It’s Quiet—Too Quiet

My apologies for not posting here much lately. There have been two reasons for that:

1) I haven’t had a whole lot to report.

2) Various colds and viruses have been treating my family like the Packers treat a loose football.

Now, though, it seems like we’re all on the mend, and I’m rolling again. I used the blank spots in the past few weeks to work on a few outlines for upcoming books (like two more in the Knights of the Silver Dragon series) and to craft another proposal or two for some new projects I hope to start working on sometime next year.

Right now, I’m hot in the throes of Blood Bowl, the first in what looks to be a trilogy of novels for my friends at Games Workshop. After that, it’s onto the second book in The Lost Mark Trilogy, my Eberron series for Wizards of the Coast.

In the meantime, the latest issue (#3) of Games Quarterly Magazine should be in stores around now. It contains an article I wrote praising Once Upon a Time, designed by Richard Lambert, Andrew Rilstone, and James Wallis and published by Atlas Games.

Don’t forget to gear up for National Games Week too. That’s next week, from November 21–27.

Comments Working

I built Forbeck.com around Movable Type, a great blogging and content management tool. Like many bloggers, however, spambots inundated my pages with comment spam. I recently upgraded to Movable Type 3.1 so I could implement its new antispam tools. This includes a commenter registration service designed to put a stop to spambots and the like.

I had a few issues surrounding the upgrade, but I’ve worked through them all now. I’m currently blocking comments from anyone not registered with TypeKey. This is a free service that lets you register for commenting on any TypeKey-based blog (like many Movable Type installations) all at once.

The upshot: To comment on posts here, you now need to register with TypeKey. If you do this once, you should be set forever. If you don’t care to bother with it, you can still e-mail me personally. I’ll be the only one able to see your erudite and pointed commentary, but I’m comfortable with that if you are.

Ghost Stories

I’m told that White Wolf just got advance copies of Ghost Stories in their office. I’m looking forward to seeing the book myself. It should be in stores in November, hopefully earlier than later.

No Comments

I’ve been getting a ton of spam in the comments sections on this site, so I upgraded to the latest version of Movable Type. It works great at stopping the spam, but it also breaks some of the custom templates I generated for use with the last version of the program. As such, I’ve shut comments off for now. I hope to have them back up and running soon. In the meantime, you can just e-mail me with you comments directly, please. Thanks!

Xbox in the House

As a reward for finishing up the second draft of Marked for Death, the first in my Eberron trilogy, I went out and bought myself an Xbox. Since I left Human Head, I no longer have a PC on which to play games—one of the great benefits of that job. I’m a happy Mac user, but the fact is that the best games often either never make it to the Mac or are months late. I didn’t want to spring for a whole new computer just to play games, so the Xbox fit the bill nicely.

I’ve already gotten a number of games, most of which are rated E so I can play them with (or at least in front of) my kids. If anyone has any recommendations, though, or spare games lying around, don’t be shy about letting me know.

New Novel: Blood Bowl

I’m currently hard at work on my next novel, a book for Games Workshop‘s novels and comics division, The Black Library. It’s based on Blood Bowl, GW’s game of fantasy football, in which orcs, dwarves, elves, skaven (rat-people), undead, and even humans violently spar for supremacy on the blood-spattered pitch. It’s an explosive and hilarious mix of fantasy and sports.

I worked on a Blood Bowl supplement (the Blood Bowl Companion) back in 1990, as my first freelance gig after finishing up a six-month student work visa in the Games Workshop Design Studio in Nottingham, England. I’ve kept in touch with many of my friends from GW over the years, and I even did a bit of editing for the Black Library a couple years back, just to keep my hand in.

Blood Bowl is one of my favorite games. The background is just over-the-top great, and it blends two of my great passions (fantasy literature and football) with a flair that hits you like an ogre linebacker. The plan is for this book to be the first in a trilogy. Expect to see it on store shelves next summer.

Novels Rolling Along

I’m getting back into the freelance swing of things again. I polished off the final draft of Marked for Death, the first in my Eberron trilogy, due out in March of 2005. Then I realized I’d made a big goof, and I had to fix that. (“That one-handed character is hanging from the edge of an airship while holding up a paladin with his other hand. I don’t think that’s possible. How about he just loses a finger?”) It’s all done now, and hopefully sailing through the editorial process.

I also had to come up with a map for the book. This was a snap, since the book takes place almost entirely in the Mournland, this mysteriously mist-shrouded, half-dead land in the center of the main continent of Khorvaire. I just scanned in the map from the Eberron Campaign Setting, marked it up, and sent it off. Thank you, Photoshop!

I’m working on outlines for four or five different novels this week and brushing up a few chapters of a nonfiction book about the birth of my four youngest kids (which happened all at once, making it the kind of thing you should write a book on). I finished up one of the outlines today and sent it off to the publisher. I already have a contract for the book based on my pitch, so now it’s just a matter of writing it, which should be a blast. I’ll tell you more as soon as I can.

These projects have me booked up through most of next year. I’m always keeping my eye on the horizon, though, and trying to see what I can do to keep myself on the edge of sleep deprivation, so more things are sure to come up. Wish me luck.

Hungry Little Monsters Due in November

According to the website of the newly minted Sean K. Reynolds Games, Hungry Little Monsters is due as a PDF release in November. HLM is a charity jam book Sean developed, much in the vein of the Swords into Plowshares book he produced last year. Proceeds go to benefit FoodforAll.org, which is dedicated to feeding needy people. The book features monsters designed and illustrated by a range of people across the industry, including Sean K Reynolds, Dave Mattingly, Scott Bennie, Ed Greenwood, and me.

If you’re interested in the book, stop by SKRG’s preview page. There you’ll find an 8-page preview of the book, which features my own cannibal doppelganger. It takes “you are what you eat” to a whole new level. This sample is free, but be sure to pick up the whole book in November. It’s for a great cause.

National Games Week

Mark Simmons, the man behind the Games Quarterly Catalog and Games Quarterly Magazine, has launched a brilliant new idea: National Games Week. It’s to be held the week of November 21 through 27, right through Thanksgiving. It’s the perfect time to break out a game to play with those relatives you barely ever see. You can find out more at www.nationalgamesweek.net.