It's dusk in Wistren Wood again. If you've been stymied by earlier false starts of the crowdfunding for Crypt of the Vampire (my first ever gamebook) then you'll be happy to hear that Megara Entertainment are running it again for real. The Kickstarter campaign is not just for a full-colour hardback edition of that book, but also to pay Leo Hartas to colourize his illustrations for the second Golden Dragon gamebook, The Temple of Flame.
Friday, 12 February 2016
Another bite of the cherry
It's dusk in Wistren Wood again. If you've been stymied by earlier false starts of the crowdfunding for Crypt of the Vampire (my first ever gamebook) then you'll be happy to hear that Megara Entertainment are running it again for real. The Kickstarter campaign is not just for a full-colour hardback edition of that book, but also to pay Leo Hartas to colourize his illustrations for the second Golden Dragon gamebook, The Temple of Flame.
Hurray!
ReplyDeleteIt seems to have hit its target, and I hear that Leo has sold the originals of some of the illustrations - including the gate from the start of the book, which might just be my favourite of Leo's gamebook pictures.
DeleteMmmm, not sure about the 100 new paragraphs written by David Walters, as much as I enjoyed his The Way Of The Tiger efforts. Bah humbug!
DeleteI'm sure David will do a great job. That said, I don't think the book particularly needed/merited extra sections, but apparently that's what the Kickstarter backers demanded. Or the Megara shareholders. Somebody, anyway!
DeleteAs ever, thanks for the candid response.
DeleteWithout wanting to press too much a point I've made previously, I don't understand the need to fiddle with a piece of work that's of its time. Why doesn't David write Crypt Of The Vampire 2: Return To The Crypt (This time...It's personal). I'd buy that out of novelty/interest value (a la Blade Runner, Triffids etc sequels). If I'm spending £30+ quid on a collectors edition hardback, I want your book as it was back in the day (preferably with signature!), to then force my child to read it in a few years time, whilst boring him with this story. All that said, I suppose the crowd have spoken and I can vote with my feet. Disappointing nevertheless.
Re Mirabilis. Not that I'm a Kickstarter expert or anything having gone on the site today the for the first time (I couldn't actually find it without your link by the way), but........? Or are the artists simply not now affordable?! Having read and enjoyed them, I got the impression it was a labour of love for the artists as well as yourself?
Heart Of Ice is great by the way. Even though I only skim read it 20+ years ago, what was really bizarre was how much of it I actually remembered (beyond deja vu). I'm not unconvinced I didn't actually pick exactly the same route this time round! Not got around to reading the other Critical IF and Bloodswords yet.
Frankenstein, must learn how to work phone properly and buy your Frankenstein!
I'm as nonplussed as you by Kickstarter, Andy. People who wouldn't buy a book for $5 from Amazon will give $50 to buy the same book via Kickstarter. A hardback, admittedly, and maybe that's why I don't get it. I've always preferred paperbacks myself.
DeleteMirabilis is a labour of love for me. I'm sure it would be for Leo too if he had the luxury to work on what he wants, but he has bills to pay. And Nikos lives in Greece, where jobs are hard enough to come by these days. We are thinking of putting it on Patreon, probably a better bet than Kickstarter as it gives enough to time to grow the readership and in the meantime you've still got a trickle of funds to ensure some progress.
Agree completely re paperbacks. Only hardback in my collection is Howard's collected works of Conan. Even then only got rid of the paperbacks because some of them had been edited etc
DeleteI don't mind doing the Mirabilis drawings free of charge for you. Providing you don't have any objection to stick men and women?! It may unfortunately lose it's edge somewhat!
Don't joke, Andy. It was touch and go I'd just release the next Mirabilis book with my own drawings - when I say stick figures, we're not talking about LS Lowry!
DeleteI've got that Conan hardback too. And for the same reason. I miss the Frazetta covers, though.
Oh dear! I'll save my pennies up then should you decide to fund raise, hopefully sparing you the indignity.
DeleteWas a wrench getting rid of the paperbacks, even the much lesser non Howard efforts. Partly because I'd painstakingly built up the entire collection, but mainly due to a feeling of nostalgia they gave me that I can't really explain. I think the covers had something to do with that.
I didn't participate in the earlier Kickstarter but I ponied up for this one. The big difference for me was the addition of extra sections of content. Pretty, colored pictures and a hardback cover are nice, but the ultimate draw for me is always going to be more story.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of more story, any ideas/thoughts on when The Lone of Level Sands (Fabled Lands 8) Kickstarter is going to, well, kickstart?
Paul Gresty and Co are still working on The Serpent King's Domain and mentioned it would be released around August.
DeleteWith that being said, it is likely to happen in 2017, depending on sales of FL7
We won't run the campaign for The Lone & Level Sands till backers of The Serpent King's Domain have received their copies. As you say, Mike, that should hopefully be this summer so we might be looking at the next Kickstarter in late 2016 or early 2017.
DeleteYou have my support, Dave! I must give you credit for inspiring me to be the best I can, having given me advice after your agent put me in contact with you over 15 years ago.
DeleteAs a 12 year old, I was finding my way at the time; tinkering with comics, board game design, musical writing and journalism. I lacked true direction and the work of you, Jamie and your colleagues were, to use an overused phrase, a breath of fresh air.
Here's to a grand future for gamebooks and literature in general!
Thanks do not adequately convey your positive influence on who I am today, but seeing the future through world's unknown and lands that are fabled, allowed me to realize the world I am in.
Kudos to you, Mr. Morris!
Peace, love and prosperity to all!
Glad to have been one of your inspirations, Mike. In my early teens I was reading Lovecraft, Howard, Moorcock, Dunsany - not forgetting Roy Thomas and Stan Lee - and they lit up my imagination so I know exactly how that feels.
DeleteHello Dave. I finally decided to write this comment on one of your posts (granted, i just found your blog this week!) for two main reasons: First one, well, for thanking you for all your works that I came across, so far, lifes not been easy for me these years but imagination seems to not care about all that and keeps hammering in your head, and your books are sure filled with amazing ideas, i met fabled lands throughout the FLapp and I've got to say...you really are amazing at writing these. And second, is a question that always comes to my mind when I read and lament and the cancellation of FL: Do you have annotations and ideas from the 6 other books since that time? I am deeply saddened when I hear of incomplete series or projects in general (cant even imagine how you feel) but i believe many are eager to see Fl completed and the ideas and scenarios of Harkuna all together in a amazing adventure =)
ReplyDeleteI want to say much more, but I will probably screw it up, so for now, thanks again, it feels good to get this off my chest and actually through the author itself haha. Sorry for the long post, I think it wasn't too appropriate. (And i'm from Brazil, its impressive how things can reach people so far away nowadays, even without ever coming here. )
Welcome to the Fabled Lands, adventurer!
DeleteThe answer you seek, lies beyond the yonder keep. For over there, secrets are laid bare. So now I must be free at last. Enjoy this blast from the past!
http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2010/03/blue-skies.html
Hi Felipe - I'm glad you found us! What you said about imagination reminded me of a story that Tom Baker told about meeting a Dr Who fan who told him how much the show had meant to him over the years, keeping him inspired through thick and thin. That makes it worthwhile, especially when I hear from people all over the world. We all share this one planet so it's nice that the internet connects a community across such great distances.
DeleteI'm not too vexed about the incompleteness of Fabled Lands. The books are really just like extra levels in a game - if you have more books you can have more adventures, but it's not as if there was a story that got cut off. For that reason I'm much more saddened by my current inability to complete my comic book Mirabilis. I have a whole epic story to tell but I can't afford to pay the artists, Leo and Nikos. But hopefully I'll find a way!
Crypt of the Vampire is set in Legend, correct?
ReplyDeleteNo. It opens with a reference to Wistren Wood, but the tone is gamebook-silly in places and Hammer-style horror in others. All very different from Legend. And the new edition of Crypt is more definitely set in a kind of fantasy 19th century with muskets and so forth.
DeleteWas wondering about that, the manor seemed a 'little' advanced but I was swung by the reference to Wistren Wood....I think it even made it into the Wiki. :D
DeleteWell, I guess it could be a parallel Legend at that, Damian. When it comes to authors imposing their own interpretations, I'm with Roland Barthes - the text is all there is, and every reader's interpretation is equally valid.
Delete'Crypt of the Vampire' is the gamebook I regularly read with classes of school children because it's fun, evocative, needs no explanations, and — important for a half-hour session — it doesn't have a long but essential preamble!
ReplyDeleteGamesbooks are fantastic for engaging boys especially. We use a blackboard (one kid does the writing), and we have two big felt dice that they take turns rolling. Everyone gets a turn to decide an action. They get terrified when a nilistic student purposely makes an edgy choice.
The simple combat procedure makes it perfect for easily-distracted classes; risky and faux-violent enough for the testosterony, quickly over for everyone else.
Thanks for writing it.
Brilliantly put Tom.
ReplyDeleteA teacher at my junior school used to read gamebooks in his lessons circa 1985, although it was a vote across the class as to which choice to make, not your system! I considered myself a gamebook veteran by then, but do remember getting told off for essentially heckling during a reading of City Of Thieves because I thought Forest Of Doom was better!
I suggested in a recent Amazon review that gamebooks should form part of the education curriculum. Some of my favourite books as an ex bookworm, gamebooks. My cousin's favourite books (total non bookworm), gamebooks (Freeway Fighter if you want to know - I like that too!). Someone at work who I was walking past last year who happened to be talking about her son who doesn't enjoy reading but has come on a bundle recently, because of, gamebooks (resulting in a conversation with her for longer than the previous ten years combined).
The icing on the cake was a few months ago whilst watching the BBC2 programme Only Connect. I amazed my wife by top scoring on a question (Fighting Fantasy related). I showed her the books relating to the question and some of Dave's (saying to her, this is the chap I was telling you about from the blog I've been reading). She said, oh I remember these books from school, they're brilliant aren't they?!
I rest my case, Dave, get your marketing people speaking to whoever Cameron's Education drone currently us!
Tom, Andy - interesting points. I prefer Tom's system of letting each kid decide one option. Doing it by majority vote is apt to leave a chunk of the class disaffected - as we find as one of the problems of modern democracy, indeed!
ReplyDeleteI think that education could be utterly transformed by the use of games, allowing pupils to get a deep hands-on understanding of a subject. Leo and I tried to sell the idea to Dorling Kindersley some years ago but their sixtysomething chairman was very sniffy about games and so the moment was lost. Too bad!
Agree, Tom's system is much better!
DeleteAlso, you were definitely onto something there.