Halloween treat, no trick

Forty years ago I wrote my first gamebook. I was a roleplayer and board gamer. I’d played the Fantasy Trip solo adventures, and even wrote a short solo dungeon for my friend Steve Foster (designer of Mortal Combat) when he had to spend a week in hospital, but I’d hardly noticed the growing kids’ gamebook craze until Ian Livingstone asked me to write a serialized solo adventure for White Dwarf. That was The Castle of Lost Souls.

It wasn’t long before almost everyone I knew was signing up to write a gamebook series. Joe Dever and Gary Chalk left Games Workshop to do Lone Wolf. Jamie Thomson too, teaming up with Mark Smith (who was another stalwart of our Tekumel campaign) to create Way of the Tiger and Falcon. You can see why Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (UK) might have felt a bit miffed. They’d started a trend and now half their workforce was deserting the ship to jump on the bandwagon – if that isn’t mixing metaphors.

I used to freelance for White Dwarf a lot in those days, but once Jamie quit the editorial chair I didn’t have as much reason to show up at the office. Then Steve Jackson asked me to come in to talk about a series of gamebooks that he wanted to publish. He and Ian were committed to doing more Fighting Fantasy for Puffin Books, so these would be Games Workshop’s own series.

Steve was always coming up with fascinating game mechanics. He told me about a little tactical combat system he’d thought of when stuck in a motel in the middle of America. You had a tactical diagram that showed which actions were permitted in a combat round. So from EVADE you could move to DEFEND, REST or NORMAL ATTACK. From DEFEND you could only move to EVADE or NORMAL ATTACK, and so on.

When the player’s action was compared with the opponent’s, that gave the number of hit points each combatant lost. ‘Do you think you could use this for a gamebook?’ Steve wondered.

I went away and did a little work on it. I can’t remember how I handled the NPC adversaries, but this was a 1980s gamebook so there wasn’t going to be any AI. Probably the NPCs just acted randomly each round, and that was cross-referenced with the player’s action to give the outcome for that round. That would eat up a lot of paragraphs if every encounter had its own set of action entries, so I imagine I had a few dozen entries for each of several types of monster. They could be customized by SPECIAL ATTACKS, which would vary depending on the monster.

‘Looks good,’ reckoned Steve, ‘but I’d like to see a sample. Fifty or sixty sections, say.’

I went home, sat down at my Olympia Traveller typewriter, and began: ‘Dusk in Wistren Wood…’ and launched into a solo adventure in a vampire’s mansion. When I showed it to Steve he liked it and proposed a contract for Vampire Crypt, as it was then called. When the contract came it had a clause preventing me from writing gamebooks for any other publishers. I’m glad I never signed it, as if I had then my writing career would have been over before it began. (You may have noticed that Games Workshop never did get around to publishing their own gamebook series.)

Still, I was left with the beginning of a gamebook. When I signed with Grafton Books a few months later to do the Golden Dragon series, those fifty sample sections let me get a head start on the tight deadlines. Of course I couldn’t use Steve Jackson’s clever rule system, but Golden Dragon needed something a lot simpler anyhow. And thus Crypt of the Vampire was born – or spawned, or sired, or whatever the appropriate term is for vamps.

(Yes, these are the original maps and notes. I'm that much of a hoarder.)

And here we are at the 40th anniversary. To mark it I dug out a reboot of the book that I wrote for Amazon a couple of years ago. They wanted apps for Alexa (for some reason they call them skills) so I turned Crypt of the Vampire into The Vampire’s Lair, a consciously old-school adventure in audio form. Rather than retain the dungeon fantasy flavour of the original, though, I leaned into the influences of those Universal and Hammer monster movies I loved as a kid, when horror was delicious shuddersome fun and before it became synonymous with serial killers, torture porn and (yawn) demonic possession.

The text I wrote for that is now on sale for Halloween in a slim paperback with Leo Hartas’s original illustrations reworked in full colour. (My generous Patreon backers get to read it for free -- just sayin'.) It was Leo’s first book too. I’d seen his portfolio when he came into the White Dwarf offices one day, and when my editor at Grafton, Angela Sheehan, asked me if there were any artists I wanted for the series Leo's name sprang to mind. And because of that I began a close and dear friendship, a friendship which also now forty years old. If it were a marriage that means Leo and I would be celebrating our ruby anniversary – a very suitable hue given the blood-sucking tastes of the sinister count.

Not long now

A couple of years ago I ran a post about Can It Happen Here?, my proposal (well, mine and Sinclair Lewis's) for a gamebook of the US election. In the end I decided it would be easier to just see what happens and then watch the news from the relative safety of the British Isles. 

In any case, writing about US politics from the European side of the Atlantic is strangely like looking backwards to an earlier model of government. Must be the US's written constitution, which effectively took the concept of the monarch and made it an elected post, setting that in stone for the next 235 years, whereas in Britain (which does have a constitution, incidentally; it's just not in a single document) the monarch has been free to evolve into a useful figurehead with no direct power, government is carried out by a team of people who must debate and reach consensus, and sovereignty resides with Parliament. But perhaps I'm only saying all that because the (possibly) future Veep has been so snotty about the UK.

At the other extreme there's the alarming option of "unitary executive theory" (aka dictatorship) which is best avoided whichever candidate gets elected. Once you let go of democracy it's very hard to get it back.

"A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants." 

- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers #1.

Anyway, America, good luck; the world holds its breath for your decision next week. If you need some inspirational reading here are five novels that are no doubt far better than anything I'd have written. And here's some equally disturbing fiction about another possible future.

(Image by Diliff under CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.)

Fantasy for the fireside

With the nights drawing in and Halloween approaching, it's time to think about reading matter for that snug little nook by the pub fireside. You're going to want a bit of fantasy, a bit of whimsy, some dry humour to wash down with a good pint, and just the occasional gust of spooky chill to make you appreciate the warmth indoors.

One of my favourites of my own books is A Minotaur at the Savoy. If that cuts no ice, let me just add that it's one of Jamie's favourites too, and he (along with Freya Hartas) won the Roald Dahl humour prize. You get fifty vignettes in the urbane fantasy genre in the form of correspondence to the Royal Mythological Society in the year 1901 -- when, as the cognoscenti know, a green comet stirred everything up by dissolving the boundary between the real and the imaginary. And that's no bull.

Previously documented incidents from the Year of Wonders include:

• Beach babes
• Buying a used car
• The Cerne Abbas giant
• Free wishes
• Gargoyle trouble
• A hand in a wood
• Indigestion
• Journey to the moon
• Martian government
• Mysterious footprints on the Strand
• That's amore
• Thor v Hercules
• Too much magic
• and the minotaur himself.

Four jewels of fantasy fiction

All ready for Halloween? If I were plonked on the spooky equivalent of a desert island -- say a remote manor house with flickering candlelight, wind howling down the chimney, and rain pelting the leaded panes -- the reading matter I'd want with me is Coven 13, the late-'60s horror/fantasy magazine. 

As our two virtual hosts from NotebookLM explain here, Coven 13 gave a uniquely modern twist to the genres it dealt in, often with an outlook that still feels fresh today. It was the '60s fantasy/horror version of Black Mirror. You can see what I mean thanks to the Internet Archive, which has brought all four issues back from beyond:

• Issue #1
• Issue #2
• Issue #3
• Issue #4 

(That's assuming that by the time you read this post the Internet Archive has recovered from the DDoS attacks that knocked it out of action recently.)

Here's NotebookLM's perceptive but typically bullet-pointy view of what set the magazine apart:

• The emphasis on originality and uniqueness: The editor of Coven 13, Arthur H. Landis, repeatedly stresses the importance of originality in the horror genre. He criticises the overabundance of clichéd vampire, werewolf, and pact-with-the-devil stories, urging writers to find inspiration in contemporary settings and themes.
• The focus on contemporary vignettes with an occult twist: Landis encourages stories that ground supernatural elements in the realities of the modern world. He cites examples like Rosemary's Baby, Bell, Book and Candle, and Psycho as successful examples of blending horror with contemporary life.
• A preference for genuinely frightening content: Landis expresses a desire for stories that evoke genuine fear in both the reader and the writer. He yearns for manuscripts with the terrifying impact of classics like The Haunting of Hill House and The Uninvited.
• Rejection of formulaic horror tropes: Coven 13 distinguishes itself by rejecting mindless, stereotypical monsters and scenarios. Landis advocates for more nuanced and psychologically grounded depictions of horror. 
• An appreciation of psychological horror: The magazine showcases a preference for gothic and psychological horror, exemplified by stories like "Odile" and "Leona!". These tales emphasize atmosphere, suspense, and psychological complexity over gore or gratuitous violence.
• Openness to diverse subgenres: While Coven 13 focuses on horror, witchcraft, and the supernatural, the letters page reveals a demand from readers for a variety of subgenres. 
• High-quality artwork: Both the editor and readers commend the artwork of William Stout, praising his ability to capture the mood and atmosphere of the stories. This emphasis on quality illustration further distinguishes Coven 13 from other pulp magazines of the time.

If that sounds intriguing, stock up on those four issues, and also drop in on our sister blog, Wrong, which is a spiritual successor to Arthur H Landis's ideas, but also be sure to keep a space on your bookshelves for something else that I'll be back to tell you about on All Hallows Eve as the sun sets over Wistren Wood.

Dusk in Wistren Wood

This year is the fortieth anniversary of my first published book, Crypt of the Vampire. I've blogged about it before, and longtime readers will already know the story of how it came to be written -- and revised (in 2013) and later expanded (in 2016) by David Walters.

And if you're familiar with the Mirabilis blog you'll also know how the Golden Dragon Gamebook series led to my lifelong friendship and creative partnership with Leo Hartas -- which also weaves back into the present day and my Jewelspider RPG, which is being illustrated by Leo's son Inigo. Everything's entangled.

In the introduction to David Walters's 2016 version I wrote:

"As my preference when running role-playing games is to let the players drive the story, I dispensed with the long introduction usual in gamebooks at the time. There’s no spoon-feeding here, no overt mission. You aren’t told your history. You are the hero, as the back cover blurb used to say, so your background and motivation are up to you. I’m not saying it works. You as the reader must decide that. I’m just saying it was deliberate. Crypt of the Vampire is my love letter to Hammer horror, and I wanted it to have the pace, vigour and dislocating dreamlike quality of the best of those movies."

Is there anything more to say? Yes, plenty. The full origin story of Crypt of the Vampire has yet to be told, but it's coming soon. With Samhain approaching, expect to hear the creak of a coffin lid, the howl of wolves, and the flapping of leathery wings. There's no escape -- so stock up on garlic and hawthorn stakes now, and watch this space.

While you're waiting -- have you tried this Golden Dragon mini-adventure, "The Island of Illusions", that Oliver Johnson and I wrote back in 1984? And listen to this comparative analysis of two very different Gothic novels by the virtual hosts on NotebookLM.

To get you in the mood for Halloween, here are some vampire movies I've enjoyed. Got your own favourite? That's what the comments are for.

• A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
• Count Dracula
• Cronos
• Dance of the Vampires
• Let The Right One In
• Mr Vampire
• Nosferatu the Vampyre
• Shadow of the Vampire
• Viy

An ocean in which no oar is dipped

Following on from last time's post about getting started in the Vulcanverse, here's a guide to exactly that from the Book Wyrm channel on YouTube. Noah begins his adventures in Notus using The Hammer of the Sun, which has the advantage that most of the companions you can travel with are met there.

Noah promises further installments on his channel, so stay tuned. I'm just envious of his ultra-neat handwriting. If your own penmanship is less precise, or even if you're in too much of a hurry to hand-letter your own Adventure Sheet, you can download an all-purpose sheet for the series or one specifically for Notus.

Getting started in the Vulcanverse

As with a lot of open-world gamebook series, you can begin your adventures in any of the Vulcanverse books. In each case you play through your childhood, your choices in those early flashback years shaping the kind of character you're going to start as -- your skills, deity, any starting gear, and so on. It's a little more involving than just rolling a bunch of dice.

In the first four books, whichever you pick, those childhood events are more or less the same. In Workshop of the Gods, though, it's a little different. Now you're not starting in a rural area; you grew up in the biggest city in the Vulcanverse and your family and home there provide a base you can return to.

Your early-life choices in the city are different from the other four books. Having defined your initial abilities, you're then presented with a couple of opportunities to acquire mentor characters. First, when watching your uncles play a board game, you notice a strange antique coin and if you ask about it you may end up meeting a veteran who will guide you through quests in Book 2: The Hammer of the Sun. Then later, shopping with your aunts, you can ask them about the land of Arcadia and thereby acquire a mentor who'll prompt you to undertake quests in Book 3: The Wild Woods.

In both cases you get the option to ignore the cue, thereby avoiding these mentors. Game designer Ernest W Adams has pointed out that when presented in a game with, say, an interesting inscription, there's no point in giving the player the choice of "look at the inscription" or "don't look". That's a non-choice, because why wouldn't the player look unless there's some other cost to doing so? (For example, unless they're being chased and stopping to study an inscription puts them at risk.)

But I still give players the choice of passing on the mentors for two reasons. First because your decisions at this stage of the book aren't only setting your starting stats; they're also shaping how you think about your character. Do you look after your younger brother with love, or through a sense of duty, or do you leave him to fend for himself? Making that choice will determine the character you're playing not only in game terms but in your own conception. Ignoring the cues from your uncles and aunts tells us the kind of self-sufficient person you might be.

Also, not all players are going to want mentoring. You can strike out into the other regions of the Vulcanverse and just discover quests at random. That's fine if you have the time for exploration and you don't need any hand-holding. Others will appreciate being given some hints -- and if so you can pick up more hints, though of a less structured sort, by talking to the Oracle at the temple of Apollo.

When out in the world you can find companions who will travel with you. They sometimes offer advice, but usually only after you've already embarked on a quest. They don't tend to nudge you towards any particular goal. If you like setting your own goals, forget the mentors but it's still worth picking up a companion. There are a couple you can find fairly easily if you look around the south-eastern part of Notus in The Hammer of the Sun.

Mentors differ from companions because they don't accompany you. They'll look at what you've achieved so far, suggest the next stage of a quest and give you some clues as to how to go about it, then with a pat on the back or a kick in the pants they'll send you off to try it. You can return to the city and seek them out if you're having trouble. The advantage of doing it that way is you get quests sliced up into readily achievable chunks, which a lot of players prefer to just playing on till they're tired. The mentor lets you know when you've hit a convenient episode break.

So, whether you're a self-starter or whether you like taking advice from a friend, either way you should find what you're looking for in Vulcanverse Book Five: Workshop of the Gods. Still, the books in the Vulcanverse series are not self-contained; they comprise one vast connected saga.

To give you an idea of the sweep and scope of that saga, think of the Sorcery! series by Steve Jackson. That's four big gamebooks to start off with. Now add the original six books of the Way of the Tiger series. Then pile on top of those the first four of Joe Dever's Lone Wolf books. All together that lot is as long as the Vulcanverse series. Vulcan City is a good place to begin, but you'll soon need to venture into the the other realms, so start off with a couple of books and bear in mind you'll need all five to complete the full adventure.

The Dark Lord speaks

By chance I just came across an interview with Jamie. These are few and far between, so worth a look even though it's very short. Much of it covers the same ground as Jamie's talk at FFF 5 but there are some extra details too.

And there's also important news about another of my co-writers, Oliver Johnson of Dragon Warriors and Lightbringer fame. The Bookseller has just announced that his conspiracy thriller novel Caller Unknown is due for publication next year. I've read it and it's great. Now I've got my fingers crossed for his (even better) fantasy novel The Knight of the Fields.

The next wave is the big one

2010. Leo Hartas and I had tickets to the London Book Fair. We weren't expecting much to come of it. If an author steps onto a publisher's stand at the LBF, they look at you like they want to call RentoKil. But we had just published our comic Mirabilis: Year of Wonders on iPad and we were hopeful of showing it to other writers and artists at least.

Fate smiled on us, though. A volcano erupted in Iceland, disrupting air travel, which thinned out the crowds at the LBF. Deprived of the international reps to do deals with, UK publishers had nothing better to do with their time than hold their noses and talk to the authors. (Oh, you thought they'd welcome the opportunity, seeing as we're the people whose work pays their salaries? Ha ha.)

Still, Leo and I thought we had something pretty interesting to show them. We knew they'd have zero interest in the creative content of our Mirabilis app, but there were features they should be taking note of. "Look at how you can buy each issue of the comic in the app," we said. "Those could be the latest titles in your book list. There are share buttons, and if the user signs up they'll get told about new titles in any series they're following."

The publisher's eyes scanned the crowds behind us, probably wondering where that exterminator had got to. "We are publishers, not booksellers," she told us with infinite disdain.

"But this would give you a direct relationship with your customers. You can find out what they like. Sell directly to them. Push additional content like author interviews. Let them know about upcoming releases. All within the app."

She turned away, visibly sickened by having to talk to tradesmen. Mama would never have had to stoop so low. "It is not our business to have a direct relationship with our readers. Publishers do not need 'apps'."

Fast forward only six or seven years and every publisher by then employed bright-eyed tech advisers. "What we want as publishers," they would tell you loftily, "is a direct relationship with our customers."

Too bad they didn't get on that bandwagon when it was setting off. Perhaps if Leo and I had worn suits and pretended scorn for the saps who wrote and drew the comic, the publishers at the 2010 LBF might have listened. But probably not. It's an unchanging trait of British publishers that they will completely refuse to embrace any new trend till it's already passed them by. (A few years earlier, discussing ebooks with another publisher, they'd asked us where they would sell "the discs" with the ebooks on.)

So I'm wondering what trend they're missing right now. It might well have to do with AI. Here's a podcast about that very point featuring Joanna Penn and Thad McIlroy. And if you find that interesting try the episodes on writing with generative AI and using generative AI in book cover design.

Holding out for a hero

A recent comment by Pierre Millet set me to thinking we need a medal for gamebook readers who play all the way through to the grand finale of the Vulcanverse series. Especially this:

"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 mentioned in entries I shouldn’t have read and I still scratch my head when I think of it. As for the Murmillo, I only saw him mentioned in the final battle."

My idea is that anyone who earns the medal can get talking with other champions of the Vulcanverse and compare notes on how their experience differed. Did you travel in time? Were you made Queen of the Amazons? Did you sail across the Ocean of Night or enter the land of dreams? Were you the heir of a wealthy noble family? Have you set foot on Mount Olympus or the plains of Troy? Did you get to battle a god? All of those are possible in the books depending on the choices you make.

There are many paths to the end of the Vulcanverse campaign, and multiple different endings too. If you succeed in reaching any of them, feel free to display the medal and share your experience with other Vulcanverse veterans.

Not got started yet? Create your first Vulcanverse character here.