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!

Gamebook Friday: Dracula - Curse of the Vampire

I'm loving Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's take on Dracula and am looking forward to the final part of BBC 1 this evening, and it's got me thinking about adaptations of classic stories.

The BBC has broadcast adaptations of four such stories recently, three true classics - H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Bram Stoker's Dracula - and one modern classic, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

The whole family was gripped by His Dark Materials, which even had the kids looking up from their phones, and I loved Lorne Balfe's score. The score was the best bit about The War of the Worlds, and I religiously fell asleep every Sunday night whilst watching it. The jury's still out on A Christmas Carol - how much can you take away from a classic story before it is no longer recognisably the same story - but at least it held my attention.

I have spent the last five years producing my own gamebook adaptations of a number of classic stories, some of which are more like re-imaginings than straight adaptations - NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! being a case in point - while others are much closer to the original source material, like Beowulf Beastslayer. But no matter what I have done with the stories, I have always tried to ensure that I hit all the beats people would expect.

Both Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland and The Wicked Wizard of Oz are populated with a host of characters from the original source texts, while 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas is filled with every Christmas cliché you could think of.

It just so happens that the sixth ACE Gamebook will be Dracula - Curse of the Vampire, and may be my closest adaptation yet. By the way, the Kickstarter campaign launches on Sunday 1st March 2020, with special rewards on offer for those people who back within the first 24 hours.

It was with no small amount of relief that on watching the BBC's Dracula I realised that it goes in a very different direction from my version, which allows you to play as the eponymous Count himself, and has diverged from the original novel massively. However, this has not been to its detriment; if anything it has reinvigorated the story and made it horrifying again*. All the important characters are still in place, but Gatiss and Moffat continue to surprise and intrigue the viewer throughout.

"You have something in your eye."

Where the BBC's adaptation of The War of the Worlds went wrong, I believe, is that some of the changes that were made were utterly illogical - for example, the levitating heat-ray thing - but worse than that, it was boring. And it's quite a challenge to make H. G. Wells' classic about an alien invasion of Earth that dull. While I'm still undecided about taking so much of Dickens out of A Christmas Carol, at least it wasn't boring**.

And I think it's safe to say that Dracula - Curse of the Vampire won't be boring either. To be kept up to date with developments, subscribe to my Newsletter here, and join the ACE Gamebooks Facebook group here.

* The opening scene where Sister Agatha says to Jonathan Harker, "You have something in your eye" springs to mind.

** And I'm a big Guy Pearce fan.

Scrooge and Marley (Deceased)

I only discovered today that Charles Dickens' perennial favourite A Christmas Carol was published on this day* in 1843! And it just so happens that my latest novella, which was inspired by the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Three Spirits, is almost ready to be unleashed upon the world.

It is an idea that I've wanted to work on for a long time and I was starting to make more concrete plans back in 2013. However, other work commitments meant that it kept getting pushed back, or when I thought of working on it again there simply wasn't enough time to get it done in time for Christmas on the year in questions. The BBC's historical mystery drama Dickensian, which ran over the Christmas period in 2015, also put the kibosh on the project, for a while at least, as I didn't want people thinking I'd nicked the idea from there**.

But this autumn I made a commitment to myself to have the first Scrooge and Marley (Deceased) story ready in time for Christmas, and it very nearly is. To whet your appetite, here's the introductory blurb:

A year on from the events of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge finds himself visited once again by the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley, who brings with him a new proposition. Just as Marley helped Scrooge to avoid the cruel fate that the last of the Three Spirits foretold, Marley wants Scrooge to help him reduce his time in Purgatory.

And so begins an epic adventure that will see the former friends face off against all manner of phantasms, freaks and fiends, with only one thing at stake… Everything!

It's not the first time I've supplanted characters from other classic Dickens' novels and put them into A Christmas Carol. I did it back in 2001, when I turned the novella into a play that was performed at the school where I was working at the time. I wonder if that's when the seed for Scrooge and Marley (Deceased) was first planted.

Scrooge and Marley (Deceased): The Haunted Man will be released imminently, but in the mean time, check out and 'Like' the Scrooge and Marley (Deceased) Facebook page here.

* Which just so happens to be my wedding anniversary!

** I still haven't watched the series, for fear of being unduly influenced by it.

Christmas Explained: R is for Radio

Before the Age of the Television, people used to listen to the Queen's Speech on the radio. And thanks to my Christmas book, I have made a number of radio appearances around Christmas time.

Last year I was on BBC Wilshire, as I had been the previous year, and I was actually on air on Christmas Day 2008, along with Dom Joly and Danny Wallace.

However, the highlight of my Christmas radio appearances probably has to be when I sang on Radio 1. Yes, really...



I'm second to 'sing', and yes, this really did get a brief airing on Radio 1 around Christmas 2007. So there you go.

Christmas Explained: Q is for the Queen's Speech

The Queen’s Speech is as much a part of Christmas as over-eating and spending far too much money on presents. And yet it is also one of the more recently-developed popular Christmas traditions.

The practice of the monarch making a speech to the nation was begun in 1932, when the then king George V, father of our own monarch, broadcast a Christmas message to the British people over the radio.

Recently I was fortunate enough to be at Broadcasting House, where the original microphones used by George V (and that you can see in the image above) are on display. And here they are...

Gamebook Friday: The Kraken Released!

It's a brand new choose your own style adventure gamebook, it features the Twelfth Doctor, and there's my favourite submarine monster in it... What more do you need to know?

Release the Kraken!

New Book Day! Doctor Who: Choose the Future: Night of the Kraken

In the same week that the Doctor's new companion was announced, a previously untold Twelfth Doctor story is unleashed upon the space-time continuum...

When one choice can lead to triumph or failure, life or death, glory or destruction . . . which will you choose? With Choose the Future, YOU decide how, when, where and with whom the Doctor will fight to save the world!

In this brand new adventure, Night of the Kraken, the Twelfth Doctor meets a roguish time-smuggler and faces a terrifying creature from the deep with a plan to destroy the Earth.

The fate of the Doctor and the universe he protects are in your hands...

Tie-in Tuesday: Doctor Who: Choose the Future: Night of the Kraken

There are only two days to go until my latest Doctor Who book is released.

First there was 2010's Night of the Humans...

Then there the 2013 minisode The Night of the Doctor...

And now there is the first in a brand new series of Doctor Who adventure gamebooks, Choose the Future: Night of the Kraken.

It's about time...

Gamebook Friday: Odds and Sods

A few things to post about today, and all of them somehow gamebook-related.

Last week I went here...

And did this...

For this.

I have also recently joined the International Wizard of Oz Club...

And I also set up this Facebook group to start to spread the word about the forthcoming comic book prequel to Ian Livingstone's 1985 Fighting Fantasy gamebook Freeway Fighter...

Tie-in Tuesday - Doctor Who: Night of the Kraken

Coming in 2016...

In 18th-century England, the Twelfth Doctor meets a roguish time-smuggler and faces terrifying creatures from both the land and the sea. Will the Doctor find a way to save the world?

Christmas Explained, from A(dvent) to Z(oophagous)

It's 1st December again, the night's have drawn in, there's a distinct chill in the air, and what better way is there to prepare yourself for the coming of Christmas than to dip into Christmas Explained - Robins, Kings and Brussel Sprouts every day in Advent.

You'll discover all sorts of fascinating Yuletide facts, including the origins of the Advent calendar, the origins of Yule, and the origins of the traditional family pantomime.

Christmas Explained is available now from Snowbooks (appropriately enough) and via Amazon.

Oh, and if you'll able to (and up early enough), why not tune in to BBC Radio Wiltshire this morning between 8.00am and 8.30am, when I will be making an 'appearance' on Ben Prater's show?

Pirate Who?

Duh-duh-duh-der! Duh-duh-duh-der! Duh-duh-duh-der! Dih-dih-dih-dee!
Duh-duh-duh-der! Duh-duh-duh-der! Duh-duh-duh-der! Woo-ee-oooo!

Yes, that's right, it's Talk Like a Pirate Day. I mean, it's Doctor Who Day. (I've even got my Gallifrey t-shirt on to mark the occasion.)

Did I ever tell you about the time I didn't write a Doctor Who story featuring pirates? It was when I was invited to pitch an Eleventh Doctor story to the tie-in fiction editorial team at Puffin. I was told that the content had to appeal to boys in particular and the first two things I came up with were dinosaurs and pirates.

Then I thought, "What won't they do on TV because of budget limitations? I know a pirate ship and loads of dinosaurs!"

And so I submitted my proposal in which Blackbeard searches for the Fountain of Youth in the Florida Everglades* but ends up finding Jurassic Park instead**. Feedback came through from Cardiff - they loved the story but could I change the pirates please. The reason? Because Lord Grantham was bound for Treasure Island***. And so the pirates became Victorian explorers, travelling aboard The Venture****.

But an idea, as they say, is never wasted. Even now a different take on the whole Blackbeard vs Dinosaurs thing is forming within the primordial creative soup that is my mind. And guess what - it's another gamebook! ;-)

Next time: How I would have done Missy differently.



* By the way, have your read Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides?

** In a nutshell.

*** Sort of.

*** Do you see what I did there?

Steampunk Thursday: The Countess of Computing

Ada Lovelace Day maybe still be almost a month away, but fans of Steampunk and Pax Britannia should check out BBC Four at 9.00pm tonight. Calculating Ada: The Countess of Computing tells the story of 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' Lord Byron's daughter, Ada Lovelace, who is recognised today as the world's first computer programmer.

When Charles Babbage designed the world's first steam-powered computers, most famously the analytical engine, it was Ada who realised the full potential of these machines. And she went on to inspire other computer pioneers like Alan Turing.

Fans of my Pax Britannia books will already recognise the influence that all of these individuals have played on the development of my Steampunk world, so I for one will be tuning in at 9.00pm tonight.

New Book Day! I am the Doctor!

It seems like I have a new book being published every month at the moment*, and September is no exception.

Today sees the publication of Doctor Who: Time Lord Quiz Quest.

Written by the Twelfth Doctor himself, this is the ultimate book of Doctor Who puzzles and quizzes! 

Packed with tricky activities and quiz questions, Time Lord Quiz Quest is a book to sort the pudding-brained humans from the actually quite handy ones. Can you solve a pressing problem like a true Time Lord? Do you know your Slitheen from your Silurians? And just how high is your Who IQ? With challenges devised by the Twelfth Doctor, this book is the perfect test for any intrepid Doctor Who fan! 

Yes, you read that correctly - 'Written by the Twelfth Doctor himself'. But it's my new book, therefore I must actually be Doctor Who!

You can pick up a copy of Doctor Who: Time Lord Quiz Quest for the would-be Doctor's companion in your life here.

* The books in question have been written or compiled over the last 12 months**, they just happen to be coming out so close together.

** Apart from one, coming in December, which is an omnibus of three books published years ago!

Fighting Fantasy Fest 2014 - Hits the headlines once again!

Fighting Fantasy Fest, along with YOU ARE THE HERO, has hit the big time - it's been mentioned on the BBC News magazine website.



People have been contacting me all day, asking if I've seen the piece. If you've not seen it yet, you can do so by clicking this link. And if you've not bought your ticket for Fighting Fantasy Fest yet, where YOU ARE THE HERO will be launching, you can do so here.

Short Story Saturday: Merlin's Mother

I was watching Tales from the Royal Bedchamber recently on BBC4 when suddenly, part way through the documentary, the expert being quizzed about what royal beds were like in the Middle Ages whipped out the following picture.

Presenter Lucy Worsley was delighted and amazed asking of the nun, "Who's that?" The expert went on to explain that it was a scene showing the conception of Merlin the wizard. To read a different take on the same incident, check out my story Incubus in Dark Heart: A Collection of Short Horror Fiction.

500 WORDS is back!