Cue the sun

Jamie and I have mostly avoided patching the Vulcanverse books once they're published, as obviously it's not as easy to deliver a patch for a book as it is for a videogame. We wouldn't want people who had already bought the book to miss out. If we do tweak anything in the text, we're always careful to make sure that it's backwards-compatible with earlier editions and doesn't invalidate anything that's already established.

Here's an example. The latest version of The Pillars of the Sky has this section:

The only difference from the earliest edition of the book is in the first line of that section. Previously you only got the codeword Quire; now you also get another codeword, Quell. The reason for the patch is that Quire tracks the setting of that switch. If you turn it off you lose the codeword. Turn it back on and you get Quire again.

That was fine, but we realized it would also be useful to record whether you had found the switch, regardless of whether you happen to leave it on. So once you've got the codeword Quell you can't lose it.

The only place Quell is used is in section 1155 of Workshop of the Gods (book 5):

And that works fine even if you have the original editions (which are collector's items now; only a few dozen were sold before the update) and so you never saw the codeword Quell. The patch adds a little more fine-tuning but doesn't break anything -- which is our policy for any changes to these books.

5e adventures in the world of Dragon Warriors

I got a tip-off a couple of months back that the English edition of Blood Sword 5e would shortly see the light of day, and here's news on Kickstarter that the books are being printed.

I don't know whether it will be possible to buy a copy if you weren't one of the original backers, though I'm hoping so because I want to finally read it! If and when I find out more I'll post it here.

While we're all waiting, there's always the five Blood Sword gamebooks and the tactical maps book to while away the time.

Now all we need is The Cursed King to be released and it'll be a veritable autumn windfall for Legend gamers.

Heart of AI

Worldbuilding matters if you're creating any sort of ongoing series, but especially if it's fantasy or SF. Think of the problems that have bedevilled writers of Doctor Who or Star Trek when they try to remember what's been established in the show's canon. Or even if you're just writing a novel and you introduced a minor character a dozen chapters back and now you have to go searching for what you said about them.

Thankfully it's not as hard as it used to be in the days of typewriters or even fountain pens -- I still have no idea how Anthony Trollope kept track of everything that was going on in the Barchester books while also holding down an important job in the UK postal service. But now we're on the cusp of AI making it much easier. Google's NotebookLM takes your books and can generate a timeline, story outline, FAQs, contents list, and can answer questions about the text with references so you can find the relevant section.

Here's what it had to say about my book Heart of Ice:

Power Corrupts in a Frozen World

Players choose a character with unique skills and navigate through a perilous post-apocalyptic world. The story centres on the search for the Heart of Volent, a powerful artefact believed to hold the key to ultimate power. Players must make choices and engage in combat with other characters and dangerous creatures, navigating through a frozen wasteland to reach a ruined city full of buried secrets. The game's mechanics are detailed, including skills, weapons, and items, allowing for a diverse range of play styles. The text provides a narrative experience with specific instructions and outcomes based on player decisions, culminating in a final confrontation for the Heart of Volent.

The narrative of Heart of Ice explores the themes of power, ambition, and the nature of humanity by placing characters with diverse motivations in a race for an artifact of immense power, the Heart of Volent. The story portrays a bleak future where humanity is on the brink of extinction due to a new ice age and the legacy of past conflicts. 

• The Heart of Volent, a meteorite resembling a violet gemstone, possesses the power to reshape the universe. This power attracts individuals driven by various desires, highlighting the multifaceted nature of ambition. 
• Some, like Kyle Boche, seek ultimate power for personal gain. Boche's treachery and self-preservation instincts are noted by other characters who have dealt with him previously. 
• Others, like Chaim Golgoth, a USI agent, are motivated by duty and the pursuit of national interest. Golgoth's pragmatism is evident in his willingness to secure the Heart for the United States, claim its power for himself, or destroy it to prevent it from falling into "hostile hands". 
• The story also presents characters like Janus Gaunt, who initially seeks the Heart to "set things right" but ultimately succumbs to the corrupting influence of power, plotting to eliminate those he perceives as weak. This descent into ruthlessness exemplifies the seductive and transformative nature of ambition.

The narrative suggests that the pursuit of power can warp even the most well-intentioned individuals, leading them down a path of destruction. This is evident in Baron Siriasis's transformation from a seemingly rational individual to a power-hungry schemer willing to sacrifice the universe for his own rejuvenation and immortality.

The story's focus on a dying Earth further emphasizes the dangers of unchecked ambition. As characters fight for control of the Heart, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, suggesting that the pursuit of individual power can blind individuals to the collective good.

Finally, the narrative uses the concept of a "heart of ice" to symbolize the ruthlessness and lack of empathy that often accompany the pursuit of power. This recurring motif underscores the story's cautionary message about the potential for power to corrupt even the most humane instincts.

I then asked it a specific question: "Who is the 'gene genie'?" NotebookLM said:

"There is a character named Malengin who is referred to as a 'Gene Genie'. Here's what the text says about him: 

• Malengin is specifically sought out by Thadra Bey, who is described as a 'veritable Amazon' enhanced to be 'more than human'. This suggests that Malengin possesses knowledge or abilities related to enhancing humans beyond their normal capabilities. 
• Thadra Bey seeks Malengin out because the science of genetic engineering cannot be practised where she is from, on al-Lat, due to the risk of infecting the colony with a deadly plague. This further suggests that Malengin is skilled in genetic engineering, and that his practices might be considered dangerous by some. 
• Malengin is described as someone who is said to trade in genetic enhancements through the use of retroviruses. This confirms that Malengin is involved in the world of genetic engineering and uses retroviruses to alter the DNA of his clients, resulting in permanent changes."

What I liked most of all was that NotebookLM can (in mere minutes) generate a podcast-style discussion about the book(s). It's not exactly In Our Time but it's a sign of great things to come. As long as you have a Google account you can listen to the Heart of Ice discussion here.

I've just heard from Fox that their online version of Heart of Ice is now updated, so you can play the adventure for free right now.

How hard should a gamebook be?

Achievement unlocked. 

It's a great thing to see, but only when it's earned. If the world can be saved just by stumbling through an adventure picking options at random, where's the sense of reward? At the same time, gamebook writers are aware that a lot of readers don't have the patience to go digging after clues. If they don't get a pat on the head every few minutes they'll lose interest. We can't please everyone, so what's the answer?

Every gamebook series has to find its own balance. For example, Vulcanverse:

"No one is holding your hand. There is no main quest at the beginning, and at times you will find yourself wandering around looking for clues, treasures, and quests to accomplish. This can be frustrating, but the rewards are for those who persevere and who keep an eye out for the signs and clues you find. One of the coolest moments in these books is when you discover that a clue you found makes sense and reveals a new adventure or a way to solve a problem."

(Review translated from Spanish.)

In those books your decisions can completely change the world, deciding the fate of empires, permanently altering the landscape and the people in it. As another review (also translated by Google) put it: "You have a lot of adventures ahead of you -- not because Vulcanverse has no end, as in other open-world series, but because the stories follow one another and intertwine seemingly without end."

In a traditional gamebook, challenges must be addressed linearly and each one must be dealt with before you progress to the next. That means the individual challenges can't be too hard, because if the player is stumped it's not as if they can go and tackle another quest while they're thinking about it. In other words, challenges can't involve the player thinking, "OK I don't have what I need for this right now, but if I come back with item X and clue Y maybe I can do it." There's the strength of open-world gamebooks right there.

When the rewards have to do with saving an entire civilization, the effort on the part of the player has to be such that it feels earned. That's why Vulcanverse isn't the kind of loosely open-world game in which you can drift around with one eye on something else and still expect to pile up heaps of treasure and accomplishments. To save a universe you have to be prepared to work at it. One reviewer remarked on how he'd been playing for hours, getting a whole bunch of things set up in The Hammer of the Sun, and finally he was able to carry out a ritual that completely changed the whole realm of Notus, unlocking lots of new quests. That cascade of new opportunities, he said, was an achievement worth waiting for.

I was reminded of all this when talking to an old friend about Gunslinger, a tactical RPG-ish boardgame by Richard Hamblen that we used to play a lot back in the 1980s. The best way I can describe it is to say the game would reliably throw up moments as vivid and dramatic as this:

"Remember what incredible stories we'd have to tell after a Gunslinger game," I said. "Why don't we still play that?" My friend shrugged. "Because each game lasted a couple of hours, and nobody has the patience these days for anything that takes longer than Exploding Kittens."

(I can't argue with that, as these days I'd be much more likely to spend a couple of hours playing Fights in Tight Spaces, which has a lot in common with the tactical gameplay of Gunslinger but with much less set-up time and snazzy animations too.)

Quick and simple play for spoon-fed rewards? Or mighty triumphs that you have to work at achieving? There's no right answer to this question. Vulcanverse's hard-won victories are certainly not to everyone's taste, but if there's any gamebook approach that caters to everyone's taste then believe me I'll write it.

French-speaking readers may want to pick up a copy of Le Marteau et l’Enclume issue #12, which is devoted to the launch in France of Forge Divine, the French name for Vulcanverse. Candidly I sometimes wish we'd called it something like that in English too, as the implied connection with the online crypto-based game has probably done little but confuse potential players of the gamebooks. So just for the record, you don't need to know anything about the online game to play the gamebooks -- and vice versa.

Triumph of the pill

Scared yet? If you'd rather retreat from the real world into adventures with entirely imaginary bugbears, here's your reminder that Can You Escape The Vampire's Lair? is still on sale at the special Halloween price of £7.99.

Tomorrow we'll shoot forward to the end of the 23rd century. Come to think of it, I might stay there for the next four years.

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.

The first full moon of Michaelmas

The darkening nights, the curling leaves, that smoky tang in the chill air -- and to really mark the coming of autumn here's a new issue of Casket of Fays, the Dragon Warriors 'zine. It's the usual high quality blend of scenarios and articles by what I maintain to be the top creative team in roleplaying games today. There are grave knights, poisons, saints, magic items, micro-games, creatures, adventure seeds, and much more.

I especially liked Dominic Bailey's descriptions of a bunch of NPC priests, showing the many faces that the True Faith can have, because both PC and NPC priests are proving troublesome in the Helfax campaign I'm playing in at the moment.

There's also an expanded version of Stanley Barnes's DW rules conversion of Blood Sword sages which we looked at here a while back.

What will it cost? To you, nothing. And as if a free 32-page magazine isn't enough, you also get the second part of Andrew Wright's traveller's tale cum adventure seed, "Marauders of the Azure Main", complete with maps of the Mungoda coast.

And there's also exciting news at last from Serpent King Games, stirring from their lair as the balefires of the season flare out in the gathering dusk. Next month we are promised The Cursed King with Robert Dale's eagerly awaited Brymstone following early in 2025. All this just in time for Dragon Warriors' 40th anniversary. Don't miss it!

March? But it's September!

If you live in Britain and you aren't the sort who feels like looting shops and chucking bricks at the police in response to a school stabbing tragedy, and if you deplore the cheapening of British politics by the Trump-wannabes of Reform UK, you might want to register your support for a more international and inclusive worldview by coming to London on Saturday for the Rejoin EU march. (Strictly a peaceful and civilized affair, this, so angry old gammons may prefer to stay home and wrestle their XL bullies.)

If marching isn't your thing, there's an open letter you can sign. Or, if you're interested in the whole UK/EU question but don't have a strong view either way, or even if you still think Brexit could work out fine, you could just play Can You Brexit? and see how you get on. (Hint: if you just make decisions at random you'll still do better than the Tory governments of the last eight years.)

Still, we're all for evidence-based reasoning here. No ideology counts a jot against hard facts, so be sure to fully research the subject before you form an opinion, and be ready to update your opinion if the facts change.

When to go all-in

John Whitbourn, author of the wonderful Binscombe Tales and many other first-rate fantasy stories, has the knack of finding out about a wide range of interesting curiosities. "Perhaps you've seen this," he'll say, pointing me to an obscure book or a movie or a game that is absolutely right up my street and yet that I'd never heard of before that moment. If I try it in reverse, telling him about a little-known Nigel Kneale SF drama, say, or a 1960s Soviet folk horror movie, or a seminal work of English apocalyptic fantasy, it usually turns out he already knows all about it.

I've given up looking for an explanation. The universe just looks favourably on John while I'm its red-headed stepchild. But I'm grateful to be kept abreast of news that otherwise would have passed me by. For instance, he recently dropped me an email about an OSR game called Slay. This line jumped out:

Slay has a unique d6 combat system. Roll a red effort die along with your white task dice. Make a decision to either add the effort die to your attack or convert it to a dodge die and keep it to improve your defence. This makes every attack roll a decision: do you go in for damage but potentially leave yourself open? Do you play defensively even though you could potentially deal damage?

That made me think of Tirikelu, another RPG where you can trade off attack against defence. But there are differences worth pondering. In Slay, you roll the dice and then decide how to share out your zanshin. In Tirikelu, you set your priorities first, then you roll. You also get the chance to alter your tactics as the round progresses. Say you get initiative and you start off with a half-value attack. That leaves you with the option later in the round of either using the other half-value action to parry, or letting your opponent strike at you unopposed and then at the end of the round you can use the remaining half-action to attack again.

One system gives more tactical choice, the other is super-quick. Which you opt for depends on your playing style and preferences. In fact, since Slay is pay-what-you-want and Tirikelu is free, why not try both? And now that autumn is here, and Halloween barely a month away, the perfect reading matter as the nights draw in is the aforementioned Binscombe Tales. Tell a friend about them and you'll soon have a reputation for spooky synchronicity.

Hammer and anvil

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 what you'd call guidelines than actual rules

It's always gratifying to get a review for one of my books, doubly so when the reviewer mostly liked it. Here's one for Down Among the Dead Men, the first book I wrote in the Virtual Reality series, that uses it as a design inspiration for Twine games. As James (the reviewer) points out, "Virtual Reality" was just an empty marketing title, which is why I changed the name to Critical IF when I relaunched the series.

If you just want a playthrough, there's a good one right here. (I'm "a fine old man", apparently -- thanks for those kind words, Jueri!) And below the astute, erudite and relatively youthful Mr H J Doom delivers his verdict on another Critical IF book, Heart of Ice.

While we're on the subject of old gamebooks, somebody said to me at Fighting Fantasy Fest that he thought you could only win in my 40-year-old gamebook The Temple of Flame by diving off the walkway into the shaft. I don't believe I'd have written an unbeatable path through the book, but it's a long time ago now and I might be wrong. Those who have played it more recently than 1984 may be able to shed some light on this?

And talking of FFF 5, if you weren't able to attend here's my and Jamie's talk along with discussion panels from later in the day:

Shoulders of giants

If you're a movie buff and you've played any of the Vulcanverse books, you can't have failed to notice my penchant for hommages. In The Hammer of the Sun the inspirations are mostly pretty obvious, from the skeleton warriors of Jason & the Argonauts to Eldon Tyrell's boardroom in Blade Runner -- but did you also spot the nod to Robert Eggers's The Lighthouse?

In Workshop of the Gods I should have made a list of the movies, TV shows, poems, short stories, comics and books referenced. There are so many I soon lost count. If you look closely you should be able to find the following:

• Blake's 7: "Orac" (Lorrimer, 1978)
• Breaking Bad: "ABQ" (Bernstein, 2009)
• B.P.R.D.: "The Soul of Venice" (Gunter, Oeming & Mignola; 2003)
• Dance of the Vampires (aka The Fearless Vampire Killers; Polanski, 1967)
• Dark City (Proyas, 1998)
• The Description of Greece: Book 6 (Pausanias, c.150 AD)
• Doctor Who: "The Edge of Destruction" (1964)
• Don't Look Now (Roeg, 1973)
• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (Lovecraft, 1927)
• The Eyes of the Overworld (Vance, 1966)
• Force of Evil (Polonsky, 1948; see the video clip above)
• The Freshman (Bergman, 1990)
• Fury Road (Miller, 2015)
• The Iliad (Homer, c.750 BC)
• Inferno (Dante, c.1321; The Divine Comedy, Canto 26)
• Iron Man (Favreau, 2008)
• The King of Elfland's Daughter (Lord Dunsany, 1924)
• Land of the Pharaohs (Hawks, 1955)
• Murder, My Sweet (Dmytryk, 1944)
• Night of the Demon (Tourneur, 1957)
• On the Failure of Oracles (Plutarch, c.83 AD)
• The Revenant (Iñárritu, 2015)
• The Shadow (Mulcahy, 1994)
• Strange Tales #110 (Lee & Ditko, 1963)

If you spot any others, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

And if you should see me at Fighting Fantasy Fest (I'm there in the morning; schedule below) and you have a copy of Workshop of the Gods, I'll find the time to autograph it. Can't make any promises about my older books, though. Mick Jagger must find it hard to scrawl his name over Black & Blue now that Hackney Diamonds is out.