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Monday, 26 March 2012

And then two come along at once...

Somebody at Gollancz must be a real gamebook buff, as they've put up this Fighting Fantasy style marketing piece on their blog. It's to mark the launch of the Destiny Quest book The Legion of Shadow, which (to give you the quick, non-interactive version) is being published as a hardback in May - although this product page says it's a paperback. Hmm. Hardback or paperback? I'm pretty sure the blog entry must be right...

What with that and Ian Livingstone's new FF book, Blood of the Zombies, which is due out in August (certainly in paperback, and maybe on a bunch of digital platforms too), old school gamebook fans will have a bumper year.
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16 comments:

  1. Mike Ward26 March 2012 at 17:54

    Hi Dave

    Thanks for the mention!

    Just to clear up the confusion, there is a limited run of hardbacks coming out in May - alongside the release of the 'large format' paperback. So there will be hardbacks and paperbacks both coming out in May - with the app following sometime over the summer. So, all happening this end! ;)

    There is also a competition running on my own site (www.destiny-quest.com) to win some of the collectible bookmarks!

    Cheers for the kind words - yes, let's hope its a great year for gamebooks!

    MJW

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  2. Dave Morris26 March 2012 at 18:03

    Ah, so the answer is that both blog and product page are right :-) Those hardbacks will be real collectors' items, Mike. You heard him, gamebook fans, so get your orders in now!

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  3. David Whyld26 March 2012 at 18:39

    "Blood of the Zombies" - I really hope the book is better than the title because that is one almighty assault on the ears.

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  4. Dave Morris26 March 2012 at 18:51

    I guess if you like zombies, you're going to like the book. I have to admit they leave me cold (ha ha) but I'm probably not the target market. Anyway, I wish Ian every success with it.

    That BotZ cover image must be a placeholder, incidentally, because I was talking to Martin McKenna last week and he said he's doing a new painting for it.

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    1. Mike Ward26 March 2012 at 19:22

      I must admit, what surprises me most about the new FF book is the modern day setting. Considering the popularity of the Titan world setting, it's a brave move.

      But then, perhaps it will bring in a new audience to FF. Anyway, I can't wait to see what Ian has come up with!

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    2. Dave Morris26 March 2012 at 19:41

      Yes, it makes sense to me - but then, I never have the patience to stay in one setting anyway. I'd have set every gamebook in a different world if I could (as in the Virtual Reality series).

      Ian is presumably thinking that this book has to reach beyond the old core readership of 30 years ago... And zombies are very popular... His logic is inescapable!

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    3. Mike Ward26 March 2012 at 19:55

      Hmm, dunno. As an FF fan, I'd want fantasy with swords and sorcery I think rather than machine guns and chain saws. But like you say, that is precisely why he isn't doing that - and it'll be interesting to see if that decision draws in a new audience to gamebooks.

      Never second-guess a gaming god! Ian = Yoda.

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  5. Dave Morris26 March 2012 at 20:07

    As to that, I'll just invoke Wittgenstein: "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen." Pleading the Fifth, basically ;-)

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  6. PW Gresty28 March 2012 at 17:37

    FF has always been somewhat multi-setting, and even multi-genre, hasn't it? F'rinstance - House of Hell (contemporary horror), Freeway Fighter (Mad Max), Robot Commando (Transformers), Starship Traveller (Star Trek), Appointment with FEAR (superhero). I guess even Talisman of Death (Way of the Tiger... ish).

    Personally, I think zombie stories, when done well, are excellent. And this is great news about the book.

    Plus, we need more Destiny Quest books.

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  7. Dave Morris28 March 2012 at 18:30

    I've just been writing about types of fantasy on the Mirabilis blog:

    http://mirabilis-yearofwonders.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/is-frankenstein-really-science-fiction.html

    It's interesting that almost all the gamebooks back in the '80s were immersive fantasies, by Farah Mendlesohn's definitions - "subcreations", as Tolkien would have called them. But I assume that Ian's book is intrusive fantasy (ie, the zombies are an incursion of fantasy into our real world) and mine (ie Frankenstein) is definitely liminal fantasy.

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  8. Anonymous29 March 2012 at 08:42

    I guess nobody is going to be doing a John Carter gamebook. Pity.

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  9. Dave Morris29 March 2012 at 10:43

    I think we can safely say that nobody will ever do *anything* with John Carter again!

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  10. wanderer30 March 2012 at 01:09

    I thought the film was fine. If they hadn't chucked 250 million at it they wouldn't have had a problem.

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    1. Dave Morris30 March 2012 at 08:54

      Or if they had only spent an extra half million on the script and ten or twelve million on a star. That way, they would have had an engaging story that people would have paid money to see. Instead it was a quarter-billion-dollar shrug.

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  11. wanderer30 March 2012 at 17:19

    If only Tom Cruise had been available.

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    1. Dave Morris30 March 2012 at 17:59

      Everyone at Pixar is probably wishing he had. Ghost Protocol took over $750m against a cost of $150m - meaning that, even with a 20% back end, Tom Cruise would have saved their careers. Although they would also have had to have a decent script with characters we cared about... Maybe better if they'd just made it as a cartoon, to be honest!

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