Matt Forbeck's Blog, page 63

Stone Skin Press Launches

My friends over at Pelgrane Press—who are stalwart sponsors of the Diana Jones Award ceremony, among their many other good deeds—just announced that they're launching a new fiction imprint called Stone Skin Press. Tabletop RPG legend Robin Laws heads up the new operation as its creative director, ensuring some high-quality tales.

Stone Skin also announced its first three titles: New Hero, Shotguns v. Cthulhu, and New Hero II. Robin explains the line and what the books are about, over on the Pelgrane blog. I don't know the full list of contributors, but at the least it includes Ed Greenwood, Adam Marek, Alex Bledsoe, Jennifer Brozek, Jesse Bullington, Richard Dansky, Monte Cook, Julia Bond Ellingboe, Will Hindmarch, Jonny Nexus, Kyla Ward, and Chuck Wendig, plus a number of other names yet to be revealed. Good money says that Robin will pitch in a story or three himself. Oh, and I have one in there too.

My story, "Friends Like These," will appear in one of the New Hero books. It's a shotguns & sorcery tale set in a world I had once planned to use as a d20 setting called Shadowknight. At one point, I'd signed contracts with Mongoose Publishing for that line, but when Ann became pregnant with the quads, I had to table the project for a, um, while. Now, eight or nine years later, I'm happy to be able to bring you a taste of it in 2011. And I can't wait to read the rest of the stories too.

Conduit 2 on the Way

The next computer game I had a hand is Conduit 2, the sequel to The Conduit, one of the few first-person shooters for the Wii. Back before the original came out, the fine folks at High Voltage Software asked me to come up with the story for the sequel. The roots of The Conduit went a lot deeper than most people would have suspected, and that gave me plenty of juicy material to work with.

When it came time to actually write the dialog for the game, High Voltage tapped my pal Jason Blair for those duties. I've not had a chance to play the game yet, but I cannot wait. Word is that the game will hit the street on February 15, so keep your thumbs warmed up until then.

Star Wars vs. Star Trek Cover

If it seems like it's been quiet around here lately, that's because I spent the last couple weeks crunching through to the end of Star Wars vs. Star Trek, a new nonfiction book I'm writing for Adams Media. Although Adams doesn't have it up on its own site yet, Amazon already has information on the book, including a cover shot.

According to that page, the book is due on shelves on May 18, which is the blink of an eye in the publishing industry. I have no idea if that's a final or preliminary cover, but that's what's up there now, and it looks pretty snazzy. I'm already starting to gear up for the hate mail readers are sure to toss my way. With such a contentious issue, there's really no way to make everyone happy. Despite that, I had a ball working on it, and I hope you enjoy reading it when it comes out.

Marvel-Ous

Last week, my first work published by Marvel Comics hit shelves. It's not much, just an entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A–Z Update #5.

I wrote the entry for Raptor, a newish Spider-Man villain. I'd already read the comics, so I figured the workload would be light. Still, the rigor with which team leader Jeff Christiansen and the rest of the crew attack the entries impressed me. They have a well-oiled machine working these entries up, often under sharp time pressures, and I'm proud to have played a small role in this book.

I should have some entries in upcoming books in the series too. I can't spend too much time on them because of my many other projects, but they're too much fun for me to avoid.

The Guardian and Total Sci-Fi Love Amortals

Amortals just received two more glowing reviews, one of which includes my favorite line from a review ever. First, though, Paul Simpson at Total Sci-Fi Online enjoyed the book and says:

Forbeck deftly deals with the philosophical implications of the society he's functioning within while delivering a thrilling, chase-filled detective story with a surprising finale. VERDICT: 8/10 Highly enjoyable technothriller.

Wait for it. It gets even better. Over at The Guardian—yeah, that Guardian, one of the biggest newspapers in the UK—Eric Brown writes:

Amortals is Chandler by way of Blade Runner, with the pace of an express train. Great fun.

As a writer, I try not to think too much about reviews, but I read them all. Good or bad, I do my best not to take them to heart but to examine them with a cold eye to see what I can learn about my work from the reactions it engenders.

But this one just made my day. If I could have written my own review of Amortals, I would have wanted to come up with that exact line. Raymond Chandler is one of my favorite writers, and Blade Runner is one of my favorite films, and to have my work compared to either is an honor. The fact that this comes from my first review in a major paper—the second largest English-language newspaper on the web, behind only The New York Times—makes it that much sweeter.

Taking Risks at Booklife

Over at Booklife, Jeremy L. C. Jones asked a bunch of contributors to The Bones about what it means to roll the dice and take some risks with your writing. He posted my answers (along with a terribly kind introduction) today. It may be the only time you hear writing being compared with downhill skiing today.

Vote for Amortals for SF Book of the Year

The folks over at SFBook were kind enough to name Amortals their Book of the Month in November. This apparently put it in the running for their Book of the Year, an online contest that's open to voting from the public.

Other books in the running include Pat Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind, Mike Shevdon's The Road to Bedlam (also published by Angry Robot), Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Robert Jordan's The Gathering Storm, Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, and Guy Adams's The World House (yet another book from Angry Robot). This is a staggering list, and I'm flattered as can be just to have Amortals on it.

As audacious as it might be, I'm asking you to click on over to SFBooks and vote for Amortals. It only takes a second, and it's fun and easy to do. Let's see how high we can make that needle move! Thanks!

Amortals in SciFi Now

According to my publisher pals at Angry Robot, SciFi Now covered Amortals in its latest issue, calling it "A nightmarish vision of a future without death." I'm guessing that the piece showed up in issue #48, although since I'm in the US and SciFi Now is a UK publication, I don't have a copy at hand. However, the Angry Robots were kind enough to toss up a kind quote from the review:

Forbeck's ability to create a world is undisputed. His Washington DC of two centuries hence is a gritty and dark place. A few of his observations… are really quite incisive, and his main protagonist, Dooley, is instantly likeable as the prototypical cyberpunk antihero.

Puppy Tweets

It's been so long since I worked on this one that I almost forgot about it. Mattel has a new toy out for the holiday season called Puppy Tweets. It's a tag that you attach to your dog's collar, and it communicates with your computer via a USB dongle. Through that it contacts Twitter and sends out tweets related to your dog's level of activity.

This is, of course, not an attempt to replicated the communications collar that Dug the dog used in the Pixar movie Up. It's a toy, and most of the messages are goofy fun. I wrote a large chunk of them for Mattel, so if your dogs start tweeting at you soon, they may be using words I put into their mouths. (I'm brave that way. As in: doing so virtually and from a long way away.)

Worldbuilders 2010

Pat Rothfuss, author of the excellent , has set up Worldbuilders — his annual fundraising drive for Heifer International — once again. As an incentive for fans of genre fiction, Pat and dozens of other authors have donated all sorts of prizes that you can win for taking part in the drive. Every $10 you chip in nets you a chance at winning something cool, like an autographed copy of a great read. Plus Worldbuilders matches 50% of your donation, making your bucks go farther.

Alternatively, you can purchase things from Pat's online store, all proceeds of which go to Heifer. Pat also auctions off all sorts of rare items like editorial criticisms, rare books, and more.

I just sent off an autographed copy of Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon today, so it should go up into the book lottery soon. If you can chip in something too, please do. It's a great cause, and it's heartwarming to see so many authors and readers banding together to do some good in the real world.