More from Fighting Fantasy Fest 5, and this time it's my chat with Gil Jugnot from Le Marteau et l'Enclume. Pay close attention and you'll get a scoop about the 40th anniversary of The Crypt of the Vampire -- but more of that anon.
More from Fighting Fantasy Fest 5, and this time it's my chat with Gil Jugnot from Le Marteau et l'Enclume. Pay close attention and you'll get a scoop about the 40th anniversary of The Crypt of the Vampire -- but more of that anon.
Thanks Dave and Gil to bring news of the new version of The Crypt of the Vampire, or should I say The Vampire's Lair. I think that you are doing the right thing as changing the tone of the book. To be frank, The Crypt of the Vampire is a nice refreshing gamebook, but I feel it doesn't really compare to the high standards you set later with Blood Sword, Heart of Ice, Fabled Lands,... There aren't much lighthearted, funny gamebooks out there, I'm sure it will be a nice addition to the genre.
ReplyDeleteI hope so. I enjoyed revisiting the book and changing it from a dungeon to (metaphorically) a funfair ghost train ride. It should be out in time for Halloween.
DeleteWhat a lovely interview... and you're right, tell Oliver to publish and let people enjoy his works.
ReplyDeleteRevisiting Crypt but in a new way does sound fun. I enjoyed the J H Brennan "Horror Classics" as a kid, which are light-hearted but also a bit gruesome and deadly.
Looking forward to getting back in to Vulcanverse when I get a chance. I need to find ANOTHER box of paints somewhere...
You've hit the nail on the head there, James. The Vampire's Lair is very much in the same tone as Herbie Brennan's books. Maybe it's my Irish side coming out.
DeleteI wish I could convince Oliver to self-publish The Knight of the Fields. It's easily the best fantasy novel I've read in the last ten years. I might be a little biased because Oliver also ran it as a brilliant roleplaying campaign.
There's at least one place in Notus you can find those paints, and several boxes to be picked up in Hades IIRC. Good hunting!
Excellent news! I stumbled on the Notus one and immediately rushed back to Hades... and died. Again. Luckily death is a slap on the wrist unlike Fabled Lands.
DeleteTell Oliver that if he self-publishes he's got at least one reader. I was a big fan of the Elven Crystals. Or tell him it's that OR he has to do TWO Gamebook Series, one with Jamie and one with Mark. Just out of tidiness.
:)
And the advantage of dying in Hades is that it's a lot easier to retrieve your belongings than it is in Notus, where you have to have found the vault between life and death.
DeleteI'll keep up the pressure on Oliver, never fear. Have you read his Lightbringer novels btw?
I haven't! Just bought the first one on Kindle, where confusingly it is described as "The Forging of the Shadows (The Lightbringer Trilogy Book 498)".
DeleteHe HAS been busy, hasn't he! :)
Dying in Notus unticks the wound box, which dying in Hades doesn't, at least not explicitly. So swings and roundabouts!
Book 498?! That's some James Patterson scale shit, that is :-)
Delete[I don't know if it's the right place to write this. Feel free to move it if it fist better elsewhere :)]
ReplyDeleteAnd after three months, playing several hours almost EVERY day (and each time finding new things to do, new paths to explore !), I finally came to the conclusion of the Vulcanverse. I wish my english were better, to express more accurately and enthusiastically what I’d like to say, but I will start with a huge, a tremendous THANK YOU for this experience !
What a trip ! What a ride ! Complex, dizzying, sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, multi-layered, almost always evocative and poetic… So many images and characters now remain in my head : saturnine Galatea, sybillin Polymnia, unforgettable Marsyas and Orphea, many-sided Loutro, miserable Jas (Jeeves ?), bi-polar Pandora and so many others… They often felt like Jack Vance’s characters to me, with their mix of astute wits and fascinating shades.
And so many vivid episods : the banquets in Arcadia, unleashing the Potamegalos, finding (at last !) that goddamned celestial tarbrush, fighting as a skeleton in an arena, descending into Erebos, making Iskandria great again (two times !), the nightmare of the Dales or the Slimeswamp, the boats lodged in mountains or trees, Thanatos’ fist struggling to open a crack in the sky, and dozens of others…
That, to me, is the ultimate experience as a gamebook player. The setting has never be seen elsewhere (fantastic idea to blend mythology in a Matrix-like experience), and the scale of the adventure is beyond imagination. Had I read it when I was a kid, I would have litteraly drowned in it, and that serie would have become a myth in itself !
It still amazes me to think that, after all these hours, there are parts in these books I haven’t found a way to explore. No idea how to open that strange door in the mountains. No idea how to gain the Ooze or Oxen codewords. I saw my « brother » mentionned in entries I shouldn’t have read (hm hm), and I still scratch my head when I think of it. As for the Murmillo, I only saw mentionned in the final battle.
That message is maybe long enough – forgive my english, I could elaborate a lot more in french – but I had to thank you both for this formidable gift !
I often wondered, while reading, what kind of reader it takes to enjoy such a huge piece of work. (Don’t know if I’m clear.) A specific kind of readers, for sure. Maybe an endangered species !...
I would have many questions to ask you - if you don’t mind - but I will start with those two (absolutely unrelated) :
- is freeing Lampedo of any use, eventually ?
- have you read the work of Gene Wolfe ?
Thanks again, from France ! And please carry all my compliments to Jamie either. ;)
Pierre, you have made my day. Your description of the Vulcanverse experience is exactly what I hoped for -- but you are right that there aren't many readers these days who will have the patience to undertake such an epic adventure. More often I hear from readers who say, "Nothing happened for fifteen minutes so I gave up." Perhaps CRPGs have made modern gamebook readers expect instant gratification? Still, I will be content as long as a few, like yourself, get to travel on that far-reaching journey that Jamie and I planned.
DeleteFreeing Lampedo gives some small rewards, the best of which is learning the location of a tunnel that allows you to go direct from Hades to Vulcan City.
Jamie and I are both firm fans of Gene Wolfe's work. (I'm curious -- what gave it away? I don't recall putting any deliberate homages to Wolfe in Vulcanverse, though I'm conscious of him as an underlying influence.)
Please come back with any other questions you may have. I've got unlimited time for any reader dedicated enough to complete the Vulcanverse series.