Tracy Hickman's Blog, page 6

Batman’s Buried Treasures

Last year, I had the great joy in seeing my Batman novel, ‘Wayne of Gotham’ in print. It was a thrill to have visited so long with the Caped Crusader and I was anxious to be able to do so again. I set my heart to the task and produced an outline which I thought was a great continuation of that original story. I called it ‘Sons of Gotham’ and sent the proposal through my agent to the publishers to see if they would like for me to visit Gotham City once again.

The editor loved the proposal, DC Comics loved the proposal, and we waited to hear from the Guy at Warner Brothers who had to give their approval to the project.

Now, I don’t know if this is the SAME Guy at Warner Brothers who insisted that I take out any references to Howdy Doody, the Everly Brothers or even Zorro (despite my getting actual written permission from the people who OWN Zorro to put the character in my book) but whether this is the same guy or not it makes little difference. As far as I am concerned they are behaving like the same guy so they might as well be the Guy from Warner Brothers.

They liked the proposal. They liked my original book. They thought it performed well … and therefore they decided that I COULD NOT write another Batman novel.

Why? You might ask. I asked the same thing. The reason they gave was they ‘didn’t want one author too branded to the license.’

So, as I bid a fond farewell to my Batman dreams, I thought it best if I shared them with you.

Anyone who signs up for my website and logs in here will be able to visit my ‘Buried Treasures‘ page. There, you can download at no charge whatsoever, the complete outline for my never-to-be-written ‘Sons of Gotham’ novel … as well as the bits from the original ‘Wayne of Gotham’ that include Zorro before he was expurgated.

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Tracy Hickman Joins ‘Shroud of the Avatar’ as Lead Story Designer

Two Legends of Gaming join forces! International and New York Times Best-selling fantasy author Tracy Hickman is pleased to announce that he is joining Richard Garriott’s team as Lead Story Designer for ‘Shroud of the Avatar.’

“There is a tremendous opportunity to create something meaningful, challenging and wondrous in Shroud of the Avatar,” Tracy said. “I’m thrilled to play a part in it.”

“Tracy is not only a good friend, but also a master storycrafter whose writing I’ve greatly admired for over twenty years,” says Richard Garriott. “Tracy’s talent will add a unique richness and depth to Shroud of the Avatar.”

Tracy is known world-wide for creating the incredible worlds and stories of Dragonlance, the Deathgate Cycle, the Annals of Drakis and ‘Wayne of Gotham’. He, with his wife Laura, pioneered the use and integration of story into role playing games. He currently has over fifty books in print and is also a pioneer in the New Media publishing world of e-books and online serial publishing.

“Join us,” entices Tracy. “We’re taking adventure to a whole new realm.”

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Unearthed Treasures for the Archives

Last year, Brigham Young University asked us if we would allow them to archive our papers in their special collections. It was an incredible honor and one which we were very happy to accept. The idea that our drawings, notes and original manuscripts could be preserved and studied for generations to come has made us thoughtful about the things we have kept down through the years.

It has also caused us to go into the basement and the garage and start excavating those boxes which we have moved from place to place down through the years. It has resulted in some surprising discoveries.

Among the things which we found — and which are currently destined for the BYU L. Thom Perry Special Collections library — include my original pen artwork for an unpublished AD&D Nightventure module called ‘Eye of the Dragon’; the complete set of layout pages hand set by Laura and me of the original ‘Pharaoh’ module and an envelope containing the original layout materials for ‘Rahasia.’ There is also a complete set of the design documents assembled for the Dragonlance series at TSR. The staple attaching those pages has rusted from the humidity of Wisconsin down the years.

We also uncovered another, previously unknown set of the original ‘Rahasia’ and ‘Pharaoh’ modules.

We had offered our only known set last December for sale to collectors, believing that those particular treasures were better appreciated in the hands of those who would enjoy them than left purely for research in the library. The enthusiastic buyer was thrilled with their condition when they arrived as well as the certificate of provenance we provided.

Our archaeological excavation in our basement this time, however, uncovered an envelope of ‘samples’ which we had intended to mail out to potential distributors back in the late 1970′s and which, apparently, never did find their way to the mail box. While the original shrink-wrap has deteriorated over time it is still there and the modules — after 30 years of storage — are in mint condition.

In addition, we’ve found several of the covers to our original Rahasia which were extras never assembled into products. They feature my original cover art on leatherette stock and can be signed for you if you wish. There are a number of other items we have uncovered which we’ll be offering from time to time on our Special Collections page … so you might want to check in on that from time to time.

If you happen to have an appreciation of unique artifacts you will in the near future be able to visit our original materials in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library at Brigham Young University … or acquire an artifact for yourself. Much as we love the museum, Laura and I would prefer these to be in your hands!

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Ultima, Garriott and the Future of Games

Richard Garriott is one of the most fascinating men of our time. The son of an Apollo astronaut who flew on Skylab, Richard was one of the true pioneers in computer games. In the 1970s when home computers were as rare as sightings of Big Foot, Richard was closeted (literally) with a little Apple computer, floppy drives and an imagination that was set on fire by Dungeons & Dragons games. He wrote computer games because he wanted to play them and no one else was writing them at the time. His mother taught him about art perspective so that he could create some of the first computer games that functioned in virtual three dimensional space.

I had in those days an Atari 800 computing system with a 4 inch floppy drive and dreams of fantasy of my own. I eventually graduated to other Ataris and then to my beloved Mac + but in those days when I wanted to game, I would reach for Ultima in one of its incarnations.  My vision of what games could be was formed in no small part by Richard.

It was not until years later than we met. By then I was an established creator of D&D adventure modules and a newly-minted author of fantasy books. Richard had long been established as a force in computer games. We both met Tom Clancy at the same time, laughed about it later and discovered that we shared a common vision: one where games could go beyond entertainment to become thought-provoking experiences with ethical and moral dilemmas to ponder and experience.

Times have changed a great deal since those days but computer games have not changed that much in the interim. As Richard put it to me, graphics and sound have made quantum leaps over those intervening years but the game experience itself has become formalized, standardized and varies little from game to game even in its user interface. Games have gotten prettier — the they don’t play any better. Game designers I worked with used to call this ‘chrome’; something that makes the product shine but doesn’t improve the engine, transmission or functional features of the car. Computer games over the years had been putting increasingly sleeker bodies on the same chassis, engine and drive train of a 1985 Ford Taurus.

Until now.

Richard has been to the bottom of the ocean to visit the Titanic. He has soared into the heavens to the International Space Station, orbited the earth for ten days and returned in a Soyuz capsule. He has searched for extraterrestrial life in Antarctica and explored  the Amazon basin. Richard has seen success, failure and success after failure. And he knows GAMES beyond the pretty chrome of rendering engines and Dolby sound.

That is why I am so excited about his new project ‘Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues’. He is returning to those wonderful roots of Ultima but bringing it beyond our time into something unique and new. Not just pretty pictures (although the game will certainly have a lot of that, too) but a new approach to gaming itself.

And he want you to help him make it happen. The project is being funded on Kickstarter which means that you can play a part in making it happen.

Kickstarter is something you’re going to hear a lot more about from me in the coming months. Laura and I will be launching our own Kickstarter project here in the next couple of months to invite you to be a part of our new game. Our good friend Howard Taylor has a Kickstarter project right now which features an XDM coin which you should check out.

But before we do anything else, I hope you’ll join me in supporting Richard’s visionary project.

It’s a whole new game.

The post Ultima, Garriott and the Future of Games appeared first on Tracy Hickman.

Ultima, Garriot and the Future of Games

Richard Garriott is one of the most fascinating men of our time. The son of an Apollo astronaut who flew on Skylab, Richard was one of the true pioneers in computer games. In the 1970s when home computers were as rare as sightings of Big Foot, Richard was closeted (literally) with a little Apple computer, floppy drives and an imagination that was set on fire by Dungeons & Dragons games. He wrote computer games because he wanted to play them and no one else was writing them at the time. His mother taught him about art perspective so that he could create some of the first computer games that functioned in virtual three dimensional space.

I had in those days an Atari 800 computing system with a 4 inch floppy drive and dreams of fantasy of my own. I eventually graduated to other Ataris and then to my beloved Mac + but in those days when I wanted to game, I would reach for Ultima in one of its incarnations.  My vision of what games could be was formed in no small part by Richard.

It was not until years later than we met. By then I was an established creator of D&D adventure modules and a newly-minted author of fantasy books. Richard had long been established as a force in computer games. We both met Tom Clancy at the same time, laughed about it later and discovered that we shared a common vision: one where games could go beyond entertainment to become thought-provoking experiences with ethical and moral dilemmas to ponder and experience.

Times have changed a great deal since those days but computer games have not changed that much in the interim. As Richard put it to me, graphics and sound have made quantum leaps over those intervening years but the game experience itself has become formalized, standardized and varies little from game to game even in its user interface. Games have gotten prettier — the they don’t play any better. Game designers I worked with used to call this ‘chrome’; something that makes the product shine but doesn’t improve the engine, transmission or functional features of the car. Computer games over the years had been putting increasingly sleeker bodies on the same chassis, engine and drive train of a 1985 Ford Taurus.

Until now.

Richard has been to the bottom of the ocean to visit the Titanic. He has soared into the heavens to the International Space Station, orbited the earth for ten days and returned in a Soyuz capsule. He has searched for extraterrestrial life in Antarctica and explored  the Amazon basin. Richard has seen success, failure and success after failure. And he knows GAMES beyond the pretty chrome of rendering engines and Dolby sound.

That is why I am so excited about his new project ‘Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues’. He is returning to those wonderful roots of Ultima but bringing it beyond our time into something unique and new. Not just pretty pictures (although the game will certainly have a lot of that, too) but a new approach to gaming itself.

And he want you to help him make it happen. The project is being funded on Kickstarter which means that you can play a part in making it happen.

Kickstarter is something you’re going to hear a lot more about from me in the coming months. Laura and I will be launching our own Kickstarter project here in the next couple of months to invite you to be a part of our new game. Our good friend Howard Taylor has a Kickstarter project right now which features an XDM coin which you should check out.

But before we do anything else, I hope you’ll join me in supporting Richard’s visionary project.

It’s a whole new game.

The post Ultima, Garriot and the Future of Games appeared first on Tracy Hickman.

Swept Up by the Sea

One of the interesting changes between our special collector’s editions of Dragon’s Bard and those of the mass-market editions has been not only in the content of the books but in the marketing approach itself. Originally the second book in our series was titled ‘Blackshore’ and was a sea-going romantic pirate tale.

The publishers who purchased the rights, however, realized that our stories would fit very well in the current Young Adult (YA) market and would have a much broader appeal there. So they asked us to come and visit them at their offices. They presented their approach to us and we were quite pleased.

So Blackshore at once got a complete makeover. Laura and I are going to be reworking the text to make the book more stand-on-its-own complete. The title has changed to one of the original chapter titles and the cover has been completely retuned. The result, as you can see to the right, is something wonderful, magical and terrific for young and young-at-heart readers alike.

Of course, this does make your collectible book more valuable still, so we are excited about these changes for all of us together!

Learn more about Dragon’s Bard books at dragonsbard.com.

Write Like the Dickens Webinar

The world of publishing is radically changing but lessons from the past can give us new insights into how we can best address this future. Tonight, I am presenting an online video webinar, "Write Like the Dickens!' which explores why the economic model of traditional publishing has been turned on its head (literally) and how utilizing techniques from the time of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle can not only help get your book into both ebook and print forms but with an audience and at no out of pocket cost to you.
It's part of our Scribe's Forge Writing Webinar Series
DISCOUNTS: Normally these webinars are listed at $54.50 but to my friends here at Goodreads, you can utilize the coupon code 'dickens' during the checkout process, you can attend either of this evening's live event for only $20. That's more than half off the regular price. OR sign up for our webinar series and you can get this first webinar for only $10!
And I'm hoping to host a special, free webinar just for my Goodread friends in the near future. Check back here occasionally for dates and times.
We hope you'll join me, in person, online tonight at 8 pm Eastern Time (5 pm Pacific) or again at 10 pm Eastern (7 pm Pacific).

Write Like the Dickens Webinar

The world of publishing is radically changing but lessons from the past can give us new insights into how we can best address this future. Tonight’s online video webinar, “Write Like the Dickens!’ explores why the economic model of traditional publishing has been turned on its head (literally) and how utilizing techniques from the time of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle can not only help get your book into both ebook and print forms but with an audience and at no out of pocket cost to you.

Part of our Scribe’s Forge Writing Webinar Series

DISCOUNTS: Normally these webinars are listed at $54.50 but if you utilize the coupon code ‘dickens’ during the checkout process, you can attend either of this evening’s live event for only $20. That’s more than half off the regular price. OR sign up for our webinar series and you can get this first webinar for only $10!

We hope you’ll join me, in person, online tonight at 8 pm Eastern Time (5 pm Pacific) or again at 10 pm Eastern (7 pm Pacific).

Winter of our Discontent

Pioneer Laura smiles as she plows, and plows, and plows, and plows … and plows!
(It’s an LDS children’s song: sing if you know it, otherwise just move along…)

Laura and I have, like so many others, been buried this winter in so many ways.

The most obvious is the snow which has been falling her in Utah on the ‘snowboarders’ and the ‘non-snowboarders’ alike in significant abundance. It has brought to me a cold (gratefully fleeting) while at the same time has afforded Laura the opportunity to break out the hefty snow blower and power her way down the sidewalks in my stead. She’s really good at it and I think is using my cold as an excuse.

Other inundations have been less apparent but equally overwhelming. The fact that Laura and I are both working on trilogies at the same time takes up a lot of our time. I sit in my office downstairs with my head in the world of ‘Knights of the Red Band‘ while Laura is in her office upstairs pounding the keys on ‘Unwept’ — the first book in our ‘Nightbirds’ gothic trilogy. In addition, we seem to have finally wrestled our websites into submission after the overwhelming hack that crashed all our websites last fall — draining nearly four months of our time and resources to get them put back together again. We are now grateful that Scribesforge is operating again and are even looking at new services which we might offer there.

In addition to all of the above, I am working on a new trilogy with Dan Willis called ‘Dragons of the Confederacy‘: a steam-punk Civil War (or War Between the States, if you prefer) fantasy AND building our own revolutionary story-telling board game during our evenings.

I’m beginning to think I need a ‘Project-blower’ in addition to the ‘Snow-blower.’ If only it were that simple to finish these wonderful works as putting some gasoline in the tank, cranking the machine over and cleaning them up.

Which Way Did They Go?

I’ve been bashing away at our new fantasy series ‘Knights of the Red Band’. It’s a unique fantasy world where the sun remains stationary in the sky and life can only thrive on the ‘red band’ between the eternal sun and everlasting night.

One of the fascinating things in fantasy world building is that even a single change to how the world works can have deep ramifications … especially for a writer! As I began work on the series, I almost immediately realized that one cannot simply stop the sun in the sky (regardless of how reasonable) and still be able to provide a working narrative. Consider, for example, the following crisis that I immediately ran into as I sat down to write this world.

My hero had to travel an enormous distance to get to the start of the book. If the sun is stationary in the sky, how do I describe how long it took him to get here?
For that matter, how do I describe how far he has actually traveled? How would he know how far he traveled since there is not moving sun by which he can mark the time?
And, since he would NEVER have seen any stars, how could he possibly navigate any appreciable distance across this world’s surface?
And, more practical still, if I make up a really complex system of navigation and time keeping unique to this world — won’t that make my text practically unreadable? (“Navril had spent the last forty gobaks traveling nettleward more than a thousand hehaws…”)

Well, sometimes these are challenges that are the real fun in writing a fantasy world. You can see the my solution here … and I hope you can see how much fun I’m having in this new world. I can hardly wait to introduce you to it!

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