Gamebook Friday: Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu

When I first teased Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu on social media, coming as it did on the heels of Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland, some people immediately assumed it was another gamebook.

I soon put them right, but the idea of using the concept as the theme for a new gamebook hasn't left me. In fact, it's wormed its way inside my brain, like some wormy thing. And so, just maybe, one day, Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu will become a gamebook as well as an anthology of short stories...

Of course it wouldn't be the first time that Shakespeare has influenced my gamebook writing. If you've read my Fighting Fantasy output, maybe you will have spotted the following connections already.

Macbeth ~ Spellbreaker and Knights of Doom

The Tempest ~ Bloodbones

Hamlet ~ Night of the Necromancer

Shakespeare Week - Exit, Pursued By…?

I have been keen to have James Lovegrove contribute to an anthology of mine for some time, so I was delighted when he agreed to be a part of Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu.

His story takes its inspiration from Shakespeare's most famous stage direction, and here's an extract for you to enjoy...

I will tell you this, scribe: it is not as I have always said it was.

For nigh on twenty years now, whenever anyone asks me how I came by my injury, I have lied to them. I have rigorously maintained that the stiffness in my shoulder, the jagged scars which extend from it halfway up my neck, the chunks of missing meat, are all the gruesome handiwork of a bear. The culprit was no more uncommon a creature than that. A roaming black bear pursued me, caught me up in its claws, and tore a pound of flesh from my body with its ravening teeth.

No one queries this reply. Bears are a familiar enough sight in these parts. Bohemia’s forests are riddled with them. Few who dwell in the country’s rural areas can say they have not encountered one at some point in their lives. Most, fortunately, have lived to tell the tale, although some have not been so lucky.

At any rate, with this explanation I have been able to deflect such slings and arrows of curiosity as are loosed at me. Upon hearing it people will offer sympathy, perhaps, or wince as they contemplate the agonies I suffered. I will in turn dismiss their coos and blandishments. “Let us not make a fuss about it,” I will say, sounding brave. “It is much ado about nothing.”

Now, at last, as I lie upon what must surely be my deathbed, I wish to confess the truth. For the first and final time in my life since the terrible events of that night on the storm-tossed southern shore of this land, I, Lord Antigonus, formerly a noble of Sicilia and once close associate of and trusted advisor to her monarch King Leontes, hereby state for the record that I was not attacked by any bear.

No, it was no bear.

It was something stranger and much worse.

Shakespeare Week - Something Rotten...

I was delighted when Adrian Tchaikovsky agreed to contribute to Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu. I was even more delighted when I read his story Something Rotten, and you will be too, when the book is published later this year. Here's a brief extract:

This is not what I told Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, when he arrived with his little band of followers; the desperate adventurer who had heard the Danish royal family was failing and had come to stake his claim.

Well, he has it all now: Norway, Denmark, all of it. And perhaps he sleeps easy, believing what I told him. But he never entered Elsinore., He never saw what I saw, what nobody should have to see. It’s better that way. Let him sleep easy right up until the restless history of that castle returns from that undiscovered country.

You’ve heard the story, of course, the one I told to Fortinbras. I made it lurid and bloody enough that nobody would think to go behind it and find the far more lurid and bloody truth.

Tie-in Tuesday: Shakespeare Week - Beware the Ides of March!

Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu ties together two of the biggest franchises I have ever worked on, and I am fortunate to have some rather big names working on it with me.

The completed tales that will be appearing inside the anthology include...

• Something Rotten, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Exit, Pursued By...?, by James Lovegrove
• #Tempest, by Jan Siegel
• A Tiger's Heart, A Player's Hide, by Josh Reynolds
• Star Crossed Lovers, by Jonathan Oliver
• A Madness Most Discreet, by Michael Carroll
• Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Graham McNeill
• Once More Unto the Breach, by C L Werner
• A Reckoning, by Guy Haley

On another note, did you know that the Ides of March also mark the anniversary of the death of H P Lovecraft? I tell you, you couldn't make it up...

Thought for the Day - Shakespeare Week

In case you didn't already know, this week is Shakespeare Week. In honour of this my blog will have a decidedly Shakespearean theme this week, starting with today's Thought for the Day...

“To die, to sleep –

To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub,

For in this sleep of death what dreams may come...”

(William Shakespeare – Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1)

“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”

(H P Lovecraft – The Call of Cthulhu)

Shakespeare Sunday: Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu cover reveal!

Covers are a tricky business. Despite the old adage, people do judge books by their covers all the time. And with somewhere in the region of 185,000 new books being published in the UK each year, you have to do something to try to make your book stand out from all the others on the bookshelves.

For one thing, a book's cover design needs to tell you something about the tone of its content, so as to attract the right kind of reader, who might actually buy the tome having picked it up for a closer look. You also need to give potential readers as many visual clues as possible so that, even if they can't read the title from across the bookshop, they see something which might lure them in closer. And, with that in mind, a clear central image is a must too. (A few well-known genre names don't hurt either.)

All of these considerations went into the mix when we set about designing the cover for Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu. I like to think we have succeeded in what we set out to do, but only time (and book sales) will tell...

 Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu will be published later this year by Snowbooks.

Merchandise for Writers

On Monday I shall be taking part in a workshop at the British Library, entitled 'Merchandise for Writers'. Here's more information from the British Library website:

If you’re an author and you think that having your own merchandise will have to wait till you’re JK Rowling, then think again. There are good reasons why you should develop your own merchandise and this workshop will help you do just that. 

What this workshop will cover: 

• 5 things merchandise can do for you as an author
• The difference between products and merchandise
• Case studies – from JK Rowling to part-time authors
• The new product development process: 6 steps to avoid mistakes
• Planning ahead – writing merchandise into your books 

We’ll also amuse ourselves with some truly terrible examples of author merchandise, practise finding product ideas by working on some imaginary book titles and look at how to write a business plan for your products (and yourself as a writer). 

You’ll take away lots of ideas for your own merchandise, a list of recommended reading and a business plan template. This workshop is ideal for authors at all stages – from just getting to started to full-timers.  Fiction and non-fiction both welcome! 

This workshop will be presented by Melissa Addey, the 2016 Leverhulme Trust Writer in Residence at the British Library’s Business & IP Centre. Melissa has over 15 years business experience developing new products and mentoring entrepreneurs, as well as being an author of fiction and non-fiction.  With guest speaker Shaun Levin, author of Writing Maps and author Jonathan Green.

Proceedings start at 10.00am and, best of all, the workshop is provided free of charge as part of the British Library Business & IP Centre’s Artist in Residence programme, generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

So, if you're free, why not pop along?