The Tides of Innsmouth - Live Playthrough tonight!

Join your host Ken Boyter tonight on Twitch for a live playthrough of my second Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook The Tides of Innsmouth.

The decaying town of Innsmouth is awash with sightings of a mysterious sunken pirate junk near the treacherous Devil Reef. Those rumours are an irresistible lure, drawing the Investigators of Arkham to the fog-laden Massachusetts town. But the thrill of discovery quickly wanes when you are faced with hostile locals, a missing marine archaeologist, and a family curse with tendrils that haunt your waking days.

Solve the riddles, overcome tests, and wish for luck as you navigate the rotten streets of the decrepit town and beyond to save the world as you know it.

Gamebook Friday: Dracula - Battesimo di Sangue

I am delighted to report that the Italian language edition of Dracula: Curse of the Vampire is now available for pre-order.

The book's title has had a slight change. Dracula: Battesimo di Sangue translates as Dracula: Baptism of Blood, which is what the French language version is called too.

There are two versions of the cover. The collector's edition, featuring the same cover art as the English edition, by Hauke Kock, and the standard one, which has a brand new piece of art produced by Francesco Crisci*, which is absolutely phenomenal.

I must offer Francesco and the team at Raven Distribution a huge thank you for allowing me to share the new cover art with you here, in full, and without any obscuring text.

So, don't delay and order yours now!

For anyone waiting on the Spanish language edition of Dracula: Curse of the Vampire, I believe it will be published next month.

In other news, the latest episode of ACE Gamebooks: The Gamebook Podcast is out now.

* Who also painted a new cover for the Italian version of Neverland: Here Be Monsters!

ACE Gamebooks: The Gamebook Podcast - Fighting Fantasy Fest 6

It probably hasn't escaped your notice that last Saturday, 5th September 2026, Fighting Fantasy Fest 6 took place at the University of West London in Ealing.

I was there with my new mic wand, courtesy of Hoobynoo, and my cameraperson, and so set about recording some material for the second ACE Gamebooks: The Gamebook Podcast podcast. And you can watch it right here...

We had a few of the FFF6 collectibles left over after the event. So, if you would like a pair of gold FF dice, a copy of the programme, some beermats, or even a City Guard T-shirt, follow this link.

Gamebook Friday: Fighting Fantasy and Gamebooks with Jonathan Green

I was recently interviewed for the RPG Blokes Podcast, about all things Fighting Fantasy and gamebooks in general, including my own ACE Gamebooks series.

You can listen to the podcast here, or watch it via YouTube.

Thank you very much to Stephen, Mark and Jon, for having me on their podcast, and if you would like to interview me for your channel, drop me a line at info@jonathangreenauthor.com.

International Gamebook Day 2026 - ACE Gamebooks: The Gamebook Podcast

This International Gamebook Day I find myself preparing for Fighting Fantasy Fest 6, writing a pitch for a new gamebook, brainstorming gamebook plans for 2027, and launching ACE Gamebooks: The Gamebook Podcast.

You know what to do - like, subscribe, click the bell for notifications, and tell all your friends!

Short Story Saturday: The Iron Code

Available for pre-order now is The Iron Code, an anthology of short stories celebrating the life of legendary fantasy author David Gemmell, published to mark the 20th anniversary of his untimely passing.

The anthology has been edited by Ian Whates and is published by NewCon Press. It includes epic tales by the likes of Dan Abnett, John Gwynne, Joanne Harris, Anna Smith-Spark, and Adrian Tchaikovsky. I also have a short in there, entitled The Wolf in Winter.

To pre-order your copy, click this link.

This month's meeting of the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club is dedicated to The Iron Code. It will be taking place at The Star of Kings pub, York Way, near Kings Cross Station, starting at 6:30pm, on Tuesday 14 July 2026.

In attendance will be James Barclay, Mike Carey, Stephen Deas, Juliet E. McKenna, Kari Sperring Gavin Smith, J. L. Worrad, and Ian Whates*. The event is free, but to reserve your place, click this link.

* But not me.

The original Globe Theatre burned down 413 years ago today!

The original Globe Theatre burned down on this day, 29 June, in1613, during a performance of Shakespeare's All is True - a.k.a. Henry VIII.

A theatrical cannon fired during the play ignited the wooden structure's thatched roof, and the resulting conflagration destroyed the building in less than an hour. Incredibly, no one was killed. The theatre was subsequently rebuilt in 1614.

Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come tells a different story, however...

Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come is dedicated to Master Scott Lewis and Mistress Claire Byard - two good friends who have helped me out at various events over the years, but mainly the UK Games Expo.

When I made the dedication, I had no idea that Scott's birthday happens to be 29 June. It's almost as if it was written in the stars... by a big, nasty gribbly called Cthulhu!

Warhammer Wednesday: No Peace Amongst the Stars

I've just seen the new trailer for Warhammer 40,000 11th edition and, quite frankly, it's awesome. It also sounds like they got Richard Armitage to do the voiceover.

It was great to see Games Workshop back at the UK Games Expo - Ork bottle openers, Tyranid sceneted candles, Necron Scarab plushies and all - and in such force.

It almost makes me want to pitch another story idea to the Black Library. Almost.

Gamebook Friday: Dracula - Le baptême de sang

The French edition of Dracula: Curse of the Vampire, is currently available for pre-order from Alknost Editions before it's release in June.

Prepare to enter a world of gothic horror for an interactive adventure inspired by the universe of Bram Stoker. Play as the young solicitor's clerk Jonathan Harker, his fiancée Mina Murray, or Dr. John Seward… unless you prefer to embody the bloodthirsty monster itself and hunt down the vampire hunters!

One of the things I like about the Dracula - Le baptême de sang page on the Alknost Editions website is that as well as listing the gamebook's special features, it has a 'Want to know more?' section, which is presented as a series of choices such as might appear at the end of a section in an adventure.

Translated by Joël Mallet and featuring Hauke Kock's original illustrations for the adventure, Dracula - Le baptême de sang is the fifth ACE Gamebooks published by Alknost Editions as part of their Les Contes tordus de Green range.

In other gamebooks news, don't forget that 100 Aker Wood launches on Kickstarter on Tuesday 12th May 2026, at 12pm BST.

Happy Deathday, Mr Shakespeare!

Today - Saint George's Day - is William Shakespeare's deathday*, so it seemed like the perfect time to remind gamebook fans that Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come is available to buy now. You can even buy a signed hardback here.

Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu at Anne Hathaway's Cottage
in Shottery, Warwickshire.

However, before the Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come gamebook there was the Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu short story anthology. Check it out here and watch the video below to find out more.

 

* And possibly his birthday as well.

Warhammer Wednesday: Herald of Oblivion is back on Steam!

A new Warhammer Classics event has kicked off on Steam and one of the games available as part of this franchise sale is Legacy of Dorn: Herald of Oblivion, Tin Man Games' adaptation of my Warhammer 40,000 Path to Victory gamebook*.

As the news piece on Warhammer-Community.com puts it, "The Warhammer Classics celebration invites nostalgic fans to revisit formative experiences, while opening the door for a new generation to discover the games that helped shape Warhammer’s enduring presence in PC gaming."

Legacy of Dorn: Herald of Oblivion - a vast, choice-based digital gamebook set within the Warhammer 40,000 universe in which you are a Space Marine - was Tin Man Games' first foray into the worlds of Warhammer, and was supposed to be the first in a trilogy of digital gamebooks.

YOU are a veteran Space Marine of the Imperial Fists Chapter. Equipped with powerful Terminator armour and armed with the deadliest weapons that the Adeptus Astartes wield, you are a symbol of the Emperor's might. Trapped aboard the space hulk Herald of Oblivion, and the only survivor of your squad, you must fight your way through the aliens and heretics that infest the star vessel and find a way to escape the horror and return to your Chapter.

Until 20th April 2026, you can download the complete game for just £3.97! So, in the Primarch's name, what are you waiting for?

* Which was first published in 2012 - 14 years ago!

Gamebook Friday: 100 Aker Wood

The ninth ACE Gamebook, 100 Aker Wood, is coming to Kickstarter on Tuesday 12 May 2026.

As you will doubtless be able to tell from the title, 100 Aker Wood is inspired by the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne.

Winnie-the-Pooh was published 100 years ago this year, on 14 October 1926, and the plan is to publish 100 Aker Wood early in 2027. (Please note, the image to the right is not the final artwork for the cover but merely a placeholder.)

It is unnusual because the story is told through just 100 sections, but will still include everything you would expect from an ACE Gamebook.

It is also an interactive folk horror story, about grief and guilt. To explain much more than that at this stage would be difficult without giving away too many of the book's secrets. But rest assured that 100 Aker Wood will be a more subtle take on the idea than some other recent adaptations*, and will have a pervading atmosphere of creeping dread.

Other influences on the adventure include Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood (which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1985) and Stephen King's Pet Sematary (which the author considers his most disturbing and terrifying novel).

I'm not entirely sure what made me think of merging Winnie-the-Pooh with Pet Sematary, but what clinched it for me was when I considered how Christopher Robin misspelt 'Acre' on his map of Hundred Acre Wood, just as the children of Ludlow, Maine, misspelt 'Cemetery' on the sign they made to mark the resting place of their much-missed family pets.

If all of this has you intrigued, check out the Kickstarter preview page and click the button to be notified when the campaign launches. You could also subscribe to my newsletter.

* And I use the word loosely here.

Gamebook Friday: Valiant

Now that Valiant has been out for a couple of weeks, people have started to share how they have got on with the adventure. Like the people behind The Markov Dossier.

Jordan Sorcery also mentioned the gamebook on his channel today.

Gamebook Friday: L'Oscurità su Arkham

This arrived at my home today...

L'Oscurità su Arkham (published by Vincent Books*) is the Italian language edition of the first Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook, The Darkness Over Arkham, and a very nice hardback it is too.

It also means that The Darkness Over Arkham is now available in four different languages - English, Spanish, Hungarian, and Italian.

As you can see, L'Oscurità su Arkham varies from the other editions in that is has new cover art. And while the book does not feature any full page illustrations, Vincent Books have commissioned some adventure-specific fillers, including the ones shown below.

Recently, I was interviewed by Riccardo Scaringi for the Il Gioco In Tavolo podcast. During the course of our discussion we talked about Fighting Fantasy as well as exploring the world of Arkham Horror through gamebooks, which you can watch below.

Make sure you pop back tomorrow, because it will be new book day - again!

* Who have also published Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland and The Wicked Wizard of Oz in Italian.

The Kingsport Metamorphosis - new Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook out now!

New book day! The Kingsport Metamorphosis, my third Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook, is published today by Aconyte Books.

As with the other books in the series, The Kingsport Metamorphosis includes three Investigators with whom you can play through the adventure*. They are...

Jacqueline Fine
The Psychic

When Jacqueline's supernatural senses pull her towards the fog-bound streets of Kingsport, with a peculiar letter in her hand, she understands that she has no choice but to follow where they lead.

Lola Hayes
The Actress

When a letter arrives from one Elijah Harcourt inviting Lola to visit his home in Kingsport, she decides it might be nice to have a break from performing. But, as she comes to the coast, she can’t help wondering if she is about to take on the most important role of her life.

Lucius Galloway
The Poet

The mists of Kingsport have haunted Lucius's work since before he ever set foot in the town. Now he walks its alleyways, and if the truth of his visions awaits him here, he will meet it, whether it brings triumph or ruin.

Featuring another fantastic cover by Joshua Cairós, The Kingsport Metamorphosis is a classic country house murder mystery... only it isn't!

To find out more, pick up your copy of The Kingsport Metamorphosis today!

In other news, the Italian edition of The Darkness Over Arkham - L'Oscurità su Arkham - the first Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook, is out now from Vincent Books.

* Although you can play as any Investigator whose stats have been published in another Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook or online.

Gamebook Friday: Review of the Year - 2025

Strangely, 2025 will go down in history for me as the Year of Valiant, even though all most of you have heard about the Valiant gamebook appeared in this news item back in September.

I started this year finishing writing the first Valiant gamebook, and have ended the year working on the second. Valiant will be out in March, so look out for more news about that in the New Year.

Out before then is my third Arkham Horror gamebook, The Kingsport Metamorphosis, which was announced during Arkham Horror Week in October, after The Tides of Innsmouth was published in the Spring. To find out more about any of my Arkham Horror gamebooks, click the image below.

Last, but most definitely not least, among the gamebooks I have worked on this year, is Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come, which came out in ACE Gamebooks' 10th anniversary year.

As of writing, it has received three 5-star reviews on Amazon, one of which has been written in the style of William Shakespeare himself:

"O gentle reader, lend thine ear awhile,

And hark to Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come,

A book most strange, where inked worlds intertwine—

The Avon bard with eldritch horrors wed."

This was the first ACE Gamebook I have self-published, and the first book my son has laid out, and I am very pleased with the result. Two overseas publishers have already signed up to release the book in their territroies, which is very exciting.

Talking of overseas editions of my books, there weren't so many this year - certainly not compared to last year's seven! There was a new edition of La Nuit du Loup-Garou (the French language version of Howl of the Werewolf) and Pax Britannia: Unnatural History was published in Hungary.

Next year, however, I am expecting a glut of overseas editions of my gamebooks.

In terms of events, this year I attended AireCon, Dragonmeet: Call to Adventure, the UK Games Expo, and Dragonmeet. I already have my place booked at UK Games Expo 2026, and next September we will be holding Fighting Fantasy Fest 6 in West London.

My wife turned 50 in 2025 and it was her desire to visit 12 places she had never been to before in 12 months. This resulted in us going overseas five times! The countries we visited were Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Hungary, and Denmark. 

Yours Truly in Faraos Cigarer, in Copenhagen, with my Danish FF gamebooks. 

All of them were amazing and have provided me with all sorts of material for future stories or games, especially an exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen about the role of the Sorceress in Viking culture. I even got to see the lengendary Gundestrup Cauldron in the flesh, as it were.

An image of the horned god Cerunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron.

I have also had some health issues to contend with this year, which I need to get a better handle on in 2026, but throughout it all - the highs and the lows - I continue to have my furry companion by my side.

Conker the Cavapoo is now three!

In the New Year I will continue to work on the second Valiant gamebook, but I also have a new gamebook coming to Kickstarter. So, watch this space.

Wishing you a very happy and healthy New Year!

The Box of Delights

Forty-one years ago today, at 5:00pm on 21st November 1984, the BBC dramatisation of John Masefield's The Box of Delights was first broadcast. I was one of those eager children who tuned in to watch and was hooked from the moment I heard Victor Hely-Hutchinson's orchestral arrangement of The First Nowell, taken from the third movement of his Carol Symphony, which formed the series' theme music.

40 years later, the child star of the TV show provided me with a cover quote for The Box of Delights - The Roleplaying Game.

"As a lifelong roleplayer I was genuinely interested to read an RPG based on The Box of Delights. I was pleased to find that Jon Green has done an excellent job of capturing the spirit of the piece in a tight, narrative framework that emphasizes storytelling and keeps the mechanics simple enough to be enjoyed by any age. I may run it for my own kids."

Devin Stanfield, Kay Harker in the 1984 BBC Television adaptation of The Box of Delights.

The Box of Delights – The Roleplaying Game is a rules-lite RPG for 2-6 Players, plus a Gamesmaster, inspired by John Masefield's Christmas classic.

Designed to be picked up and played with minimal preparation, it nonetheless includes a well-developed character creation system, as well as rules for combat and magic.

Illustrated throughout by Tony Hough, it is ideal for a festive gaming session with an established group, or as an alternative to the family games usually played at Christmastime.

Time and Tide and Buttered Eggs wait for no man. So, grab your dice and playing cards, and prepare for adventure, for the Wolves are Running!

Cthulhu Thursday: Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu - What Dreams May Come

Available now from ACE Gamebooks is Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come, written by Jonathan Green and illustrated by Heraldo Mussolini.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on…”

The year is 1613, and England's foremost playwright is committed to finishing his latest magnum opus, Love's Labour’s Won, for his new patron, the Earl of Gloucester. However, after falling asleep while working late at the Globe, he wakes to find himself in a subtly altered world that is both familiar and yet strangely unfamiliar.

What follows is an epic quest through Shakespeare’s plays in which the Bard of Stratford is confronted by sinister eldritch forces in service of the Great Old Ones – malign beings of unimaginable power – the greatest of which is the cosmic entity known as Cthulhu.

______________________________________

Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come is an interactive fantasy novel, inspired by the Bard’s most popular plays and the unsettling creations of the American pulp horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.

In this adventure gamebook, YOU take on the role of William Shakespeare himself, deciding which route to take, which perils to risk, and which of the villains and eldritch horrors you will meet along the way to fight. But whether you survive your ordeal or succumb to riotous madness, will be down to the choices YOU make.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

You can buy Shakespeare Vs. Cthulhu: What Dreams May Come via Amazon here.

International Gamebook Day 2025

Gamebook Friday: The Kingsport Metamorphosis

This Gamebook Friday I am delighted to be able to share with you the news that I have written another Arkham Horror Investigators Gamebook, which will be released next spring. Here's the announcement video that appeared on ArkhamHorror.com yesterday.

And here's a message I recorded, especially for the Week of Arkham Horror.

The Kingsport Metamorphosis will be the third Investigators Gamebook, following on from The Darkness Over Arkham and The Tides of Innsmouth. Each volume is both a book and a game – you, the reader, get to take on the role of one of the famed Investigators you already know and love from the Arkham Horror series of tabletop games, and the book’s text guides you through an exciting narrative, where the choices you make at the end of each passage determine where you must turn next.

Combined with tests of Willpower, Intellect and Combat, your choices will determine your fate and your chances of success and failure over the course of the adventure, giving you the complete Arkham Horror game experience in a solo-play book format. 

Keep reading this blog to receive more news about The Kingsport Metamorphosis soon.