Wednesday 29 June 2011

Temple of the Spider God - the cover revealed

The news is out there - Temple of the Spider God, Tin Man Games' seventh Gamebook Adventure, is headed for a summer release. And in case you haven't already seen it elsewhere around the 'Net, here's the fantastic cover by Dan Maxwell.


The internal illustrations are by Josh Wright and, for the first time in a GA, they're full colour! Here's one of a stunning sea serpent, which makes me hungry to see more of Josh's finished work - as I hope it does you.

Mission: Games Workshop - Oxford

So, I found myself in Oxford yesterday (to meet up with the guys from Abaddon/Solaris as well as the guys from SFX magazine) and, as is my wont, popped into the GW store there to say "Hi!" and generally introduce myself.

Manager Robert MacTaggart and key-timer Marcus made me feel welcome and it was great to be able to tell them that I had a brand new Warhammer story out in the latest issue of Hammer & Bolter (which can also read about here).


It was whilst talking to Rob about the new Storm of Magic expansion that I made a throw away comment about the sort of campaigns we could expect see being run in store in future, and then realised that I'd effectively just pitched a great idea for another new Warhammer story. All I have to do now is write it up for my commissioning editor and see what happens. Of course, if I do manage to sell the idea, I'll let you know in a future post.

So thanks again to Rob and Marcus, and I hope to be able to drop by the Oxford store again some time in the not-too-distant future.

Oh, and before I go, if you're in Oxford yourself, you should check out the modified Giants they've got on display at the store along with the pottery Necrons - including a Necron Tomb Stalker. And while we're on the subject of Necrons, if you have a thing for soulless robotic killing machines then you should check out my short story But Dust in the Wind which appears in Victories of the Space Marines.

Sunday 26 June 2011

JG at The Greatest Steampunk Exhibition

I spent a very enjoyable few hours at The Greatest Steampunk Exhibition yesterday, meeting some proper steampunks and chatting with fans of my Pax Britannia books. I'd barely even set up my table of wares when I sold my first book, and left without any at all.

It's always very pleasing when somebody walks up to you and the first thing they say is, "Love your work." Among those steampunks I met were Willoughby Chase (who was wearing a fine fez), Ken (who's read all my PB books already), Jason (who bought all of my PB books there and then), and Herr Doktor (a.k.a. Ian, whom I believe is the equivalent of steampunk royalty although I think he might actually be Ulysses Quicksilver). I was also asked which of my books I would like to be taught as part of an American university science-fiction course!

I also had a chance to quickly look around the exhibition myself which looks fantastic within the setting of the museum steam hall and elsewhere.

Towards the end of my time there I gave a brief talk about the Pax Britannia series and read a chapter of Dark Side which was very well received. So it just remains for me to say thank you to all those who listened to my reading, thank you to Stuart at the museum and thank you to Tinker for having me along.

And maybe I'll see you at Asylum in September...

Friday 24 June 2011

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...

Wednesday 22 June 2011

James Swallow at Salute 2011

Night of the Necromancer on Sci-Fi Online

When the Fighting Fantasy series was re-relaunched by Wizard Books, Sci-Fi Online played a part in helping to promote the gamebooks, publishing reviews of the first four releases and even posting an interview with me online.

Since then, the site has continued to review my recent* FF releases (and re-releases). Stormslayer, the first book they reviewed, received a very tasty 9 out of 10. Bloodbones was then reviewed and got the same great score. And now we come to Night of the Necromancer...

For some reason the reviewer wasn't so keen on this one, awarding it only 7 out of 10. And here's his reason:

If I had one slight complaint it was that in the early stages of the adventure you are fumbling around exploring areas without really knowing who or what you are supposed to be looking for. However, as your adventure progresses you soon pick up the piece to the puzzle.

Now this is interesting. At the start of the adventure the whole point is that you don't know what's going on... but never mind.

You can buy Night of the Necromancer through Amazon, where you'll also find some rather more glowing reviews.



* I use the term here in the loosest possible sense...

Sunday 19 June 2011

David Gemmell Awards

The David Gemmell Legend Award 2011 was held are the Magic Circle in London on Friday night* and I'm pleased to say that the Morningstar Award for Best Newcomer was won by Darius Hinks for Warrior Priest, which is published by Black Library.

When I read the book it reminded me in places of myself early on in my career (the bits about my early books I actually liked), only of course in others places it was much, much better.

So congratulations, Darius. I'm pleased to say that I contributed to Darius' success in my own small way as well - I voted for Warrior Priest.

That's two out of two for the Black Library as well, as Graham McNeill won the Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel last year with Empire. What with award winning titles in their back catalogue and New York Times bestsellers on their books, maybe it's time I wrote another novel for the mighty Black Library...


* I gotta get along there myself one year.

JG and Pax Britannia on SFX.co.uk

If you check out the front page of SFX.co.uk right now (as in Sunday night) you'll see that top of the latest articles list (above one about detestable Doctor Who companion Melanie Bush) is an interview with me about The Ulysses Short Story Collection.

Dave Bradley (editor of SFX magazine) conducted the interview with me earlier this week via email and you can read the results here. I don't only talk about writing short stories during the course of the interview; there's also stuff about steampunk, novel writing and eBooks.

I'm very proud of the three stories in the collection - Fruiting Bodies, Vanishing Point and White Rabbit - which were all especially selected by myself, and it would appear that other people are discovering they like them as much as I do. And for 69p you can't really go wrong, can you?

Friday 17 June 2011

On Plot and Dramatic Structure

If you're not reading Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds blog... why not?


And while we're on the subject, Jason Arnopp (soon to be famous the world over for writing Stormhouse) posted this little anecdote on Facebook which sums up dramatic structure as succinctly as you could ever imagine.

How a young Alan Plater's agent dismissively summed up dramatic structure: "Oh darling, it's two or three surprises followed by an even bigger surprise". Love that.

Anno Frankenstein - yet another great review!

They just keep on coming! This one's by David Drage of Pulp Zen! You can read the whole review by following this link, but I've posted just a few of the highlights here.

I really thought that Jonathan Green couldn’t possibly top his last two Pax Britannia novels, Blood Royal which took the steampunk down a gothic horror path and then Dark Side which combined a Noir detective story with H.G. Wells' First Men on the Moon. However, Anno Frankenstein takes us to a whole new level...

The tension that builds over the length of the novel leads wonderfully through to the big finale, even with Green’s small injections of humour, references to Star Trek, The Incredible Hulk, The Six Million Dollar Man and Quantum Leap all stick in my mind, without ruining the pace at all.

Anyway, back to Anno Frankenstein. If you’re picky about your steampunk, you may find it moves to far out of the genre for you, but if you want a rollicking good adventure and you like the Weird War genre, you are going to love this book!

I hope Green returns to the Weird War setting for some of his future Quicksilver stories, he is clearly right at home writing in this genre. If he doesn’t want to tie Ulysses down to the Weird War setting, a spin off series with Hercules Quicksilver or the Monstrous Regiment (i.e. the burlesque dancing infiltration squad) would suit me down to the ground...

A spin off series... Now there's an idea!

One of the most exciting things for me about this post, in terms of its potential, stems from this comment:

I think I can safely say this book has finally inspired me to seriously get back into figure sculpting. It has given me so many ideas for steampunk style figures and no-one else makes them yet, so I guess I am going to have to do it myself, after all, there are many excellent characters in the Pax Britannia stories, they really need to be realised as miniatures…

Believe me, if David makes good on his promise I'll let you know more as soon as I can!

During the course of the review David also says:

Jonathan, if you read this post, please hurry up with the next book, you’ve left so many teaser threads left open from recent books that I really can’t wait too long...

Well, the eighth Ulysses Quicksilver adventure, Time's Arrow, will start to be released from October this year. Yes, you read that right - start to be released. But more on that another time.

Until then...

Thursday 16 June 2011

Alt.Fiction 2011

There's barely a week to go before Alt.Fiction hits Derby QUAD, bringing you the very best in speculative fiction, including panels featuring your favourite genre authors and workshops to help you improve your craft.

I went a few years ago with Abaddon Books to launch the Pax Britannia line but have unfortunately been unable to get back since. This year is no exception (although various of m'colleagues are going), but if I was able to attend I would be checking out the following:

Saturday
10am - Military Science Fiction podcast - featuring m'colleagues Graham McNeill and Gav Thorpe
11am - The Infamous Horror Panel - including Sarah Pinborough and Adam Nevill
12pm - Guest of Honour - Dan Abnett
2pm - Steampunk podcast
3pm - Editing an anthology - featuring one of my editors Christian Dunn
4pm - The World of Publishing Panel
5pm - I'd be torn between the BBC Books Panel and the Tie-in Fiction and Shared Worlds podcast
6pm - Workshop with Graham McNeill
8pm - Audio Books Panel - featuring Christian Dunn and Dan Abnett

Sunday
10am - Is the Genre just for Boys? podcast - I have a pretty good idea what another of my editors who's on the panel, Jenni Hill, will have to say about that
11am - Genre Classics podcast - Dan Abnett again
12pm - Workshop with Dan Abnett - do you see a pattern forming here?
2pm - Torn again, this time between the Using Mythology in Writing podcast and the Comics Panel (featuring Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill and Paul Cornell)
3pm - How Not to Get Published podcast - featuring former collaborator, editor and publisher of mine Marc Gascoigne and current editor of mine Jenni Hill
4pm - What Next for the Genre? - featuring - oh, surprise-surprise - Dan Abnett

You can pore over the (very) full programme of events on offer here, and you can purchase your tickets here.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Pax Britannia: Anno Frankenstein

Need persuading to buy my latest Pax Britannia adventure Anno Frankenstein?


Consider yourself persuaded!



He was marching round Westfields shopping centre in West London this weekend shouting "Buy Anno Frankenstein!" I'm amazed we weren't thrown out!

Crime writer Michael Jecks on writing

What we have here is a video of Michael Jecks promoting his latest book King's Gold. However, what I particularly like about it is what he has to say about writer's block at the end.

Happy Steampunk Day!

Yes, it's June 14th which means it's International Steampunk Day!

And to celebrate all things steampunk, why not check out the most recent Pax Britannia releases from Abaddon Books?


I am a Media Tie-in Writer

It sounds like something you'd hear at a discreet meeting in a village hall somewhere.

"Hi, my name's Jon."

"Hi, Jon."

"And I'm a media tie-in writer."

Polite round of applause.


So, the secret's out. I'm sure many of you were already aware that I had a media tie-in habit - what with all my Warhammer and Warhammer 40K books, not to mention the comic strips I've written for TMNT, and then there's my Doctor Who stuff - but I've finally come clean and admitted it.

And to help me with my addiction I've joined a support group, the IAMTW, otherwise known as the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.

You can find out more about the IAMTW here. And you can blame Nathan Long's intervention for my joining.

Follow Abaddon Books on Facebook

Abaddon Books has moved from a Facebook group to a Facebook page!

Here's Michael Molcher, Abaddon's PR guy:

"We want to spread the word about our fantastic titles and authors, so please do head along to our new FB page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Abaddon-Books/169994589729715 , 'like' us and stand by for more genre fiction fun!"

So, what are you waiting for?

Sunday 12 June 2011

Destiny Quest in SciFiNow magazine

Destiny Quest: The Legion of Shadow, the original gamebook by Michael J Ward, has been receiving rave reviews ever since it was released in February. Well now it's received a rave review in SciFiNow magazine as well.

This is no mean feat, and all credit to Mr Ward for writing such an excellent and original gamebook for the World of Warcraft generation. I myself have yet to have a book reviewed in SciFiNow.

What's very pleasing for me is that at the end of the review, my own Night of the Necromancer is recommended to Destiny Quest fans in the box out entitled 'If You Like This Try...'

However, what is less pleasing is that during the course of the review itself, reviewer Michael O'Connor says of Destiny Quest, "It's an exciting, adventure-packed new series that instantly rivals the more established Fighting Fantasy line, and is actually a lot more enjoyable than most of them have been of late."

Excuse me, Mr O'Connor, but would you like to qualify that statement? Do you mean the recently republished FF gamebooks, originally published in the 80s, or do you mean the newest in the series, written by Yours Truly?

If you mean the latter, I would ask have you actually read any of my new titles? I'm hoping you have, having recommended Night of the Necromancer. But then what do you mean by the comment regarding the recent FF entries being less enjoyable than previous titles? My last three books have all received rave reviews elsewhere, and have been praised for updating the franchise for the 21st century. The quality of the writing has also been mentioned, particularly the increased depth of story. So, Mr O'Connor, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Saturday 11 June 2011

Steven Moffat on writing

Screenwriter, novelist and journalist Jason Arnopp has posted a couple of interviews he undertook with Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat. For any aspiring writer, or anyone interested in the creative process at all, they make for very interesting reading.

To read about Moffat's views on the power of secrets, click here and scroll down the page. On Moffat's current writings practices and writing for New Who, click here.

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.

Thursday 9 June 2011

Anno Frankenstein reviewed at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review

Graeme Flory of Graeme's Fantasy Book Review is a loyal follower, and reviewer, of the Pax Britannia series and has given some very generous marks out of ten to several of my books in the past. And now he's got round to reading my most recent endeavour, Anno Frankenstein.

Here are just a few of Graeme's eminently quotable lines from his review.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with these books ever since the blog began and I don’t see that fun stopping any time soon; I can’t get enough of this series and if you’re a fan of steampunk adventure then I reckon you’ll be the same...

As much as I love to take a chance on new reads, I also love the knowledge that I can pick up certain authors and be guaranteed a good time. That’s just what I got with ‘Anno Frankenstein’, a book that I should have got round to sooner but was polished off in record time anyway...

If you haven’t read any of the preceding ‘Pax Britannia’ novels then this really is the wrong place to get started. Not only is there a lot of back story that you’re missing out on but you’re also missing out on six books worth of devious villains, dashing heroes, well drawn steam punk weirdness and stuff getting blown up. You can’t fail to enjoy this stuff so go find yourself a copy of ‘Unnatural History’ and get going...

Green sets the stakes incredibly high and then has his hero go about his job in the best possible way, all wise cracks and flirting but with a propensity for violence when it’s needed. These are the moments where you look at what’s happening on the page and think to yourself that it wouldn’t be out of place on the big screen, I’d love to see it...

Set pieces flow into cliff hangers which result in more set pieces. It all happens so quickly that this approach doesn’t feel repetitive in the slightest, there’s no time for anything else but being swamped by everything that’s happening on the page...


And the final score? 9 out of 10!

You can read Graeme's review in its entirety here.

The only trouble with reading great reviews like this is that I then worry whether I'll be able to live up to readers' expectations with the next novel in the series which, in this case, is the forthcoming Time's Arrow.

But for now I'm just going to enjoy basking in the warm glow of another radiant review just a little longer...

The Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection

Abaddon Books has put out a press release about The Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection that's now available to download for the e-reader of your choice. Here's the blurb from the back:

Dandy, detective and adventurer Ulysses Quicksilver tackles the enemies of the crown in this thrilling collection of three complete short stories drawn from the steampunk Pax Britannia Ulysses Quicksilver novels.

In 'Fruiting Bodies' a gruesome death leads Ulysses and his manservant Nimrod to the glasshouses of Kew, bringing them face to face with the horrors lurking within. A Hallowe'en séance leads our intrepid duo into a close encounter with the world beyond in 'Vanishing Point', whilst in 'White Rabbit' Ulysses journeys into a world of madness and murder, meeting some sinisterly familiar characters along the way.

This collection is the perfect starting point for readers new to the exciting world of Pax Britannia! 'Fruiting Bodies' was first published in the novel 'El Sombra', 'Vanishing Point' was first published in the novel 'Leviathan Rising' and 'White Rabbit' was first published in the novel 'Blood Royal'.

You can read the press release for yourself here.

Just in case you need persuading that you really should get hold of The Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection for yourself, watch the following video:

Wednesday 8 June 2011

RMS Titanic gets its own Haynes Manual


Having seen this (and the various versions for the Apollo moon lander, USS Enterprise and Dalek) I'd love to see a mock-up cover for one for The Neptune from Leviathan Rising, or the Apollo XIII from Dark Side - or Oddfellow's Sphere, the Jotun-class steam-powered tank Siegfried, the Iron Eagle or the bipedal Stalkers from Anno Frankenstein.

Anyone fancy having a go?

Tuesday 7 June 2011

A crisis of confidence

Not mine, but that of fellow Black Library author (and editor) Nick Kyme. Here on his blog he talks about what it takes to be a writer, and it's more than just the ability to knock out a few words on a typewriter...

On keeping surprises a surprise

I was listening to Steven Moffat talk on Doctor Who Confidential about the importance of keeping the surprises in Doctor Who a secret, something he's striven very hard to do (unlike the producers of soap operas who trail major plot developments weeks in advance through the media). It's obviously no mean thing to achieve when you're producing something on the scale of one of the Beeb's top-rated dramas, but it can prove a challenge for us jobbing writers too.

These days I often get to write the blurbs for my novels myself, or at least the first version thereof. Writing blurbs is a challenge in and of itself but at least I retain control over what's revealed and what isn't. You want to dangle enough carrots to get readers to want to part with their cash to read the book in the first place but you don't want to reveal the final twist that comes right at the end.

However, in the past, I didn't write my own blurbs and this resulted in one of the biggest cock-ups, in terms of revealing the ending, I've ever had. Magestorm was my third novel for the Black Library, written to tie into the Storm of Chaos campaign as well as Dan Abnett's Riders of the Dead. That proved a challenge in itself, but I also had to base it on the War Cry CCG, including various characters from that game in my novel.

I have to confess, it's not my best work, but the blurb on the back of the book certainly didn't help when readers actually read the book because it gave away a major plot reveal that only came in the penultimate chapter (or thereabouts). And now it's happened again.

Sir Dagobert's Last Battle will be available to read as part of Hammer & Bolter Issue 9. It's full of twists and turns and (hopefully) unexpected reveals - except that one of them has already been given away in the single sentence that's promoting it on the Black Library website. So, if you're planning on reading my latest Warhammer short story, by all means follow this link and click the pre-order button, but please don't read the write up of the story as you do so.

Monday 6 June 2011

Vlog 7 - UK Games Expo 2011

JG in Hammer & Bolter Issue 9

I'm very pleased to be able to announce that my brand new Warhammer short story Sir Dagobert's Last Battle has been scheduled to appear in Hammer & Bolter Issue #9. And I'm in very good company too, for not only are there stories by m'colleagues Sarah Cawkwell and Steve Parker in this issue, there's also a brand new short from ex-Warmaster of All Things 40K Andy Chambers.

You can pre-order your copy of Hammer & Bolter #9 here.

And while we're on the subject of the Black Library, if you've not read Gordon Rennie's Zavant before you owe it to yourself to order the new PoD version that's out this month - along with a totally awesome new cover.

Here's the link to the PoD edition of Zavant.

Hi! I'm a writer, and this is what I write...

I had a great time at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham this weekend just gone (thanks and kudos to all concerned for organising such a great event) and met all kinds of people - some who knew about my Fighting Fantasy stuff, some who knew of my Pax Britannia books, and some who didn't know me from Adam*.

So, bearing that in mind, if you're one of those people who picked up a bookmark or a postcard and thought you'd check out the websites listed there, first of all "Hi!" Second of all, I'm a writer and have been for almost 19 years, and here's what I write...

Fighting Fantasy
This series of gamebooks is where my writing career began and to date I've written seven Fighting Fantasy titles. Howl of the Werewolf topped a recent fan survey as the fan favourite whilst my most recent, Night of the Necromancer, has garnered great reviews from all over the place.



Black Library
I've written six novels in total for the Black Library - three Warhammer and three 40K, two of which have recently been re-issued as The Armageddon Omnibus. To date I have also written sixteen short stories set within the two Games Workshop universes.




Pax Britannia
I've recently started writing the eighth Ulysses Quicksilver adventure, which - along with the six novellas I've written - will bring my contribution to the steampunk alternative history sci-fi series I created to close on three quarters of a million words. And that's only the beginning...



Doctor Who
I've recently finished my second official Doctor Who tie-in. The first, The Horror of Howling Hill was a gamebook (of sorts) but Terrible Lizards is a fully-fledged chapter book.





Other tie-in work
I've also written for Star Wars The Clone Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sonic the Hedgehog.







Non-fiction
I've penned four non-fiction books so far (with hopefully more to come) that have been published in different editions around the world. I'm probably most well-known in this field for my Christmas books.





So there you go. And don't forget, if you have any pressing questions you'd like answered about the writing process or the books I've written, you can do so here.


* One of the stars of my latest Pax Britannia release Anno Frankenstein.

Sunday 5 June 2011

UK Games Expo - Day 2

So, I'm back home at last after a very busy two days in Birmingham at the UK Games Expo. Today was just as great as yesterday for various reasons.

1) Completely sold out of four of my books - Night of the Necromancer, Howl of the Werewolf, Unnatural History and Anno Frankenstein. But have no fear - if you dropped by the stand and I no longer had the book you wanted, you can probably pick it up here.

2) The Tenth Doctor stopped by the stand to find out just exactly what a role-playing game is.

3) The unexpected arrival of both Supergirl and Catwoman. (Purrrrr!)

4) Hearing people say very nice things about Leviathan Rising, Human Nature and Evolution Expects, and even Necromancer (the Black Library novel, not Night of the Necromancer the most recent FF gamebook)!

5) Chatting to Angus Abranson and Sarah Newton of Cubicle 7... but hopefully more about that another time.

6) Winning a prize in the charity raffle - the Cobi Tardis Mini Set!

Other highlights from the weekend included the curry I had at Bengal Delight just down the road from where I was staying, a young lady all the way from Portugal buying up the last copy of Pax Britannia: Unnatural History, excitedly announcing that she had been looking for it for ages, and listening in to Paul's Advanced Fighting Fantasy demo game (much fun was clearly being had by all concerned), and generally being looked after very well by Fil Baldowski (who happened to buy me my winning raffle ticket).

Alessio Cavatore running a demo game of Shuuro.

Gamers doing what they do best... er, gaming.

Some of the finest Talisman boards I've ever seen!

The Tenth Doctor stops by...

Graham Bottley* of Arion Games and Jonathan Green of this very blog, keeping the FF brand alive!

Daleks on parade.

* By the way - Happy Birthday, Graham!

Saturday 4 June 2011

UK Games Expo - Day 1

So, I arrived at the Clarendon Suites here in Birmingham at about 11.30 this morning to find the UK Games Expo even busier and more bustling than last year.

I soon found my way upstairs to the Arion Games/Greywood Publishing stand where I met up with Graham Bottley (of Arion Games) and Jamie Wallis (of Greywood Publishing).

Having said hello to the guys I dropped by the RPG designers panel during which both Fighting Fantasy and Advance Fighting Fantasy received honourable mentions.

It was then back upstairs to sell books and sign even more. Before I knew it the Expo was closing for the day and were we all turfed out of the building before I'd even had a chance to look round properly.

So, plenty still to do tomorrow and plenty of plans to make following some very interesting conversations today. Hopefully there'll be more on those on this blog in the future. But for now, until tomorrow...

Graham Bottley of Arion Games, proudly displaying his wares.

Graham with a copy of the recently revised Advanced Fighting Fantasy rulebook.

Don't know who this bloke is but he's always turning up at these things.

Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Pax Britannia and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks - strange but happy bedfellows.

Jamie Wallis with some of his wares, including an also map of the Fabled Lands world.