Jonathan Green's Blog, page 93

Steampunk Thursday: Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes

Anyone who has read my Ulysses Quicksilver Pax Britannia novels, and has even a basic knowledge of the literary adventures of Sherlock Holmes, will know that the latter in some part informed the former.

Coming out this summer is my first published Sherlock Holmes short story. It's called Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of Bodmin , and appears in Titan Books' Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes , edited by m'colleague George Mann.

The premise behind the anthology is that each story is told by one of Holmes' associates, in my case Sir Henry Baskerville, the poor put upon subject of the murder plot in The Hound of the Baskervilles (which is one of only four Sherlock Holmes novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

The following is taken from the book and explains why I chose Sir Henry to be the narrator of my tale.


Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes is published at the end of August and you can pre-order your copy here.

Thought for the Day

"When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometres or swim for fifteen hundred metres (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. Writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity."

~ Haruki Murakami

Gamebook Friday: The Wicked Wizard of Oz Gamebook Companion

The Wicked Wizard of Oz was only released on Monday but it has already garnered some glowing reviews.

If you are currently playing through the book, or contemplating doing so, you may find The Wicked Wizard of Oz Gamebook Companion of interest.

This new app allows you to keep track of your stats and items without needing to have a pencil and paper close to hand. It even lets you conduct battles without ever actually rolling a dice.

Created by Mark Stoneham, The Wicked Wizard of Oz Gamebook Companion is only available for iOS and is available from the App Store now.

New Book Day - The Wicked Wizard of Oz!

The Wicked Wizard of Oz  is a portal to another world - the world of L. Frank Baum’s  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz .

In  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  you take on the role of the one of the protagonists of  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  and undertake a new and perilous quest as you find yourself called upon to save the world once more.

Hunted by the Wicked Witch of the West's winged monkeys and joined by her friends – the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion – Dorothy sets off for the Emerald City. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, will you uncover the secrets of  The Wicked Wizard of Oz ?

YOU decide which route to take, which perils to risk, and which of Oz’s strange denizens to fight. But be warned – whether you succeed in your quest or meet a dire end, somewhere over the rainbow, will be down to the choices YOU make.

Are you ready to return to Oz?


You can purchase your copy of The Wicked Wizard of Oz here.

You can download the official  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  Gamebook Companion, by Mark Stoneham, here.

Join the fun playing through the opening passages of  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  on Twitter tonight - simply search for #WickedOz.

And, coming soon...

Thought for the Day

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”
~ Dr Seuss

The UK Games Expo that was and the Book Launch that wasn't

I got up at 5:00am on Friday to head to the NEC Birmingham, to get set up for the UK Games Expo. Having negotiated the increased security there, I finally got into Hall 1 at around 8:00am. Having unloaded the stuff from my car, I went in search of my delivery of books, the publisher Snowbooks having paid over the odds to get a consignment of The Wicked Wizard of Oz to the venue in time for the weekend. And that was where it all began to go wrong.

No one knew where my books were, although they were supposed to have been delivered before noon on the Thursday. I was sent to another hall, but they weren't there. I spoke to the trade liaison who confirmed he had not signed for a delivery. In the end, I contact Emma Barnes at Snowbooks to ask if she could help from her end, which she promptly did.

I turned out that the books hadn't been delivered at all. Despite having been collected from the printer in Denmark on Tuesday, and having been in the UK since Thursday, they were still sitting in some TNT depot in Dartford. I was then informed that they had been put in a van and were on their way.

It wasn't ideal, not having the books there for the start of the Expo, but it didn't feel like an unsalvageable situation at the time. Sure, I would lose the sales from the Friday-only crowd, but I would simply launch  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  on the Saturday, which is the busiest day of the UK Games Expo after all. I still didn't actually know when my books would arrive, so spent the rest of the day constantly updating the TNT tracking website on my phone, but all I got was that they were still in transit.

Come 6:00pm, Hall 1 closed, and - my books still not having arrived - I went to Ian Livingstone's talk (which you can read more about on the official Fighting Fantasy blog). At the end of the talk, at 7:00pm, I went back to Hall 1 to ask if my books had arrived in the interim, which they had not. I had little choice but to head to my hotel and hope that my stock would be waiting for me the next morning at the NEC.

I awoke uncharacteristically early on Saturday morning, just after 5:00am, anxiously wondering where my books were and, updating the TNT website again, discovered they had been logged as being at the Birmingham depot at 1:43am. (The books had been dispatched at 3:00pm on Friday, when they were allegedly racing to the NEC. Taking over 10 hours to transport the books is not 'racing' in my book. It's a 3 hour journey from Dartford to the NEC.)

At least, I thought naively, the books were be on the first van out of the depot and will be delivered soon after I arrive at the NEC, if not actually already waiting for me at my stand.

I arrived, there were no books. Emma Barnes was on the case again and, after being kept on hold for a long time, spoke to a lady at TNT who told her that they only do deliveries up to lunchtime on Saturday, and now the books would likely be delivered on Monday - after the UK Games Expo was over and I was back in London. Not only would I not have stock to sell at the event, the consignment included the books I need to send to backers of the original  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  Kickstarter.

In a last ditch effort to get hold of the books, Emma emailed photo ID of me to the Birmingham depot (as I did not have my photo ID with me, as last time I checked you don't actually need a passport to visit the Midlands), I took what documentation I had to prove that I was at the NEC (as you would need to have proof of your address if you were picking up a missed delivery to your home), and I set off on the 30 mile round trip into Birmingham to the TNT depot. I was told that if I got there before 2:00pm I would be able to collect my books. Emma was confident that since they knew I was coming, and since TNT had messed up so badly, that they would wait for me.

I arrived at 1:55pm to finds the gates to the depot closed. Having spoken to a security guard, he said he would talk to the contact I had been given at the depot. AT 2:01pm, the gates opened and a car drove out. The man in the passenger seat first tried to tell me that I should have arrived before 1:00pm. As I argued my case, he informed me I should have been there before 2:00pm and now the warehouse was locked up and I would not be able to collect my books. So not only did I not have my books, I also missed two of the busiest hours of trading of the whole UK Games Expo.

Emma tried the TNT call centre again, only to find that it had closed, and despite numerous tweets by myself to @TNTUKOfficial I received no response whatsoever.

Having, quite frankly, lost the will, I returned to the Expo and, having sold out of Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland , with nothing to sell on the Sunday, I packed up and went home.

During Emma's phone call with the lady at TNT she was told that the company had opened a new hub in the UK this week, that the picking line didn't work, that their IT systems had crashed, that there were 10,000 parcels stuck and undelivered, and that they were not going to offer compensation. It is this last part that infuriates me most of all.

It is not an exaggeration to say that I probably lost somewhere in the region of £1,000 in sales because of not having The Wicked Wizard of Oz to launch at the UK Games Expo. I was also out of pocket because I had four banners made for the event (and shipped at a premium level to get them on time), I had a T-shirt made for the event (and shipped special delivery), and I was out of pocket for a night's stay at my hotel. And it is wasn't just me - Snowbooks are out of pocket now too.

But most of all, my professional reputation has been affected, and I don't know what price I would put on that. Advertising, months in advance, that I would be launching a new book at the event, and then not having the book and having to actually turn potential customers away was galling. (At a con as big as the UK Games Expo, someone may only walk past your stand once, so if you miss a sale then, you've missed it for the whole weekend.)

Looking back, I wonder, if I'd checked my emails sooner, maybe I could have got to the depot on time, except that I was at a con, selling my books, not at home on my laptop being pinged by hotmail. And at the end of the day, the trip to the depot was a trip I should never have had to make. It was TNT's responsibility to get my books to me. They failed to deliver them on Thursday, they then failed to deliver them on Friday, and made absolutely no effort to deliver them on the Saturday.

Everyone else involved busted a proverbial gut to make sure everything was ready for the The Wicked Wizard of Oz launch at the UK Games Expo, including Kev Abbotts, who designed the bookmarks and banners, Ivory Graphics, who printed the playing cards, Route1Print, who printed the banners and had them delivered to my hotel so that I would have them in time, Awesome Merchandise, who printed the bookmarks and art prints, and, of course, Norhaven, the book printers in Denmark, and Snowbooks, both MD Emma Barnes and publisher Tik Dalton, who went above and beyond to make sure the launch was a success. But we were all let down by TNT couriers.


Somebody asked on Facebook whether it was the venue's fault, due to increased security in the wake of the terror attack in Manchester, but it categorically was not. Yes, there was increased security, but the staff at the NEC were never anything less than polite, helpful and accommodating, as were the UK Games Expo staff and volunteers.

Thanks must also go to Sheila, Gareth, Simon, and Ian Livingstone, who helped keep an eye on my stuff when I was racing around Birmingham. And I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to chat to people like Fil and Paul of All Rolled Up, Joe of Osprey Games, and the guys at Cubicle 7, but after the two days I'd had, I just wanted to get home and draw a line under the whole debacle.

The banners made for the UK Games Expo (but which didn't get a showing there), designed by Kevin Abbotts and featuring the awesome artwork of Kev Crossley.
I have to say that the UK Games Expo remains one of my favourite cons, and I fully intend to be back next year, with  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  in tow this time. Thank you to everyone who stopped by my stand to say hello, to ask me to sign stuff (including, in one case, some very rare copies of Spellbreaker, Knights of Doom and Curse of the Mummy) and to buy my books, and it was a pleasure to meet so many of my Kickstarter backers - and Kev Abbotts especially - I'm only sorry if I wasn't in the best of spirits when we met,

You can see some of the photos I took while I was at the event here, and here's to UK Games Expo 2018!

Gamebook Friday: The Wicked Wizard of Oz launches this weekend at the UK Games Expo 2017

From today, Friday 2nd June, until Sunday 4th June, I shall be at the  UK Games Expo , where The Wicked Wizard of Oz , my new  ACE Gamebook , is being launched.

As well as the book, I shall have  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  playing cards for sale, and art prints of Kev Crossley's portraits of the main characters.

On top of that, if you buy The Wicked Wizard of Oz over the launch weekend, you will receive a rather special gift...

You will find me at stand F11, along with Mercia Books, and from Friday to Saturday, Ian Livingstone CBE .

Do stop by and say hello, and don't forget to pick up a signed copy of  The Wicked Wizard of Oz  while you're there. ;-)

Click to enlarge.

Steampunk Thursday: Clockwork Cairo

Clockwork Cairo , the inaugural publication from Twopenny Books , is published today.

Edited by Matthew Bright, this brand-new anthology of Egyptian-themed steampunk stories, will take you on adventures from the steam-powered souks of Cairo, to the clockwork bazaars of Alexandria and the shadowy mysteries of the pyramids.

The table of contents includes a brand new Ulysses Quicksilver  Pax Britannia  short story, by Yours Truly, called  Worthless Remains .

You can pick up your copy of  Clockwork Cairo  here.

Hacking the Curriculum

Available now from John Catt Educational Ltd is Hacking the Curriculum: Creative Computing and the Power of Play , written by Digital Schoolhouse Director, Shahneila Saeed, and godfather of the UK games industry, Ian Livingstone CBE.

In Hacking the Curriculum , the authors explain the critical importance of coding and computing in modern schools - and offer teachers and school leaders real practical guidance on how to improve their current provision to a generation of youngsters for whom digital skills are critical.

The reason I mention the book here is because I contributed a chapter to the book, co-written with Mr Livingstone, called ' Interactive Fiction in Education '.



Here's what reviewers have had to say about the book so far:

"Education is the future and this is the future of education. Essential reading." ~ Amazon.co.uk

"This should be compulsory reading for anyone in teacher training. Not only does it clearly articulate the need for computer science in schools, but also gives practical advice for non-technical teachers." ~ Amazon.co.uk

"The book is at its best when it offers these simple, applicable ideas to teachers. One particular surprise was the chapter on interactive fiction by Livingstone and fellow Fighting Fantasy author Jonathan Green. Whilst this initially appeared as self-indulgent (especially given that Livingstone’s other works are mentioned throughout too) Livingstone and Green make a good attempt at demonstrating how works of interactive fiction such as The Forest of Doom (1983) might be used in a classroom setting to link literacy with the new computing curriculum." ~ Games Research Network

You can pick up your copy of Hacking the Curriculum: Creative Computing and the Power of Play  here.

Thought for the Day

"The job of a writer is not to convey emotion but to invoke it."
~ Eric T Benoit