
Today we find out what he's been up to...
“You have completed every Fighting Fantasy playthrough. What was your favourite book to play through?”#
I’m
tempted to say ‘the ones which I’ve won’, but that doesn’t include a
lot. In fact, the ones that I enjoyed the most are, as I expected, the
ones that I had the strongest nostalgic memories with. Namely Vault of
the Vampire, City of Thieves, and Legend of the Shadow Warriors.
“You
are currently running a vote on the 5 Fighting Fantasy books that you
should play through until you win. Are you looking forward to the
current top 5?”
Oh
god no. At this point, three of the books that are in the lead are from
the main series, while the other two are the final parts of the
‘Sorcery!’ series. Those two are going to be an utter nightmare to play
through, as they’re extremely difficult, and I need to figure out how to
incorporate items from the first two books as well.
“Were there any books that you were dreading playing through?”
My
dislike of the sci-fi FF books is the stuff of legend. It’s no surprise
that I left so many of them for later on in my playthroughs. In
general, I didn’t care for most of them. I would still happily give
blood rather than play Rings of Kethar or Rebel Planet.
“You like playing various games and RPGs - which one is your favourite and why?”
I’m
not very retro when it comes to gaming, I don’t care much for
old-school number-crunching D&D style, and I’m not too into indie
hipster GM-less games where you determine success by spending magic
beans or pulling Jenga blocks or whatever. Give me a good, solid Call of
Cthulhu tabletop adventure or an atmospheric World of Darkness one, and
I’ll be happy. I’m currently playing in UK Masquerade Portsmouth, the
oldest-running Vampire the Masquerade LARP in the world, I also run
regular Call of Cthulhu games and I’m (seemingly constantly) planning a
Changeling the Lost campaign.
“you have also released two anthologies of short horror stories. What inspirations did you draw from for them?”
Ah, you must mean my beloved “Return to ‘Return to Oz’”, available now at http://www.amazon.com/dp/ B00LRZD1C6
(plug, plug), right? Yes, my newest anthology “Cthulhu Doesn’t Dance”
is also out now, they are influenced by my general boredom with genre
fiction. I love horror, but so much of it can be samey, with the same
kind of tropes and genre conventions. I want to write different stories,
from all kinds of genres, mixing them together to create different
tastes to each one. So each book has ten short stories, each of which
are very, very different. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what matters
the most.
“What are you planning on for the future?”
Keep
an eye on my blog for all the big updates. But in short, I’m going to
have two more books out this year. The first, “Diary of a gay teenage
zombie”, is exactly what it says on the tin – a coming of age LGBT drama
about a zombie, written in diary format, exploring the theme of feeling
as though you’re an outsider. The second book is the first in a fantasy
adventure series set in the worlds of the faerie, struggling to protect
their homeland from an ancient evil. This one’s tentatively titled
“Twilight of the Faerie”, and it’ll be either four or five books long,
depending on how it turns out.
For another great gamebook kickstarter, check out Westward Dystopia which is well on it way to being funded.
No comments:
Post a Comment