Matt Forbeck's Blog, page 76
March 27, 2010
Origins Awards Nominees Announced
The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design announced the nominees for this year's Origins Awards this week. Congratulations to all the nominees! The winners will be announced at the Origins Game Fair held at the end of June.
The biggest happy surprise for me was the inclusion of Space Hulk as a nominee for best board game. Games Workshop released a very limited edition last year, which went out of print almost immediately. I wrote about the game in Hobby Games: The 100 Best as one of my a...
March 25, 2010
Blurbs: Monte Cook
The next blurb for Amortals came from my longtime friend Monte Cook. He's probably best known for his work as one of the co-designers of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, but his career has spanned much more than that. He started out in the gaming industry back in 1988, working for Iron Crown Enterprises. In 1990, he became the Hero System/Champions line developer and edited the first book I ever wrote entirely on my own: Western Hero. Even back then, it was clear that Monte knew what he was...
SLC Report
I had a great time at the Stateline Literacy Council's annual awards banquet at La Casa Grande, here in Beloit tonight. I was only there for about an hour and a half, but I got to meet a lot of wonderful people and catch up with my neighbor Tony Grover, who lives down the street.
I also chatted with the two other authors there. Joe Accardi grew up in Beloit and worked as a librarian all around the area. He wrote Beloit's Club Pop House, a history about a legendary teen nightclub here in town f...
Blurbs: Ben Templesmith
As I've mentioned, I hit up a lot of great people for blurbs. One of the early replies came from Ben Templesmith, one of my favorite comic-book artists of the last decade. I met him through our mutual friends at IDW a few years back. About Amortals, he wrote:
"It kicks like a mule & whispers sweet nothings in your ear like Mike Tyson in a boxing match."
Ben is one of those amazing talents that stuns everyone upon arrival. He's most famous for his work as the co-creator of 30...
March 24, 2010
An Interview with Gamer's Haven
Ethan Parker of The Gamer's Haven podcast called me up for a chat last week. The interview covered all sorts of topics from my career, going back to how I got started as a gamer and running all the way up to the impending launch of my first original novels this summer. I had a lot of fun talking with Ethan, and I hope you'll enjoy listening in on the conversation too.
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Blurbs: Mike Stackpole
In my quest for gathering blurbs, I turned to Mike Stackpole too. I've known Mike for maybe 20 years, and when I was fresh out of college, Mike was already chasing down the kind of career I wanted for myself. He'd started out as a crackerjack game designer, both for tabletop and video games, and he parlayed that into a stellar run as a New York Times bestselling novelist. He started with the first Battletech novels and later moved on to writing some of the early Star Wars novels and from...
March 23, 2010
Gary Con II Rocked
Saturday afternoon, Marty and I drove out to Lake Geneva for Gary Con II. This is a small gaming convention that the Gygax family and their friends have held on the anniversary of Gary Gygax's death for the past two years. It started out as a gathering of such folks at the wake after Gary's funeral. The family decided it was such a great way to memorialize Gary — what could be more fitting? — that they should do it every year.
When we got to the show, Marty and I signed in and started hunting ...
Stateline Literacy Council Banquet
This Thursday, March 25, the Stateline Literacy Council is holding its annual awards banquet at La Casa Grande, here in Beloit, Wisconsin. At the SLC's request, I'll be there for the social hour, from 5:30 – 6:30pm. They will have some copies of my books for sale, and 100% of the proceeds will go straight to the SLC's benefit. I'll be happy to sign them and anything else I've written if you like. If you're in the area, call the SLC at 608-362-5207 for details.
Special thanks to Wizards of the...
Blurbs: Billy Campbell
With the blurb from Dan Abnett in hand — which Marc Gascoigne of Angry Robot had lined up for me — I set off to scare up some blurbs on my own. Asking someone for a blurb is the literary equivalent of asking them to help you move. You only ask it of people you know well enough to hope that they won't fake an excuse to get out of it. I came up with a short list of the people I knew that were both well-known (famous, even) and influential within their circle. Then I sent off an e-mail to each o...
March 22, 2010
Blurbs: Dan Abnett
To help kick off my hunt for kind words in advance of the publication of Amortals, the publishing director at Angry Robot — Marc Gascoigne — sent me a starter blurb from Dan Abnett. It reads:
"Matt Forbeck does near-future so well, I think he's been there. Actually, I think he designed it. Then he kicked its ass."
For those sheltered and sorry few who don't know him, Dan's a storytelling force. He and his writing partner Andy Lanning have commandeered (among other things) the...
