Cover Reveal! Moon Knight: Age of Anubis

I am delighted to be able to share with you the cover for my forthcoming Marvel: Marvellous Missions gamebook, Moon Knight: Age of Anubis, after it was posted on the official Moon Knight Twitter account (@moonknight) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/moonknight) today.

The illustration of our hero is by Xteve Abanto.

When N’Kantu, the Living Mummy, escapes his sarcophagus and steals an artifact that turns swaths of mankind into zombies, Moon Knight steps in to save the day… Assisted by an eager Egyptologist, Moon Knight chases N’Kantu from the streets of New York to an ancient temple in Egypt, where the two uncover an evil ritual that will begin a battle between gods over the power of life and death.

Moon Knight: Age of Anubis, will be published in the US on 5 September 2023, and in the UK on 23 November 2023, but you can pre-order it now.

The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game... One week to go!

The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game has one week left to run on Kickstarter and is currently 68% funded. If you haven't pledged your support yet, you can do so here.

If you have pledged your support, thank you. Apparently, Kickstarters raise most of their money in their first three days and their last three days, so I am optimistic that we will hit our funding goal, but there are some things you can do to help*.

1. Share the The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game Kickstarter page far and wide, and ideally every day of this week.
2. Share tweets about Facebook posts I post about the Kickstarter.
3. Tell your favourite Facebook groups by sharing the link on their page.
4. Ask your favourite social media influencers and YouTube creators to give The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game Kickstarter a shout-out.
5. Post a link to the The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game Kickstarter on any RPG forums you belong to and on any gaming news sites you know of.
6. And lastly, you could always increase your own pledge. Obviously, I appreciate you having backed the Kickstarter already and do not expect you to do this, but it could be that just £1 ends up making all the difference between glorious success and abject failure.

So, watch this space, and I'll be back in a week to share the good or bad news with you, depending on how the next 7 days go.

Thank you again for your support.

* You can also do these things if you haven't pledged your support yet.

RONIN 47 and RPGaDay 2021

RONIN 47 - the mech-vs-kaiju seventh ACE Gamebook - has funded on Kickstarter but could do with some love to kick things up a gear, so that we can start hitting those awesome art Stretch Goals we have planned.

If you've been wondering about backing the project, wonder no more, since you can read up on the rules for mech combat in the game right here.

I've actually been thinking about offering including a set of Quick Combat Rules for mech combat in RONIN 47. If this is something you would like to see, let me know.

As it's August, it's also time for 31 days of #RPGaDay2021. I was a little late to the party this year but am now posting daily notifications (for the time being at least) related to the theme of the day, but also ACE Gamebooks and ACE Gamebooks Roleplay, of course. Just follow me on Twitter @jonathangreen, or join the ACE Gamebooks Facebook group to make sure you catch them all.

Gamebook Friday: The Biggest Gamebook Ever?

At midnight, Alba - an Open World Adventure Book funded on Kickstarter, thanks to the support of 10,301 backers*. It's original funding goal was £5,000 but it ended up raising £272,794.

That's over a quarter of a million pounds.

For a gamebook.

While the Alba Kickstarter was running, it seemed to be everywhere. My social media feeds were full of adverts for it**, adverts that seemed to make much of two very particular claims; number one, that it has an innovative non-linear structure, and number two, that it is...

Leaving aside the 'innovative non-linear structure', this second bold (and factually inaccurate) claim was challenged when one of the Alba team posted a link to the Kickstarter on the Fighting Fantasy (and other gamebooks) Facebook group. From the discussion that subsequently took place it seems that the book is roughly 165,000 words long and has 800-900 sections.

I am currently finishing writing my sixth ACE Gamebook, Dracula - Curse of the Vampire. I can tell you that it will be be made up of 1,000 sections and will be at least 150,000 words long, but there are gamebooks already in print that are far longer. For example, The Sword of the Bastard Elf , by H. Skull, is over 1,800 sections long, and I would guess that the word count is suitably massive as well.

The Alba team member in question claimed that their gamebook is the longest based on their research. This would imply that their research wasn't particularly in-depth. Why a book that is 165,000 words long needs to be printed across 1,200 pages I have no idea, but that might be where it really can claim to be 'The Biggest Gamebook Ever Written'. But of course biggest doesn't necessarily mean best.

I realise any comments I make about the book are inevitably going to come across as sour grapes, whether they are intended that way or not, and I will not be able to judge the book fairly until I have read it myself. These are just my observations so far, based on the information that is readily available. It's just that when you start claiming that something is the longest, or the biggest, or the most-innovative, you had better be ready to back-up those claims with some hard evidence.

Alba is published by Inside the Box Board Games and is written by H. L. Truslove. I have not come across Truslove's work before, but that might be because Alba is their first full-length novel.

Credit where it's due, Alba would certainly appear to be a gamebook too, rather than just a Choose Your Own Adventure-style branching narrative***, based on the sticker packs and maps that come with the book.

It certainly benefited from some clever marketing, but I know that some people are annoyed by the fact that higher level backers actually get a longer gamebook. I tried something similar with The Wicked Wizard of Oz, giving the Kickstarter backers some extra content, but it bred resentment in those readers who bought the book later and then couldn't access all of it. I haven't done anything like that since.

The big question is, what does Alba's success mean for the future of gamebooks and gamebooks on Kickstarter in particular?

I suspect nothing, unless it's another gamebook published by Inside the Box Board Games. In fact, it could unfairly disadvantage other gamebook projects, increasing people's expectations of what gamebook crowdfunding projects should deliver, but only time will tell.

I hope to fund the seventh ACE Gamebook later this year. I would be delighted if some of the interest and goodwill generated by Alba rubs off on it, but I very much doubt that it will.

In other news HEOROT is currently 67% funded on Kickstarter. I did tag Inside the Box Board Games on Twitter asking if they'd mind giving my project a signal boost, but I guess they haven't had a chance to check all their Twitter notifications yet.

* And yes, I was one of them. I decided to back in the final few hours, just so I could see what all the fuss was about myself when the book is published in March.

** I've since discovered there were YouTube videos about the project and pieces in the press too.

*** Long-time readers will already know of my distinction between branching narratives and gamebooks.

Thought for the Day

"How to be a writer:
First, plant the tree on which the leaves of your book will be printed.
Next, hatch the bird from whose quill your ink will flow.
Water the tree.
Feed the bird.
Learn the patience of things that grow and the joy of things that sing.
Make tea: you've got time."

~ Joanne Harris, author

Review of the Decade - 2010-2019

I've not done one of these before, but inspired by Twitter's Decade Challenge I thought it might be fun to consider what I've achieved over the last ten years, as well as considering the ups and downs of life.

Starting with the downs, I started the 2010s living in a four-bedroom house, but by the end of the decade I now find myself living in a three-bedroom flat*. In fact, during the last ten years I've lived in four different properties, and have gone from having a dedicated office space to a desk in my bedroom. At the start of the decade I was a full-time freelance writer, for three years I held down a full-time teaching post whilst still writing, and I currently have a part-time job, but on the up side I'm earning more from my writing now than I was in 2010. I also lost my Mum last year.

However, in the space of the last ten years I have had fifty books published - everything from colouring books and gamebooks, to steampunk omnibuses and Doctor Who tie-in novels. I have also compiled and edited three short story anthologies, and have had over forty short stories of my own published in various formats.

It seems mad to consider that my last Fighting Fantasy gamebook was published in 2010, while in 2020 I will be writing my twenty-second interactive adventure, Dracula - Curse of the Vampire.

In the 2010s I organised three Fighting Fantasy Fests and attended numerous other events as a guest, including the Frankfurt Book Fair. I've travelled a fair bit, to be honest, as far west as Canada, as far north as Norway, as far south as Gran Canaria, and as far east as Vienna, in Austria**.

I've worked with talented artists such as Martin McKenna, Pye Parr, Simon Coleby, Kev Crossley, Russ Nicholson, and Tony Hough, and I've started my, I am pleased to say, ongoing relationship with publisher Snowbooks. Talking of whom, within the last five years that I have created my ACE Gamebooks series, which is published in the UK by Snowbooks, and which has, to date, been taken up in one form or another by six foreign language publishers and counting.

I had my first creator credit in 2000AD, and I've even had an editor's credit appear in a comic books series/graphic novel, and I will be continuing with my editing work into the next decade.

I've read a fair few books and comics, and I've seen a fair few films, but I have also run nine successful Kickstarter projects, the most recent of which was for 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas.

So not a bad decade all in all, and it will be interesting to see what the next one brings. Certainly in terms of writing and travel, hopefully more of the same.

What have been your highlights of the last ten years?

* I know - #FirstWorldProblems.

** So not very far east.

The 107th Anniversary of the Sinking of the Titanic

Monday 15th April 2019, mark the 107th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The events of that dark day form the opening part of Wendy Darling's adventure in my latest ACE Gamebook, NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!.

Through the day I have been playing through the adventure on Twitter, and it's not too late to join in and have your say regarding how that story develops. Just look for the #NeverlandPlaythrough hashtag, and vote for your preferred option.

NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! Playthrough on Twitter

Monday 15th April 2019, mark the 107th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. To mark the occasion, I am going to start a playthrough of my latest ACE Gamebook, NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!, on Twitter.

So if you've been wondering what a gamebook adaptation of Peter Pan and Wendy would be like, join me on Monday, on the #NeverlandPlaythrough hashtag, to play through the opening passages of the adventure.

Thought for the Day

"On the same day as that lovely 5* review, I find a 3* review of another of my books, headlined: "Tedious, very tedious". This is as it should be. Some people should love them. Others should hate them. Never try to write a book that everyone will quite like!"

~ Rod Duncan, author

Thought for the Day

"How to be a Writer:
Re-read chapter you wrote yesterday.
Delete chapter.
Feel inexplicable sense of achievement.
Tea."

~ Joanne Harris

Tie-in Tuesday: Dinosaur Day

According to Twitter, today is Dinosaur Day. My working days are filled with dinosaurs at the moment, as I'm nearing the end of writing the first draft of NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!

But of course it's not the first book I've written that features the terrible lizards. There's Terrible Lizards for one. There are also dinosaurs in the Fighting Fantasy gamebook Bloodbones, and the Pax Britannia novels Unnatural History and Leviathan Rising.

Like many 5 and 6 year-olds, I was obsessed by dinosaurs. I would spend hours tracing the dinosaurs in the colouring book I had, and I loved films like The Land That Time Forgot, Valley of the Gwangi, and One Million Years BC, shown on TV during the afternoon at weekends. When I was a little older, by father and I would make Airfix kits of dinosaurs together, and I have very fond memories of travelling up to London on the train with him, specifically to visit The Natural History Museum and its dinosaur collection. I even remember an English lesson, early on in Secondary School, in which we studied an extract from Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder, focusing on the arrival of a T-Rex.

All of this clearly had an impact on my growing up, and I still have a passion and fascination for prehistoric life today. Last year family Green visited New York and I dragged everyone to the American Museum of Natural History, just so that I could see the dinosaur exhibits, which did not disappoint! And because it had an impact on me growing up, it has also impacted upon my writing.

But I have never explored dinosaur life in so much detail as I have in NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! For a start, the book includes over 30 different dinosaurs, marine reptiles, flying reptiles and other prehistoric creatures. But one of the fun things about writing the book has been coming up with new names for dinosaurs, because most of the characters in the story wouldn't have known what the nascent fossil hunters had called these primeval beasts.

I'm keen for the book to be finished and out there in readers' hands for various reasons, but one of them is to see if people can work out which dinosaur is which. Maybe I'll reveal the answers next Dinosaur Day.

Thought for the Day

"Go hard or go home. If you’re not writing to the best of your abilities, you’re wasting your time. Every story you write should be better than the one before. Be ambitious. Dare to fail. Push yourself to the ragged edge of your abilities and see how far and how fast you can go."

~ Gareth L Powell, award-winning author

Gamebook Friday: #AprilTTRPGMaker

This month, @Kiranansi is encouraging Tabletop RPG designers to share information about themselves and their work using the hashtag #AprilTTRPGMaker, answering one question each day from this list:

I'm hoping that adventure gamebooks are included under the umbrella term 'Tabletop RPG' since I have joined in and you can read my tweets here, @jonathangreen.

The SHARKPUNK 2 Kickstarter kicks off tomorrow!

That's...

Saturday 28th January 2017 at 12:00pm GMT!

Still wondering whether you should back the Kickstarter or not? Well here's what some readers had to say about SHARKPUNK (Volume 1) on Amazon...

"This collection is well worthy of your time. Every story is a winner in my opinion and they are all a great deal of fun. In all honesty I’d have great difficulty picking a favourite."

"If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would... Usually, I go into an anthology expecting to like about 75-80% of the stories and to find an uneven quality of story-telling, but I didn't find a single one I didn't like."

"In the interests of transparency, I should probably fess up to being a huge fan of anything with a fin in it. I am that person who happily watches the likes of Sharknado... While some of the stories featured in Sharkpunk are as gloriously silly as anything Asylum has ever offered, equally there is also some really thrilling horror and some surprisingly touching psychological chillers... There's not a weak story among the lot, probably because it would get turned on and eaten by the others."

"This book was, pardon the pun, fintastic. Each story revolving around Sharks in one form or another, be it physical or mental and in some both. The calibre of writers assembled to contribute to this book was impressive... I cannot recommend this book enough and you don't even have to be a fan of sharks to enjoy it...but it helps. 10/10"

"Put simply, Sharkpunk is twenty unique visions of what it means to be either predator or prey. This anthology contains stories that don’t just feature sharks, they also dissect the mind of a perfectly evolved killer. Nestled deep in the pages of this collection you’ll find everything from stories set in feudal Japan to tales featuring men with an impressive olfactory sense. Steampunk, horror, science fiction and thriller blend together to create a collection that revels in the raw, bloody savagery of an apex carnivore."

And lastly, this one, via Twitter...

"Thank you for creating the greatest book I never knew I needed. Literal jewel of my literary collection... Treat yourself guys and give in to Sharkpunk!" 

You can sneak a look at the SHARKPUNK 2 Kickstarter, and the rewards on offer, here.

Short Story Saturday: Why it is vitally important you lend your social media support to the Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu Thunderclap campaign.

What is Thunderclap? Thunderclap is the first crowd-speaking platform that helps people be heard by saying something together.

How does it work? If you reach your supporter goal (we need 100), Thunderclap will blast out a timed Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr post from all your supporters, creating a wave of attention.

Who's using it? From passionate individuals with a message to share, to organizations such as The White House, Levis and the United Nations.

It won't cost you a thing - all you have to do it let Thunderclap link to your Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr account, which will then post a one-time message to your account on January 27 at 12:00PM EST - but it could make all the difference as to whether the genre mash-up anthology of the year funds or not.

The thing is, Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu is currently funded, but until the Kickstarter ends at 1.00pm GMT on February 1 people can still pull out. If one of our higher level backers pulls out, the project will no longer fund. So, as you can imagine, the next week could potentially be a very stressful time for me and everyone who is contributing to the Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu anthology.

So what we need is to spread word of the project to other potential interested parties, and the best way to do this is via Thunderclap. And with your support that could be in the region of 200,000 people! Even if only 0.1% of those people reached go on to back the project, that would still be another 200 backers (more than there are already backing the Kickstarter at the time of writing this update).

As well as giving the Kickstarter a much-needed boost to help it cross the finish line in eight days' time, if it raises enough money the book will be illustrated throughout, so by supporting the Thunderclap campaign, even if you've already supported the Kickstarter, you could help ensure that the anthology is the best book we can produce.

So don't delay - sign up to the Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu Thunderclap campaign today! And while you're at it, why not add an exclusive Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu T-shirt to you backer pledge?

Talking of social media support, Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland could do with some more reviews on Amazon. ;-)

Thank you.

Several years after the events of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself back in Wonderland and called upon to save the world of playing cards and talking animals from the increasingly deranged Queen of Hearts. But all is not as it first appears in the fluctuating dream world and soon Alice is battling to save herself from the nightmare that is rapidly overtaking the realm. 

In Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland, YOU decide which route Alice should take, which perils to risk, and which of Wonderland's strange denizens to fight. But be warned - whether Alice succeeds in her quest or meets a dire end as the nightmare escalates will be down to the choices YOU make. Are you ready to go back down the rabbit-hole?

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland has funded, thanks to YOU!

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - 1 hour to go! It's the final countdown

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland has just 1 hour left to run on Kickstarter!

Don't yet your favourite rewards slip away - pledge today!

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - 2 hours to go!

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland has just 2 hours left to run on Kickstarter!

Pledge your support now!

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - 4 hours to go!

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland Kickstarter has just 4 hours left to run on!

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - 12 hours to go!

Take to social media, phone your friends, shout it from the rooftops! Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland Kickstarter has just 12 hours left to run on!