Matt Forbeck's Blog, page 64

New Amortals Reviews

A few new reviews for Amortals cropped up over the long holiday weekend. In the first, Eddy Webb of White Wolf/CCP fame enjoyed the book and contrasted it to Mike Stackpole's In Hero Years… I'm Dead, which I happen to be reading at the moment too. Eddy writes:

Matt is at the top of his game in creating a fun and engaging story. If you like action thrillers, this is a good book to pick up.

Over at Amazon.com, the Kindle edition has two reviews. The first is from Fantasy Literature, which gave the book four stars and calls it "One helluva sci-fi thriller."

The second comes from Hunter Johnson, another gaming industry guy, who gives the book five stars and writes:

I thought I had figured out the Big Reveal by the end of chapter two. I was right and wrong — I had figured out one of the surprises, but it was only the first reveal — a lowly lackey far below the peak of this pyramid of reveals. Matt Forbeck's "Amortals" takes off running, makes a few detours, and packs a lot of thoughtful socio-economic science fiction in around the action-movie-style murder mystery.

Help Jim Ward

During the second era of TSR — the one that started after Gary Gygax had been forced out of the company he'd founded — Jim Ward served as the vice president of the company. He'd been there almost since the very start, having written Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes, one of the first D&D supplements. He later wrote Deities & Demigods, with Rob Kuntz.

Under Jim's watch, the company published many great games, most notably Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. He was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame in 1989. His own best-known titles include Metamorphosis Alpha, the original Dragonball Z collectible card game, and the legendary Gamma World, which Wizards of the Coast just published in a new edition.

Jim's been a freelance game designer and consultant for much of the time since he left TSR, except for a stint as the president of Fast Forward Entertainment. He's made a good go of it, but the last few years have not been good to him, mostly because of his deteriorating health. For a long time, Jim and his local doctors couldn't figure out what was going on, only that it was bad. Recently, though, he had some luck at the Mayo Clinic, where they diagnosed him with a neurological disorder for which they seem to have a treatment that should hopefully make his condition manageable if serious.

Of course, this has put a serious dent in Jim's life. He and his wife have decent health insurance, but the co-pays are substantial. Also, he's not been able to be nearly as productive as normal during this time, and freelancers only get paid when they work.

A group of Jim's friends — led by Tim Kask, the founding editor of Dragon Magazine — have formed an fund for helping out Jim. It's called Friends of Starship Warden, and it's already up and running. If you can chip in a few bucks for a guy who helped form the tabletop gaming hobby and brought us all a lot of fun over the years, please do.

Join the InSpectres

The guys over at Reactor 88 Studios have set up a fund drive for the InSpectres film on IndieGoGo. Principal photography wrapped on the picture last month, but there's a long way to go in post-production, showing the film around, etc., and that all eats money.

I co-wrote the screenplay for this with Jeff Dohm, and it's a funny adventure film with some great actors and a fantastic crew. I also play a zombie in the opening reel, which may be worth the price of admission all by itself. Each level of contribution comes with a number of cool perks too. If you're interested in investing anywhere from $10 on up to $5k, go ahead and check it out.

Help the InSpectres

The guys over at Reactor 88 Studios have set up a fund drive for the InSpectres film on IndieGoGo. Principal photography wrapped on the picture last month, but there's a long way to go in post-production, showing the film around, etc., and that all eats money.

I co-wrote the screenplay for this with Jeff Dohm, and it's a funny adventure film with some great actors and a fantastic crew. I also play a zombie in the opening reel, which may be worth the price of admission all by itself. Each level of contribution comes with a number of cool perks too. If you're interested in investing anywhere from $10 on up to $5k, go ahead and check it out.

New SU Post: The Story Bible

Over at Storytellers Unplugged, my latest post just went up: "How I Write: The Story Bible." It's all about how I start when I sit down to write a novel. I never go in cold. I always scratch up a story bible first, just to make sure I have a plan before I start. Be sure to check out the post for the details.

This Week at Tor.com

I posted two items this week at Tor.com.

1) "So You Wanna Be an RPG Superstar": All about the upcoming 4th annual RPG Superstar competition Paizo runs.

2) "Playing Tabletop Dungeons & Dragons Online": A quick look at the upcoming Virtual Table software for D&D and an overview of the services like this that already exist.

Check 'em out!

(Some of) My Favorite SF/F Games

I ran into John DeNardo of the excellent SF Signal at the World Fantasy Convention over Halloween weekend. I've been following the site for a while, and we hit it off while chatting at the Tor party. They do a fantastic job of covering all the news for genre lit.

Yesterday, I saw they had a new "Mind Meld" post up that posited the question "What are your favorite SF/F games?" to a number of writers, including Tobias Buckell, Ari Marmell, John Scalzi, John Joseph Adams, and Tim Akers. I shot them a direct message on Twitter saying how much I liked it and how I would have been happy to contribute myself. Within minutes, I had an apologetic note saying that they'd actually meant to ping me for it, and would I be interested in answering the question in a make-up post.

Of course, I said yes. It doesn't take much to get me to prattle on about one of my favorite topics. Apologies in advance to my friends whose games slipped my mind at that exact moment but which no doubt would be at the top of such a list on any other day.

Blogging for Tor.com

Just a few minutes ago, my first post for Tor.com went live. It's called "Dungeons & Dragons Returns to Comics," and it talks a bit about the history of D&D and its publishers with comics. Then it riffs into a quick rave about the new D&D comic from IDW, written by my friend John Rogers, who also runs the TV show Leverage. (Those with decent short-term memories may remember I wrote part of the just-released Leverage RPG too. It's all so circular.)

Tor.com is a great website, and I've been following it for a while. It started out dedicated to things published by Tor, one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy publishers in the world, but it's steadily spreading out to cover more and more aspects of geek culture.

While at the World Fantasy Convention a couple weeks back, Tobias Buckell introduced me to a number of people in the Big Bar on 2. One of them was Irene Gallo, the art director for Tor, Forge, and Starscape Books. She noticed the fantastic cover Richard Anderson created for the copy of Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon I was carrying around. We got to chatting, and she mentioned that Tor.com wanted a blogger to help out with gaming.

And so here we are. I should be posting regularly to Tor.com from here on out, as time permits. I hope you enjoy coming along with me on this new ride.

Warpcore SF Reviews Amortals

Ros Jackson over at Warpcore SF gives Amortals a glowing review.

"The story comes together as a great multi-stranded thriller, peppered with some good red herrings. It's high-octane, with plenty of hovercars and crazed factions out for Agent Dooley's high-profile blood. Add this to his recklessness and determination to get to the bottom of the mystery and you have the recipe for an all-action, high-tech scrap and a half."

The book gets a four-star rating too!

By the way, if you like Amortals, please tell people about it. Word-of-mouth recommendations matter more than just about anything else I could do to get people to read the book. So, if you can, please post a review. You can do it on your blog, Amazon, GoodReads, or wherever else you like. Just don't be shy! Thanks!

The Leverage RPG is Live

The Leverage Roleplaying Game just released today as a PDF! You can pick it up immediately through DriveThruRPG.com, or you can wait to get your hands on the hardcover when it comes back from the printer, likely in late November/early December. If you want both, order it directly from Margaret Weis Productions or one of its Preferred Retailers. You get the PDF within 24 hours and the hardcover shipped out to you when it arrives.

I wrote a bit under two chapters of this book, and I enjoyed every bit of it. Not only am I a huge fan of the show, but Cam Banks, Margaret Weis, and Christi Cardenas at MWP were a joy to work with. A top-flight list of co-writers and designers made the entire project shine. They included Rob Donoghue, Clark Valentine, Tiara Lynn Agresta, Stephanie Ford, Laura Anne Gilman, Fred Hicks, and Ryan Macklin.

Now, I just gotta figure out when I can play it. Let's go steal us some time for a game.