by the Bard’s most popular plays and the unsettling creations of the American pulp horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.

In this adventure gamebook, YOU take on the role of William Shakespeare himself, deciding which route to take, which perils to risk, and which of the villains and eldritch horrors you will meet along the way to fight. But whether you survive your ordeal or succumb to riotous madness, will be down to the choices YOU make.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

You can buy Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come via Amazon here.

Gamebook Friday: ACE Gamebooks at Dragonmeet 2025

ACE Gamebooks will be attending Dragonmeet again this year, on Saturday 29th November 2025, at the event's new venue of London's Excel Centre. I will be in the gamebooks corner, along with Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf.

Click to enlarge.

I will have copies of Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come with me, as well as The Box of Delights RPG, and other ACE Gamebooks.

So, if you're coming along, why not stop by and say hello?

Click on the covers to find out more.

International Gamebook Day 2025