Jonathan Green's Blog, page 22

Wish You Were Here?

ACE Gamebooks fan Phil Brumby recently visited Whitby, and just happened to take his copy of Dracula - Curse of the Vampire with him. Judging by the photographs he posted on Facebook (which are reposted here with permission), it was typical English summer weather while he was there.

St Mary's Church, where Mina Murray has an unpleasant encounter with a certain Black Dog.

The view of St Mary's Church and the ruins of Whitby Abbey from West Cliff, with a languid-looking Lucy Westenra.

YOU ARE THE HERO - The Ultimate Edition!

YOU ARE THE HERO - The Ultimate Edition! An interactive history of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, 1982-2022, coming soon to Kickstarter. Sign up to be notified when it goes live here.  

Yes, you read that right - interactive! Just like your favourite Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. The book will include content from YOU ARE THE HERO Parts 1 and 2, as well as new material covering the last five yars.

So please sign up to the Kickstarter preview page and spread the word to help ensure this is the best YOU ARE THE HERO yet!

Your last chance to preorder your FFF4 T-shirts and badges!

There are less than six weeks to go before the doors open on Fighting Fantasy Fest 4, on Saturday 3 September 2022.

Many people will be collecting their Fighting Fantasy 40th anniversary T-shirts* and badges on the day. If you have yet to preorder yours, you have until 12:00pm on Friday 29 July 2022 to do just that!

Mock-up images of the 40th anniversary T-shirts and badges.(Artwork not final.)

The front of the T-shirt features Zagor the Warlock, by Russ Nicholson, and the Fighting Fantasy logo, while on the back are listed all the solo FF adventure gamebooks that have been published over the last 40 years - 77 in total! The badge will be an enamel pin badge.

Whether you have ordered your tickets for Fighting Fantasy Fest 4 or not, you can order your T-shirts and badges by clicking on the 'Tickets' button on the Eventbrite page and scrolling down to the Add-ons section.

But remember, you only have until 12:00pm on Friday 29 July to do so - so don't delay!

* If you have already ordered a T-shirt, you will have received an email explaining how to specify the size you require.

Free RPG Day 2022

Today is Free RPG Day 2022, so why not download Bad Tidings , for the 'TWAS RPG , for free today?

Bad Tidings  is a supplement for  ’TWAS – The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas . It introduces a new Player Character to the game, and a new Scene for use with the Krampusnacht campaign.

(A copy of ’TWAS – The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas is required to use the contents of this supplement.)

From tomorrow, until the end of the month, you can also get hold of several 'TWAS RPG products at 30% off, including the Christmas in July campaign.

JG on the Geek Pride Podcast

A few weeks ago, I was on the Geek Pride Podcast, talking about all things Fighting Fantasy, RONIN 47, and how to write an adventure gamebook. To listen to it, simply click on the image below.

Warhammer Wednesday: The Solemnus Crusade

Black Templar Space Marines appear to be popular at the moment, what with the release of Marc Collins' new novel about High Marshal Helbrecht*. So, today seems like the perfect time to remind you that I have written a few stories about the Black Templars Chapter myself.

In reading order they are: 

Sanctuary - a short story which first appeared Issue #38 of Inferno! magazine.

Crusade for Armageddon - the first in a planned trilogy, that follows the brothers of the Solemnus Crusade as they seek revenge against an Ork Warboss on the war-torn planet of Armageddon. It also features Steel Legionnaries and the crew of a Titan.

Conquest of Armageddon - espionage, timey-whimey shennanigans, Chaos Marines, more Orks, and a Kroot. What more could you ask for, excepte perhaps for the trilogy to have been finished?

The Relic - set after the events of the two novels. As it says on the Black Library website, "Dreadnought Brother Jarold leads warriors from the Black Templars Chapter in battle against the greenskins in the frozen Dead Lands. Following a distress beacon, they find another Dreadnought in the ice, buried for half a century. When the orks attack en masse, the two Dreadnoughts make a last stand against the bestial invaders."

The Armageddon Ominbus - my Black Templars stories were combined into this short-lived print-on-demand title, which now goes for upwards of £90 on eBay. Shame I've only got the one copy myself.

War for Armageddon: The Omnibus - The Relic is also available in this new omnibus that features of work of various other BL authors as well, with stories all set during the Third War for Armageddon.

Click on the images below if you would like to buy of of these titles.

Dave Allsop's accompanying illustration for Sanctuary.

* I don't think the High Marshal was a thing when I started writing Black Templar stories for the Black Library.

Alice's Day 2022

It's three years since I attended Alice's Day in Oxford as a guest of the Lewis Carroll Society.

Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland was the first ACE Gamebook, written before ACE Gamebooks were even thing, and it is still a popular seller. It regularly sells out at the UK Games Expo, and did so again this year. And even though it was first published in the UK almost seven years ago, new foreign language editions keep appearing.

If you've yet to experience my gamification of Lewis Carroll's seminal children's book, you can pick up a copy here. Just remember... we're all mad here!

Gamebook Friday: Christmas in July

Today is 1st July, which means it's the perfect time to download the PDF of Christmas in July, the summer season supplement for 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas. It introduces new monsters to the game as well as four new Player Characters that can all be used with more conventional games of the 'TWAS RPG.

When the north winds blow,Bringing with them ice and snow,If Midsummer’s weather’s numbing,Then know that Fimbulwinter’s coming.

A copy of ’TWAS – The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas is required to use the contents of Christmas in July, and both are available from DriveThruRPG now.

Happy Asteroid Day!

I learned this morning that 30 June is Asteroid Day. It is held on the anniversary of the Tunguska event in 1908, when an asteroid leveled 2,150 square kilometres of forest in Siberia.

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

I remember reading a Primeval tie-in novel by Dan Abnett, called Extinction Event (2009), which had dinosaurs entering our world through an Anomaly at the site of the Tunguska event. A similar idea, that of a massive explosion causing cracks in time, also featured in the Doctor Who episode The Fires of Pompei (2008).

This was a concept I played with when I wrote  NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!  Without giving too much away, the reason there are dinosaurs running around Neverland is because the Chicxulub asteroid that casued the extinction level event that wiped out those ancient beasts also caused fractures in time. These fractures rippled across time, meaning that Captain Hook and his pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy and the sinking of the Titanic survivor Wendy Darling, as well as dinosaurs, mammoth, and sabretooth tigers, can all visit the island at the same time.

So, to mark Asteroid Day. why not pick up a copy of NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! or leave a review of the gamebook on Amazon? After all, every little helps!

Gamebook Friday: RONIN 47

RONIN 47, the seventh ACE Gamebook (to be published this summer by Snowbooks), now has a cover. And it's gorgeous!

Art and logo design by Neil Googe, colours by Len O'Grady, design by Emma Barnes.

I love how bright it is and the use of coloured text on the back, which you can see below.