Where I work now

Almost three years ago* I posted on my Unnatural History blog about my workspace, inspired by David Bishop's post on the same subject.

Well I now have a new space in which to work - well, some of the time. There's still some sorting out to be done, but most of my books have been unpacked now, including my collection of Fighting Fantasy books that's been in storage for the last six years.

The Archive

My Games Workshop bookcase- minus a shelf and a half of hardbacks and current project-related material

My writing corner bookcase - one copy of everything I've ever had in print

My Fighting Fantasy collection - Puffin editions (top shelf), Wizard Series 1 (middle shelf), and Wizard Series 2 (bottom shelf)

To celebrate my first afternoon's work in my new office I've recorded a new Vlog answering some of your questions about my books and writing in general. I've also written a guest post for Floor to Ceiling Books (that is scheduled to appear towards the end of September) and a proposal for a new short story. We'll just have to cross our fingers and see how that one goes.

But for now you can enjoy my new Vlog (in two parts) below:

* Three years?!?

Temple of the Spider God at PAX Prime

The Tin Man is over in Seattle at the moment at the PAX Prime convention, promoting Gamebook Adventures. Apparently the Temple of the Spider God bookmarks and postcards have been going down a storm. Here's hoping sales of the app itself are just are good when it's unleashed upon the world next month*.

* Probably...

Gav Thorpe on overwriting...

"Never, ever (and I mean ever) overwrite. If description is too lean, it can be expanded. If dialogue is too sparse, it can be lengthened. Like putting salt in a recipe, you can always add more but it’s really hard to take it out."

Wise words indeed - and most timely in my case...

JG on Pornokitsch's Friday Five

Jared and Anne, over at that sanctuary of all the treasures of geekdom that is Pornokitsch, kindly invited me to contribute to their Friday Five this week. The result is three lists of our five favourite awesome Victorians.

You can find the link to this week's Friday Five here. Having read the three lists you may also like to comment and add your own.

Maybe see you over there...

The Summer of Steampunk!

Abaddon Books - publishers of the Pax Britannia series of steampunk novels created by Yours Truly - has announced the Summer of Steampunk and launched an official Facebook page for fans of the series.

You can read more about Abaddon's plans for the next couple of weeks here, and check out the Facebook page here. And then there's news of an exciting new development in genre publishing to come...

Mission: Games Workshop - Torquay

Today I visited the Torquay GW store for the first time and met the most appropriately-named GW manager ever, Elric Prynn. Elric was very welcoming and showed me the Arachnarok spider* he's painted up for this year's Golden Demon competition.

While I was there I also picked up a copy of C. L. Werner's new novella The Hour of Shadows, and the Ciaphas Cain audio book Dead in the Water.

Elric asked me what I was working on at the moment and I was desperate to tell him about my new project for the Black Library but feared that if I did I would bring the whole weight of the Inquisition down upon our heads, so I kept schtum.

So it only remains for me to say "Thanks!" to Elric once more and "See you again some time..."

* Just like the one that appears in my Hammer & Bolter short story Sir Dagobert's Last Battle, although Elric's was rust red and the one in my story is toxic yellow.

Avent and Monie

As long time readers of this blog will know, from time to time I like to post bits and pieces here about other writers. Usually they're novelists or comic strip writers but today I'd like to plug a couple of comedy sketch writers who just happen to perform their own work.

I went to school with Graham Avent and Jon Monie back in the Eighties. They were known for their comedy sketches even then. I remember one classic spoof of Anneka Rice's Treasure Hunt where Jon (in his sixth former suit and a long blonde wig) tried to find any sign of greenery after several years of building work at the school.

'At King Edward's School at Bath,

Try to find a blade of grass.'

The two of them even performed a sketch show at the Theatre Royal Bath and went on to win This Morning's Young Comedy Writer and Performer Award in 1993* whilst both of them were studying at University.

Fast forward eighteen years and Avent and Monie a back, thanks to the wonders of YouTube. They've recorded a number of 15 seconds sketches for BBC 3's search for new(!) comedy talent - appropriately named Funny in 15. Their sketch 'The Drop' is up on the BBC 3 website** but there are a host of others that you can review via their website or YouTube channel.

The one I really can't stop laughing at is their newest sketch 'Librarians in Love' - which probably says a lot more about me and my puerile sense of humour than I would like.

Anyway, go and check them out for yourself. You can read more about the duo in this piece by the Wiltshire Times.

* Which happens to be the year my first book, Spellbreaker, was published.

** And is a darn sight better than most on there - including the ones by the 'professional' comedians.

House of Fear - events

Just to keep you up to speed with events surrounding the launch of the brand new Solaris horror anthology House of Fear...

First off there's the official launch at Foyles bookshop in London, featuring a panel of top horror authors. I'll also be amongst the usual suspects taking part in a signing afterwards, as I've contributed a story to the collection myself, entitled The Doll's House.

Secondly, Solaris Books will be hosting a big old party at this year's FantasyCon, where they will be giving away a selection of Solaris titles and offering people the chance to meet and mingle with the authors. House of Fear is one of the titles they'll be giving away. This event will take place on Saturday 1 October, in the Regency Lounge (of the Royal Albion Hotel, I think) from 2.00 - 3.00 p.m.

I'll be attending both, so hope to see you there - at one of them at least! So, until then...

Spanish review of Conquest of Armageddon

I've not seen many reviews for my third Warhammer 40K novel Conquest of Armageddon of late, so I was very pleased to stumble across this one on a Spanish website.*

Rating: 4 / 5
A novel highly recommended... In summary, given the previous thousand rounds, is more than a novel about the Templars, many more actors in the story make it interesting (the twisted plans of the Inquisition are always a safe bet), and give greater richness to the book.

You can read the whole thing here.

Conquest of Armageddon is available again, along with its precursor Crusade for Armageddon, as part of The Armageddon Omnibus.


* Apologies for the rather random Google translation, but Google Spanish-Fu is greater than my Spanish-Fu.

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.

Mission: Games Workshop - Return to Salisbury

I was in Salisbury yesterday and so stopped by the Games Workshop store there to catch up with key-timer Matt Elliott. I only discovered recently that Matt is an Imperial Fists fan and loved my story But Dust in the Wind (from Victories of the Space Marines).

But there was another surprise in store for me yesterday. The snow board in the Salisbury store is based on the ice-world of Ixya - specifically the Mechanicus facility Aes Metallum - from the aforementioned story and here it is...

And in other news...

Just a couple of things to update you on...

1) Monstrous Missions

My Doctor Who book Terrible Lizards has been listed at last on Amazon. It's going to be published along with a second story but under one cover, the two-books-in-one being known collectively as Monstrous Missions. Here's what the blurb has to say about my offering:

Exciting action-packed new original fiction for younger Doctor Who fans, starring the Eleventh Doctor with his companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams. Double-fronted books each contain two fast-paced, fun-filled adventures!

The Doctor and his friends join a group of explorers on a Victorian tramp steamer in Terrible Lizards. The explorers are searching for the Fountain of Youth, but neither they or the treasure they seek are quite what they seem!

2) Under New Management

Jamie Fry of Fighting Fantasy Collector fame, is taking over editorship* of the official Fighting Fantasy website. I - along with many FF fans, I am sure - would like to wish him well with this venture and look forward to seeing what he has planned.

3) Forthcoming Events

It looks like I'll be attending two more events than previous years, making it one of the busiest Septembers convention-wise. Here's where I expect to be next month:

Saturday 10 September - The Asylum, Lincoln - The biggest Steampunk festival in Europe! (9-11 September 2011)

Sunday 25 September - UK Games Day - The ultimate celebration and annual showcase of all things Games Workshop. As always Black Library will be there in force with a host of activities and new releases.

Tuesday 27 September - House of Fear launch - Solaris Books are bringing the ghost story home with House of Fear, which collects some of the finest writers working in the horror genre.

Saturday 1 October - FantasyCon 2011 - Solaris Books are holding a big old party, giving away various titles including House of Fear! You'll also get to mingle with the authors of your favourite genre fiction. Maybe I'll see you there. (Royal Albion Hotel, 30 September - 2 October 2011)

4) Exclamation Mark in Space!

Oh, and two galaxies colliding in space form an enormous purple exclamation mark. Do you think that God is making a point?

* Is that the technical term?

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...

It's going to be a cold day in Hell when Mr Freeze makes an appearance in Arkham City

Let's Kill Hitler! Doctor Who returns soon...

Temple of the Spider God - by Jonathan Green

This makes me happy. :-)

Not long to wait now...

Space Marine - Black Templars

Recently I got quite excited about the fact that in the new Space Marine game from Games Workshop and THQ you'll be about to play as an Iron Hand in multi-player mode.

Well, that's not all. Today I discovered that if you pre-order the game from GameStop you'll get two complete armour skin sets for the Space Wolves and... Black Templars! So now you'll be able to play as a battle-brother of the Solemnus Crusade and open a whole case of whupass on those alien greenskins. Rather like Emperor's Champion Ansgar does in The Armageddon Omnibus.

Black Templars: Embark on your own righteous crusade with the striking black and white marks of one of the most honorable Space Marine chapters.

Temple of the Spider God - the T-shirt!

First there was the teaser illo... Then there was the cover picture... The theme tune... The title screen animation...

And now there's the T-shirt! How cool is that?

You can order your own via the Red Bubble website, with the spider comes in either black or white.

What it's like to be a writer...

All of us penmonkeys have had to deal with the consequences of explaining to lesser mortals what being a writer actually entails, and it's never easy. It's why when us writerly types get together things can get a little vociferous and... enthusiastic, shall we say?

Only the other day my good lady wife asked how much longer it was going to take me to finish the first part of Time's Arrow (deadline is Monday!) and the conversation went a little like this.

"Well, I've got to finish editing* Chapter 6. And I now realise I need to add in a new chapter."

"How long's that going to be?"

"About 2,000 words."

"Which means you'll write about twice that."

"And then edit it down. And then I've got to give the whole thing a final read-through and polish."

"So how long's all this going to take?"

"A couple of days."**

"A couple of DAYS?!?"

I should point out at this juncture that my wife and I have been together for almost twelve years, but she still doesn't completely understand what it is I do all day.

Anyway, certified penmonkey Chuck Wendig has written the definitive blogpost on what it means to be a writer, just be prepared for a little profanity along the way.***

* Which in my world actually means 're-writing'.

** It's sooo nearly finished!

*** Which is good advice for life in general, really.

Everything's Better With Monkeys

I only discovered the other day that there is an actual recognised writing trope 'Everything's Better With Monkeys'. I didn't realise this when I wrote Evolution Expects (which is definitely enhanced by the appearance of the primates in the House of Monkeys) nor when I started plotting Time's Arrow (of which Part 1 is soooo nearly finished). But Time's Arrow is also improved by the addition of a primate - in this case a 800lb cybernetically-adapted silverback gorilla that goes by the name of Ishmael.

And you can meet Ishmael and his friends come October when Time's Arrow Part 1 is released in eBook form by Abaddon Books. Just don't call him a monkey, otherwise something like this is liable to happen...

And because everything's better with monkeys, I no longer wish to be known as a freelance writer. From now on I'm going to introduce myself to people at parties as a certified penmonkey!

Lego Steampunk Clock

As anyone who has read this blog for more that about five minutes will know, I have a bit of a thing for Lego. My passion for the little plastic brick has only been enhanced by the fact that my son is now old enough to enjoy proper Lego for himself.

I also have a bit of a thing for steampunk. (No! Really?) Carry out a quick search on this blog and you're find links to all manner of steampunk devices, vehicles and characters rendered in Lego.

And here's another one for the collection.

This time it's a Lego Steampunk Clock, created by Matt “monsterbrick” Armstrong. You can find out more about this incredible invention here.

Stormslayer and Howl of the Werewolf reviews

Stormslayer and Howl of the Werewolf were among the totally new Fighting Fantasy adventures I wrote for Wizard Books and benefited from much wisdom gained on my part since the Puffin era. Howl of the Werewolf in particular proved very popular but Stormslayer (written for the re-release in 2009) also garnered a fair bit of praise. What follows are a selection of readers' thoughts on both books.

Stormslayer

Jonathan Green is one of my favorite Fighting Fantasy authors, and I was looking forward to seeing what he produced after Howl of the Werewolf, which is quite possibly the best Fighting Fantasy book out there. I don't think any FF will ever top Howl of the Werewolf, but Stormslayer reminds me my why I'm a fan of the author.

Stormslayer manages to capture a nice classic RPG kind of feel, with you on a quest to assemble a number of magical aids to topple the current all-powerful madman. While using the elements of nature as a theme is a bit overdone in my opinion, the book's writing is solid, the pacing decent and aside from handicaps imposed by low rolls during character creation, the book on the whole isn't overly challenging. Most of the settings were interesting and memorable. I especially enjoyed sneaking around the villain's ship at the end sabotaging bits of it until I managed to get his attention, and I liked how having a sidekick was implemented during the "earth" part of the quest.

The book introduces two previously unseen mechanics to the series (at least unseen to me, as most books in the new series have this first one), the first of which is three pre-generated characters in the back if you don't feel like rolling up one of your own. It's not a bad feature, although I've yet to actually feel like using it since I've spent twenty years rolling up a new character every time I play one of these books (unlike in say Swordquest, where rolling up your own character is possible, but the books are geared toward using the one they give you).

The second is keeping track of the day of the week. Unlike in some books where you have x-amount of days to find the villain before he becomes unbeatable, the reason this time is monsters of elemental types are slightly more powerful on the day matching their theme. I suppose it's a clever idea, but I've read the book three times and I think the day and the monster I was fighting may have synched up all of once. I wasn't even making a point to stay away from the volcano until Fireday was over or anything.

A lesser gripe stems from the fact that because a lot of the monsters are elemental creatures, the book starts you off with a magic weapon to sidestep any of those lame "without a magic weapon you cannot harm the creature and your quest ends here" jobbies. It specifically gives bonuses against dragon-type enemies. As this is your default weapon you never lose and the first time in Fighting Fantasy such a thing's been done, however, it would've been nice to have a little reminder against appropriate enemies, of which there are four or five scattered throughout the book. Again, after twenty years of my starting equipment aside from money and food rarely requiring special attention, it's a little jarring.

So while I wouldn't exactly call it a home run, Stormslayer is still well worth reading for anyone who likes Fighting Fantasy.

Howl of the Werewolf

This book is probably my favourite Fighting Fantasy, alongside Legend of Zagor, House of Hell and Creature of Havoc.

The book is nice and chunky, every paragraph is fleshed out to squeeze the maximum atmosphere out of reading. It's also slightly longer than most FFs and beautifully un-linear (for lack of a better term).

Green has obviously done his research on the gothic and werewolf setting. There's some great monsters lurking in every corner, including vampires, mantises and highwaymen. The dark atmosphere is maintained well throughout the book. Somehow the book always manages to feel like a race against time, and you always feel like you are progressing throughout the book; it's pushing you forwards. That's a nice feeling that some FFs lack.

The world is literally vast and amazing. There's a huge number of side quests and different towns to visit every time using the codeword system, it's so fun. I seem to remember that the first 3 times I played this, I hardly repeated a reference. Even after about 7-8 plays, there will still be a number of places to find; I only found the spiders in the mountain on my 6th go or something.

It's fairly easy to get to the end but very difficult to survive the final encounter. I really like this; it adds a massive replay element. There's a huge world to explore, but only a few true ways through it which will take some thinking about.

The balancing is just spot on. This was one of the first books that I really felt was fair in terms of encounters, whatever stats you rolled up.

Great artwork and not a bad word.

* * *

Really an excellent job! A good storyline, effective rules' changes which allow you to play with a well-balanced character, and lots of encounters, situations, NPCs and puzzles.

You have many routes to the main goal, along with various sub quests you can even fail without dying. And there are at least three methods to kill the final enemy too.

I'm not surprised this new FF book rapidly sold out and had to be reprinted. If there will be other new books with that great formula, I'm sure FF will catch a new generation of gamebooks readers.

* * *

This book was written by Jonathan Green, author of two of my favorite Fighting Fantasy entries, Knights of Doom and Spellbreaker, so I was raring to go right out of the gate.

The premise isn't anything unexpected; you're bitten by a werewolf and have to slay the evildoer who did it before it's too late, but Howl of the Werewolf is one of those books that takes a predictable premise and does great things with it. The book has a gothic atmosphere more effective than I've ever seen in a gamebook. The locations are creepy and yet you want to see more. A lot of the monsters are other lycanthropes, and a lot of them are pretty tough. That might worry some readers when they see how the stat maximums in this book are rather lower than most Fighting Fantasy books. That leads to the good news about being a werewolf, though.

Every so often the transformation process will spike, your Skill and Stamina will go up and you'll be able to roll a die and gain a special power. I liked how the book balanced the curse like that. For instance, your fingernails become claws so you suffer no penalty for fighting without a weapon. This is balanced, of course, with having to keep track of how far your transformation has progressed and whether it gets the better of you from time to time. I seemed to find all the places that reduce your change score on my first try, though, and I didn't have much trouble with that. And a good thing, because almost nobody you meet has any sympathy for someone dealing with lycanthropy, no matter what their intentions.

Fighting Fantasy standby Martin McKenna did the illustrations for this book. While many of the were-creatures start looking the same after a while, on the whole I was impressed.

The writing is on the whole effective, with the use of codewords to track events throughout the plot and sometimes letters-to-numbers translation to make use of special knowledge or weapons, but it didn't beat that gimmick to death like Curse of the Mummy. I wouldn't call any of the book bone-chilling, but I really liked this book and the mini-world within it. With it being over 20% larger than your average Fighting Fantasy in terms of section count, there's more to explore so even after I stamped out evil, there was a strong feeling to go back and try out other paths. Howl of the Werewolf is an excellent Fighting Fantasy book and every enthusiast ought to track down a copy.

* * *

You can pick up a copy of Stormslayer or Howl of the Werewolf here.

Crisis on Coruscant - a great review!

I've not seen many reviews of Crisis on Coruscant so I was delighted to stumble upon this one the other day:

Better than the other Decide Your Destiny books, this is written by someone who worked on some Fighting Fantasy titles, and it shows that they have experience in this format. There's a story that runs through the book and various parts branch off and eventually come back to the main line (although sometimes slightly to the side). This is in contrast to the other DYD books which often go off on wildly different courses and lack coherence.

Endings are fairly logical unlike in some of the other DYD books. Also, the online portion is thankfully unnecessary.

As to the content, it again is a cut above the other DYD books - a storyline that involves Jabba, Ventress and Ziro and feels like it could almost be made into a Clone Wars episode, unlike the other forgettable DYD books.

This is definitely the pick of the bunch.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Daleks

T-Shirt of Awesomeness (+5 Cool)

Grab yourself a Tin Man Games or Gamebook Adventures T-shirt here. I've got mine on order!

The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus (Vol.1) - another good review

This one's from the Portland Book Review.

There is a lot of high-flying adventure backed by some solid plot and characters. The world itself is fully-developed, with a number of really nice touches, and technology is embraced here, unlike a lot of steampunk where the technology is the enemy at best. Fans of Doc Savage and Indiana Jones will love this book, and it’s a great read for everyone else.

To read the whole thing, follow this link.

If you've not picked up The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus for yourself yet, you can do so here.

Mission: Games Workshop - Swindon

So, I found myself in Swindon today with the kids and thought I'd dropped by the local GW store, which I duly did.

Admired the new Storm of Magic miniatures in the display cabinet and picked up a copy of the new Orcs and Goblins army book at last in preparation for a forthcoming project.

Time and tide...

Here's on his way, and this time accompanied by my favourite Pax Britannia theme music.*

* Protectors of the Earth by Two Steps From Hell.

Temple of the Spider God

The freaky Spider God-related discoveries continue. This time an elite 14th-century executioner has been found buried with the tools of his trade. To find out more, click here.

How to write an adventure gamebook - Part 3

Many moons ago I wrote a blog post entitled 'How to Write an Adventure Gamebook - Part 1'. This was intended to be the first in a series of posts on the subject of gamebook writing, but it wasn't until a whole month later that I got around to writing 'How to Write an Adventure Gamebook - Part 2'. I foolishly finished the post by saying that 'How to Write an Adventure Gamebook - Part 3' would be coming soon...

It's well over a year since I typed those fateful words and I still haven't got around to writing 'Part 3', but Stuart Lloyd of Lloyd of Gamebooks has taken up the challenge and written a series of posts on this subject himself. And here are the links:

How to write a gamebook part 1 - thinking of a plot (and then a few more plots)

How to write a gamebook part 1a - the map method

How to write a gamebook part 1b - the flow diagram method

How to write a gamebook part 1c - the just write it! method

How to write a gamebook part 1d - ideas

Who knows, in another year or so's time I might eventually get around to writing 'How to Write an Adventure Gamebook - Part 3', but for the moment my writing time is all about Pax Britannia...

A plea for help

It would appear that as of 9pm on Sunday (7 August), or thereabouts, my entry on Wikipedia will be deleted, unless the aforementioned entry is improved.

Now I should point out here that I never set up my Wiki entry and am rather busy writing my next book, so if there's anybody out there with the skills and inclination to clean the entry up, I would be eternally grateful.

You never know, you might earn yourself a walk-on part in a future Pax Britannia adventure (or something similar).

Here ends this public service announcement.

Writers on... well, writing.

More writers with interesting things to say about the experience of writing.

1) Weston Ochse talks about short stories.

2) Then we have William King discussing the idea of writing 'when the mood takes you'.

3) And here, William King is very honest about how much actual writing gets done during a writer's week.

4) Sarah Pinborough is an awesome writer, as she demonstrates here in a seemingly simple blog post about haunted houses.*

5) Roz Morris has something to say on the subject of chapter breaks...

6) ... while Rob Sanders writes about soundtracks to write to.

* Sarah and I are appearing together in Solaris Books' forthcoming horror anthology House of Fear. I'll give you three guesses what the stories it contains are about...

Hive of the Dead

I've known about this for a while now but I'm delighted that I'm now able to share the news with you, my loyal blog readers and gamebook fans.

Hive of the Dead is the first in a new range of Warhammer 40,000 gamebooks - that's right, interactive novels where you take the role of the main character and decide where they go, what they do and whether they live or die, only set within the mad medieval universe of the 41st millennium.

Hive of the Dead casts you in the role of an Imperial Guardsman who wakes in a cell only to find himself surrounded by the walking dead. Your mission then is to escape, preferably without developing a nasty rash or a craving for brains…

To find out more about this brand new gamebook, click this link. Oh, and by the way, it's by my long-time editor* and fellow FF fan, Christian Dunn - or, as he's now known, C Z Dunn.

* And now New York Times bestselling editor...

Blog update

So I finished the first draft of another chapter of my latest project today and thought it was time to update the old blog again.

First up, readers of this blog who are also readers of SFX magazine #212 or White Dwarf (Games Workshop's hobby magazine) #380, may have noticed a couple of connections with yours truly in the new issues - or maybe not...

The new White Dwarf is full to bursting with some brilliant new Undead additions to the Warhammer Fantasy milieu*. And the big Vampire Counts update goes under the title of 'The Dead and the Damned'. Well, when a title's that good, why not use it again and again...

There's also a fabulous new piece of terrain in the form of Morr's Garden, and just such a cemetery was the focus of the climax of my novel Necromancer.

And now we come to SFX. The links here are a little more subtle. At the start of the mag, each of the SFX team list their current raves and rants. Rob Power, Editorial Assistant, raves about going to the 2000AD offices in Oxford and then spending a day at the pub. Well, that was with me (SFX's Editor-in-Chief Dave Bradley and Michael Molcher, 2000AD and Abaddon's PR guy) that was. And then right at the back of the mag, the Total Recall article is all about Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Even though I don't get a mention, my book Curse of the Mummy does, as does Alan Langford, who illustrated my first published book Spellbreaker.

* Expect to see these at some point in the future in Hammer & Bolter, if I can convince the editors with my scintillating new proposal.

Daemonifuge - back in print!

Available again from the Black Library, as part of their Print on Demand range, is the complete Daemonifuge. And by complete, I mean, complete!

For - according to my sources, at least - not only has Kev Walker and Jim Campbell's original seminal classic been reprinted but you will also find Daemonifuge Book 2 and the start of Book 3 contained within this mighty tome's covers - along with Ephrael Stern, Sister of Sigmar, which you can read more about here.