"The modern master of the gamebook format" (Rob Sanders)... "Can do dark very well" (Jonathan Oliver)... "Green gets mileage out of his monsters" (SFX Magazine)... "It takes a firm editorial hand and a keen understanding of the tone of each piece to make a collection this diverse work, and Green makes it look effortless" (Starburst Magazine)... "A charming blend of camp creatures, humour, and genuine horror" (Set the Tape)
Today is a day for remembering when a Turkish knight killed a Libyan dragon, thereby ensuring he would be venerated as the patron saint of England*.
When people first stumbled across dinosaur bones, they mistook them for the ossified remains of dragons. And many of those 'dragons' have made it into my latest ACE Gamebook, NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! Here's what one reader had to say about it:
"A worthy addition to the series. This book will be an awfully big adventure for those looking to dive into this twist on a familiar tale." - 5 stars
And while I'm in book-plugging mode, today it also Shakespeare's deathday (and probably his birthday). To mark the occasion, why not pick up a copy of Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu, a collection of fifteen stories of eldritch horror that blend the Bard's most famous plays with Lovecraft's most terrifying creations?
* I wonder how many of the Brexit rabble will be hanging English flags out of their windows today, unaware that they are celebrating the achievements of someone from Turkey?
Today, Saturday 23rd April 2016, marks the 400th anniversary of the death of the English language's greatest ever playwright, William Shakespeare.
Google's Doodle of the day to mark the occasion
His impact on the English language, and indeed on our very culture (never mind tourism and the economy), is incalculable. For example, did you know that the Bard has been credited with introducing some 3,000 words into the English language? Or that at 27 letters 'honorificabilitudinitatibus' is the longest word in any of Shakespeare's works and is the longest word in the English language with alternating consonants and vowels? (It appears in Love's Labours Lost and means 'the state of being able to achieve honours'.) And did you know that Hamlet(Shakespeare’s longest play which, uncut, would take between 4 and 5 hours to perform, with the death-obsessed Prince of Denmark himself having the most lines of any character in Shakespeare, with 1530 in total) is the most widely performed play in the world? It is estimated that it is being performed somewhere every single minute of every day.
From a very personal point of view, Shakespeare has had been a massive influence on my own work - and that was before I came up with the concept of Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu.
Like many people, I first encountered Shakespeare whilst at school, reading Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare before studying plays such as Macbeth, The Tempest and Hamlet for GCSE and A-level. Later I went to university in Shakespeare's own county of Warwickshire.
My very first published book, the Fighting Fantasy adventure Spellbreaker, was heavily influenced by Macbeth, making, as it does, witches the main focus of the story. (The Bedlam Hags in particular are my take on Macbeth's Weird Sisters.)
My second book, Knights of Doom, used the driven war-hero-who-would-be-king, his fiend-like queen, and their castle home. There's even a very unsubtle reference to Banquo's ghost, in the form of Sir Connor of Achenbury.
Bloodbones (which is now available as an app from Tin Man Games, with its own soundtrack and everything!) was inspired, in part, by The Tempest, and features encounters with a monster called Balinac as well as a wizard's cell on a secluded, semi-magical island.
Night of the Necromancerdrew heavily on both Hamlet and Macbeth for inspiration, the castle you explore during the adventure being name Valsinore, and includes an encounter with your own ghostly father.
So tonight I'll be raising a glass to the Bard of Stratford whilst also battling with the running order of Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu.
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” ― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
Today is St George's Day, World Book Night, and William Shakespeare's 450th birthday!
Having studied various Shakespeare plays throughout my school years the Bard's work inevitably ended up influencing my own creative endeavours, none more so than my Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.
It all began with the first proposal I sent to Puffin Books, Outlaws of Kaan. Even though that adventure was not meant to be, elements of it were recycled in everything from Spellbreaker and Knights of Doom, right through to Night of the Necromancer.
The more obvious Shakespearean influences in my gamebooks include the witches from Spellbreaker (obviously Macbeth), Belgaroth and his fiend-like queen from Knights of Doom (also Macbeth), Balinac and Erasmus's Cell on Bone Island in Bloodbones (The Tempest), as well as Valsinore Castle and a certain ghost in Night of the Necromancer (Hamlet).
Balinac, by Tony Hough.
There are others, some of which are more obscure than others. For example the Spirit Beast on Bone Island in Bloodbones is based on the invisible monster in '50s sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, which was itself based on The Tempest, the invisible monster being that particular movie's take on Prospero's slave Caliban.
