Gamebook Friday: SciFiNow on YOU ARE THE HERO

"Must read now!"

That's SciFiNow's verdict on YOU ARE THE HERO. The reviewer also gives the book 5 stars, so what more do you need to know?

If you ever enjoyed wiling away an afternoon with a Fighting Fantasy gamebook, then you'll love YOU ARE THE HERO.

Lavie Tidhar's A Man Lies Dreaming, and Scott K Andrews' Timebomb are also reviewed in the issue and are also of 'Must read now!' status, so what are you waiting for? ;-)

#GamebookFriday

It's Gamebook Friday once again, or #GamebookFriday, as I like to call it on Twitter now. In my gamebook-related news this week, YOU ARE THE HERO has been reviewed in SciFiNow Magazine...

And I shall be giving a talk about how YOU ARE THE HERO came to be at the Kilburn Literary Festival on Sunday 2 November. For more details, and tickets, follow this link.

Fighting Fantasy Fest 2014 - Hitting the Headlines!

Well, the geek press anyway.

YOU ARE THE HERO and FIGHTING FANTASY FEST both get a mention in the latest issues of SFX and SciFiNow magazines.

In SFX, FFF 2014 appears in the 'Event Horizon' part of the mag*, while SciFiNow features a full interview and six-page article with Messrs Jackson and Livingstone**.

Ian Livingstone on Blood of the Zombies, Fighting Fantasy Fest, and Karen Gillan. Obviously.

Perhaps you've stumbled across this very blog because of the aforementioned magazines. Well, have no fear, tickets for FIGHTING FANTASY FEST are still on sale here, and you will soon be able to pre-order your very own copy of YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks (all 270 pages of it!), which now has an official publication date of Sunday 7 September - the same day as FIGHTING FANTASY FEST!

YOU ARE THE HERO in big, bold letters. Cool. 

Curse of the Mummy features one of the ten nastiest deaths in Fighting Fantasy, apparently. 

* Although the piece was written by the work experience girl and features one glaring inaccuracy.

** And Curse of the Mummy even gets a mention!

Gamebook Friday: FIGHTING FANTASY FEST 2014 where YOU ARE THE HERO

Just in case you didn't happen to see it yourself earlier this week, both Fighting Fantasy Fest and YOU ARE THE HERO appeared on the SciFiNow website on Wednesday.

You can read the post for yourself here. Alternatively, you could just click this link and buy your ticket for the gaming event of the year. ;-)

Gamebook Friday: The Way of the Tiger

The Way of the Tiger New Collector's Edition Kickstarter ends today at 9:00pm.

The project has already achieved almost four times its original funding target, so this is definitely going to happen, and you still have twelve hours (from when this post goes live) to be part of something special.

Creators Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson recently spoke to SFX and SciFiNow Magazine about the revival of their classic '80s gamebook series.

To find out more about the Kickstarter and to pledge your support (before it's too late and you miss out) follow this link.

JG in SciFiNow Magazine... kinda

So there's a piece about last November's Dragonmeet in the latest issue of SciFiNow Magazine, predominantly about Fighting Fantasy's overall contribution to the event.

The piece has been written by Jamie Fry - the latest incarnation of the Warlock, and who is currently working his magic on the official FF website - and what's nice is that both myself and Temple of the Spider God get a mention.

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.

Never judge a book by its cover - unless it happens to be a Pax Britannia novel

Jamie Fry (of Fighting Fantasy Collector fame) contacted me via my forum yesterday to let me know that Pax Britannia: Dark Side is featured in the latest issue of SciFiNow magazine.

I duly wandered down to my local branch of WHSmith this morning, picked up a copy, turned to the Library section and discovered this...

A full page about Dark Side and the impact its cover makes! Full credit must go to Mark Harrison (cover artist) and Simon Parr (designer), for the point of the piece is how the fantastic cover (a gruesome homage to Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon) made Senior Staff Writer Jodie Tyley pick up the book in the first place and discover the whole Pax Britannia series.

From personal experience I know that this particular cover has created no like controversy. Mr Harrison's wife hated it (and my wife's not too keen), whereas plenty of people at the SFX Weekender loved it (as does my son), so much so that the book sold out during the course of the weekend.

Anyway, at the end of the article, you are invited to discuss your feelings about the Pax Britannia series over at the SciFiNow forum, which you can find here.

The Dark Side cover is certainly my favourite to date out of all the Pax Britannia covers. The challenge now is to come up with something equally inspiring for the cover artist of the next book in the series.

What about a steampunk King Kong...?