Matt Forbeck's Blog, page 44

Goblintown Justice Out Now!

This morning, I published my first short story ebook, "Goblintown Justice." This is also the first story for my Shotguns & Sorcery setting, and it first appeared in Carnage & Consequences, the Gen Con Writers Symposium anthology edited by Marc Tassin. (It's actually the second story I wrote for it. The first will appear in Robin D. Laws's anthology The New Hero 2, due out later this year.)

You can now get "Goblintown Justice" for free through DriveThruFiction (ePub and Kindle/Mobi) and Smashwords (just about every known format). (The DTF version is the prettier of the two, so grab that first if you want the ePub or Kindle versions. To get ebooks into so many formats — which is wonderful — Smashwords requires me to strip out the nicer formatting for its versions.)

The story also available for the Kindle for 99¢ through Amazon. (I'd have it there for free too, but Amazon doesn't allow me to list it for less than 99¢.) It should be available for the Nook soon too, once Barnes & Noble approves it, and Smashwords should hopefully have it for iBooks and other online stores within a few days.

Shotguns & Sorcery is, of course, the setting for my second trilogy of 12 for '12 novels. I'm hoping to launch the Kickstarter for that set next week, so read, enjoy, and stay tuned!

Magic #1 Reviews

Magic: The Gathering #1 came out on Wednesday, and the reviews are streaming in. Most people seem to like it a lot. Here are details from a few of the kinder reviews.

CNN's Geek Out! made the book its pick of the week.

If you're looking for something new this week, or just want to dip your toe in and see what the hell all these "Magic" players are always on about, think about giving "Magic: The Gathering #1" a shot.

MTV Geek says the book "Deals a Winning Hand." 

[F]ull of plenty of propulsive action and a forward, breakneck pace that doesn't pause for long before jumping to the next set piece… What will distinguish M:TG is its ability to make Dack an engaging lead, and luckily, Matt Forbeck does just that.

At Civilian Reader, Stefan enjoyed the book too. 

Forbeck gives us a good introduction to the series and world(s), and despite being entirely unfamiliar with the franchise, I felt quite at home.

Kitty's Pryde gives the book 4 out of 5 stars.

The script is solid. Good pacing and with a sense of fun… [M]akes for good reading.

At Muliversity Comics, Walter Richardson gives it 7 out of 10.

[T]he first issue of Magic: The Gathering is a pretty good read. Writer Matt Forbeck gives us all the information we need while still keeping things exciting… It's fun, exciting, and flat-out looks great. My accolades to the entire team for proving my expectations quite wrong.

If you go out and grab or download it, I hope you enjoy it too.

Capricon Schedule

Next weekend, I'll be in Wheeling, IL, for Capricon 32. It's the first time I've been to the show, but I've heard excellent things about it. My schedule for the show is below. If you're in the area, come on out and join us!

Saturday, February 11

1 – 1:30 PM: Reading Probably something from Carpathia

2:30 –4 PM: Autographing with Paul McComas

7 – 8:30 PM: Writing Is a Business

As aspiring writers enter the field, they will do almost anything to become published. This attitude often can lead to others taking advantage of their work. These professionals will share advice about agents, contracts, retirement, and…gulp…taxes.

Tim Akers (M), Richard Chwedyk, Matt Forbeck, Gene Wolfe

Sunday, February 12

10 – 11:30 AM: Take That, Gutenberg! New Publishing Models in the 21st Century

Clay tablets, roaming minstrels, mimeographs, Big Publishing Houses, corner bookstores, ePubs, self-publishing, and Kickstarter are just some examples of how we've financed and distributed stories over the years. How have stories gotten from the author to the reader, how is that model changing, and why? For whom is this a good change or a bad change? Why is how we get our books important?

Cory Doctorow (M), Matt Forbeck, John Klima, Les McClaine, John O'Neill

12 – 1:30 PM: Gaming Is Research for My Novel!

Who said gaming isn't good for your writing? For these writers, role-playing games helped hone their skills as storytellers. How can role-playing help your writing? What are the pitfalls?

Matt Forbeck, E.E. Knight (M), Jennifer Lawrence, John O'Neill

1:30 – 3 PM: The Wide World of Comics Media

There are more ways to get a comic book or graphic novel these days besides picking one up at your local comic book store. Let's look at the various delivery methods for comic books and graphic novels and how that changes their impact. We will look at this from the perspective of the reader, writer, and artist. Excelsior!

Matt Forbeck, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Barry Lyn-Waitsman, Les McClaine, Bill Roper (M)

BNW on Slacker Heroes

Today I wrote a guest post over at Slacker Heroes about how I set out on my 12 for '12 plan and how I managed in the first month. Go ahead on over there and give it a read!

Free Kobolds!

Between now and Valentine's Day, my friends over at Kobold Quarterly are giving out free copies of Kobold Quarterly, their tabletop fantasy roleplaying game (i.e. D&D and variants) magazine. The issue they're handing out gratis is #14, their Gen Con 2010 issue, which featured articles by my pals Monte Cook and Rob Heinsoo, among other excellent entries. To get the freebie, just use the coupon code KoboldWelcome when you check out.

While you're there, check out the Kobold Guide to Board Game Design, in which I have an essay. If you're a game designer of any stripe, it's a damn good book.

Lost in Translation

One thing about writing tie-in or other work-for-hire books is that no one needs to let you know when they've sold the foreign-language rights to those books. This makes for some interesting moments when you find your name popping up on a book you've never seen before in a language you don't speak.

While looking for data on Amortels, I stumbled across a couple good examples of this. The first is Blood Bowl: Blut und Speile, which my limited command of German tells me translates to Blood and Games. This is a German edition of the Blood Bowl: Killer Contract comic I wrote for Boom Studios a couple years back, published by the fine folks at Panini.

The ironic part is that German has to be the worst choice for a translation of that book. When I first starting writing the Blood Bowl novels on which the comic is based, I was told I had to make the names more Germanic to fit in with setting better. Figuring it was all a joke anyhow — Blood Bowl is meant to be funny — I just ran exactly who the characters were through Babelfish.

The main hero's name, for instance, is Dunkel Hoffnung, which means "Dark Hero." His horse is Pferd, which means "Horse." While these might be funny the first time you get them, I can imagine that it could become tired if every time you come across them they read as "Dark Hero mounted his faithful steed Horse!"

But I suppose that's funny in its own way.

I also came across this French edition of More Forbidden Knowledge called 101 Trucs Fous Que Vous Ne Devriez Pas Savoir Faire. According to Bablefish, that's 101 Insane Tricks Which Should Not Know To You To Make, while Google translate renders it as 101 Crazy Stuff That You Should Not Know How.

I just hope they also translated the disclaimer in the book, or they probably should have called it 101 Ways to Get Sued in a Foreign Court.

You Say Amortels, I Say Amortals

If you read French, you can now get a free sample of the first chapters of Amortels, the French edition of my novel Amortals, published by L'Atalante. I'm happy to see them pushing the book hard, including advertising the book in the header on their website.

If English is your native tongue, then head over to Voxael's blog for a new review of Amortals. He loved the book and writes:

I'm not really a a sci-fi connoisseur in this area, but Amortals is possibly the best science fiction book that I've had the pleasure of reading. [H]e's earned a place on my list … of authors that I trust to write something engaging and entertaining, even it's it's outside of my comfort zone.

Sci-Fi Bulletin Loves Vegas Knights

Over at Sci-Fi Bulletin, Paul Simpson got a real kick out of Vegas Knights. He writes:

At times it's humorous, sardonic, deadly serious, horrific — and that can be on just one page! There are so many sudden shifts in the narrative that there are times when you wonder exactly what's going on but Matt Forbeck knows where he's taking his story — and when you reach the end, you realise that it's been under control the whole time.

Recommended.  8/10

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying On Its Way

Last summer, I joined up with an all-star team of game designers to pitch in on the upcoming Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game coming out from Margaret Weis Productions. That made me part of the game's Illuminati, along with Cam Banks, Rob Donoghue, Will Hindmarch, Philippe-Antoine Ménard, and Jesse Scoble.

Cam, who's developing the game, has since run with it and drafted Jack Norris, Jesse Scoble (again!), Aaron Sullivan, and Chad Underkoffler (among others) in to handle the actual writing. The Basic Game is already off to press and should be in stores on February 28. (Coincidentally, that's the same day my novel Carpathia is released. Going to be a busy day.)

MWP has been releasing previews of the game on its website. Go check them out and whet your appetite for what's sure to be an amazing game.

Magic #1 Out Today!

The first issue of the Magic: The Gathering comic book I'm writing for IDW hits stores today. Be sure to hustle down to your local comic shop to grab yourself a copy, which comes with a playable, alternate-art card for the bestselling Magic: The Gathering collectible card game, on which the comic is based.

If you don't want/need the card or just prefer your comics in a less tangible format, you can also order the comic through comiXology and download it immediately. You can then read it through your web browser or on your iOS, Android, or Kindle Fire device.

I'm thrilled to be involved with this book. I've known about Magic since before it was published back in 1993, and I've watched it grow into a global phenomenon. I've also been pals with the folks at IDW since they were all back with WildStorm Productions in the day, and it's wonderful to be working with them on comics again.

To top it all off, the art team on this book is amazing. Martin Cóccolo's pencils and inks make the book even better than it looked in my head when I was writing it, and J. Edwin Stevens's color bring it all to stunning life. Big thanks also to my editors at IDW — Carlos Guzman, John Barber, and Denton Tipton — for juggling all three of us plus Wizards of the Coast to make this the best book it can be.

As a taste, I've embedded a free preview of the first several pages of the book for you to check out.

Open publication – Free publishing – More aleksi briclot