Cannes do

Next month I'm going to be at the Festival International des Jeux as guest of our French publisher Alkonost. I rarely attend games conventions but Russ Nicholson, who died last year, would normally have been at something like FIJ. It's yet another reminder how much we miss him.

FIJ won't lack for stalwarts of the industry, however. Jonathan Green, Sir Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson* will also be there, among others, so if you're able to get to Cannes you'll hear enough gamebook and RPG talk to last you all year.

* But see comments below. I'm only 100% sure about Jon Green.

Pirates ahoy

There's a lot of talk about generative AI hallucinating, but what kind of hallucination has to happen in a human brain for them to think it's right to take someone else's work, slap their own name on it, and put it up for sale (aye, and here's the rub) at more than the price of the genuine article?

The question isn't purely rhetorical. While creating links for the Fabled Lands bookstores (US here, UK here) I came across some of my own gamebooks on sale on Apple Books under different titles. Well, nearly different -- whoever pirated them was dumb enough to leave "Critical IF" in the name, which is why they popped up on a Google search.

As you can see, one rip-off edition wasn't enough for them. And that time could have been so much better spent teaching themselves English. And, I dunno, ethics. Others have pointed out that they've also ripped off images owned by some big hitters, who might well come gunning for them with more than a rusty cannon. Happily, Apple's legal department has now deleted the books, though I suspect the same piratical individuals will just upload them again under new titles.

If you think all that is bad (and I hope you do) you should hear what happened to my wife. A company offering online courses ripped off the entire contents of her Nail Your Novel books and spent years selling "their" writing course for considerably more than the cost of the books. She only found out about it because the company had lazily cut-&-pasted everything from the books including a mention of her name, enabling one of their customers to track her down to ask if she'd be doing any more courses. (In fact she does have a bona fide online course, Become a Ghost-Writer.) She found a lawyer, but after months of effort all she got was a desultory payout -- a fraction of the money the company had made off the back of her work. Sadly, often crime does pay.

Anyway, on the principle that one has to rise above such knavery, I'll just point out that you can get the most up-to-date editions of the Critical IF books for less money from legitimate sources. Don't let the hornswogglers win!

Critical IF e-books are available on Amazon US and Amazon UK from $0.99 to $2.99.

Finishing touches to the workshop

'When is the final Vulcanverse book coming out?'

That's the question I get asked most these days, and fair enough too. We thought it would be published a year ago. At this point I'm well into George R R Martin territory.

The truth is that it proved to be a much bigger job than the first four books. There's the same open-world structure as you explore Vulcan City, but that's only half of this book. There's also the endgame in which the quest that has developed through the rest of the series reaches a climax. And that involves choices that you have made in all five books, as well as having to allow for freedom of choice as to which of the various warring powers you want to align yourself with.

At the time of writing the book is approaching 1600 sections. And it's around 220,000 words, which is more than twice as long as The Houses of the Dead. All of that requires a lot of careful checking to make sure everything works. I want to get it right, and I have a couple of very capable volunteers who are helping with that. It's coming together and I'm hoping we'll be able to put it on sale within a month or two.

You can get the earlier books here. Alternatively, hang on just a bit longer and you can start your adventures in book 5, Workshop of the Gods. And thank you for your patience.

Many a good hanging

Just a brief reminder that if you want the two books collecting our game write-ups over the years, those are available to backers of the Jewelspider Patreon page, but only till Twelfth Night. (By that I mean the evening of January 5, of course, as the medieval day traditionally began at sundown.) 

Hopefully you're not one of those people who'd pledge $5, grab the free books, and then unsubscribe -- but it has been pointed out to me that there are nihilists out there as well as good folk, so I can't grumble if you do. I will just say that if you remain a backer you'll get first look at the Jewelspider RPG, as well as a bunch of scenarios, special access to the Vulcanverse adventures, rules and setting discussions, and all the things you get here on the FL blog for nothing only with an added je ne sais quoi.

And don't let the AI art above put you off. For one thing, it's really 99% "A" and only 1% "I". But more importantly, all the artwork for Jewelspider is being created by real human artistry, notably Inigo Hartas who, as a historian, folklorist and the son of Leo Hartas who was the principal illustrator of Dragon Warriors, could not be bettered as visualizer of this new visit to the lands of Legend. Patreon backers' funding goes to ensure that talent like his is not usurped by machines.

Still going forward

It's traditional at this time of year for me to unfurl the standard of Enlightenment values. For a change I'm going to hand that banner to David Brin, who says all that I want to say but with different emphasis and without my English reserve:

"[Here's a simple catechism] spoken not just by scientists, but by any person with an ounce of decency or maturity. 'I might be wrong. Let’s find out.'”

Another year means an opportunity to do better. And that's all the more important at a time when populism, polarization and conspiracy craziness look to be in the ascendency, putting liberal, democratic and humanistic values under threat. As individuals we can do nothing; all together we can make a fairer world and improve the lot of human beings now and in the future. Let's try and make it a happy 2024 for as many people as possible.

Strange encounters on Surrey lanes

"It was true that there were fences and gates to be seen, so someone must have been by to place and repair them. However, apart from these tokens, if one faced the right direction, the land was free of life, and looked fit to remain so forever. The motorway had cut off these fields from what they had been before and turned them into obscure borderlands. Now they were visited only with difficulty, by those with strong reason to go there -- or else flotsam and jetsam of the road like me.

"I considered what strange things and evil deeds might be hidden in such a landscape - as remote and unwalked in its way as any Scottish mountain. There were great caverns of darkness amidst the trees capable of holding any enormity, just a few yards from Mr and Mrs Average, driving from normal A to normal B."

 
There is no greater author of English weird tales alive today than John Whitbourn, and "Waiting For A Bus" is perhaps the eeriest of all his short stories. It has won a slew of awards and if you read it on Christmas Eve with the lights turned low, I think you'll see why. And after that, when the goosebumps go down and you can steel yourself to get up from your chair, take a look at the rest of the Binscombe Tales series.

I'm glad to see that the Binscombe Tales are winning a whole new following in the States -- particularly in the South, perhaps because of the strong roots connecting our American cousins there to the old country. A case in point: this in-depth review by a lady in Alabama, but beware spoilers. And you should read John's own account of the landscape we love and which inspired the stories. I grew up nine miles away from Binscombe, in much the same ambience and environment, the main difference being that Binscombe admits to being overlooked by the Domesday Book whereas my own village, Mayford, lays spurious claim to a mention. (My roots there, or even in Surrey generally, are by no means as deep as John's in Binscombe, though it's nonetheless the foundational territory of my imagination.)

And in the same vein of goosebumps and cold grue, take a look at Tanya Kirk's collection of seasonal ghost stories for British Library Publishing, Haunters at the Hearth, with contributions by D H Lawrence, A M Burrage, James Hadley Chase, L P Hartley, Mildred Clingerman and others. If only she'd included a Binscombe Tale it would have been perfect.

Binscombe Tales can be bought in the US from Amazon or Barnes & Noble,

and in the UK from Amazon or Blackwell's.

Bring me pine logs hither

If you're going to have a seasonal roleplaying game there's not a lot of time left. No time to plan? For that last-minute gaming session, what could be more useful than this list of Legend adventures compiled by Lee Barklam on the Cobwebbed Forest website?

If gaming is off the table, you can read write-ups of our roleplaying campaigns in two books available exclusively to Patreon backers until Twelfth Night. I talked about these books in a post a while back, and here's your chance to get hold of them. I realize it might seem a little mercenary to mention Patreon in the season of giving, but you only need to subscribe for one month and you'll not only get the two RPG write-up books but the noughth draft of the Jewelspider rules as well as my Knightmare novels and a bunch of articles and adventure scenarios set in the world of Legend.

And to go with all that, Grim Jim Desborough has the Dragon Warriors stats for a number of weird and wonderful Yule monsters on the Postmortem Games site. (While you're there, why not buy a copy of Wightchester -- the very thing M R James would have been playing on Christmas Eve if he'd known about RPGs.)

Talking of Christmas Eve, I'll see you then...