Capricon Schedule

Next weekend, I’ll be in Wheeling, IL, for Capricon 32. It’s the first time I’ve been to the show, but I’ve heard excellent things about it. My schedule for the show is below. If you’re in the area, come on out and join us!

Saturday, February 11

1 — 1:30 PM: Reading Probably something from Carpathia

2:30 —4 PM: Autographing with Paul McComas

7 — 8:30 PM: Writing Is a Business
As aspiring writers enter the field, they will do almost anything to become published. This attitude often can lead to others taking advantage of their work. These professionals will share advice about agents, contracts, retirement, and…gulp…taxes.
Tim Akers (M), Richard Chwedyk, Matt Forbeck, Gene Wolfe

Sunday, February 12

10 — 11:30 AM: Take That, Gutenberg! New Publishing Models in the 21st Century
Clay tablets, roaming minstrels, mimeographs, Big Publishing Houses, corner bookstores, ePubs, self-publishing, and Kickstarter are just some examples of how we’ve financed and distributed stories over the years. How have stories gotten from the author to the reader, how is that model changing, and why? For whom is this a good change or a bad change? Why is how we get our books important?
Cory Doctorow (M), Matt Forbeck, John Klima, Les McClaine, John O’Neill

12 — 1:30 PM: Gaming Is Research for My Novel!
Who said gaming isn’t good for your writing? For these writers, role-playing games helped hone their skills as storytellers. How can role-playing help your writing? What are the pitfalls?
Matt Forbeck, E.E. Knight (M), Jennifer Lawrence, John O’Neill

1:30 — 3 PM: The Wide World of Comics Media
There are more ways to get a comic book or graphic novel these days besides picking one up at your local comic book store. Let’s look at the various delivery methods for comic books and graphic novels and how that changes their impact. We will look at this from the perspective of the reader, writer, and artist. Excelsior!
Matt Forbeck, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Barry Lyn-Waitsman, Les McClaine, Bill Roper (M)

Free Kobolds!

Between now and Valentine’s Day, my friends over at Kobold Quarterly are giving out free copies of Kobold Quarterly, their tabletop fantasy roleplaying game (i.e. D&D and variants) magazine. The issue they’re handing out gratis is #14, their Gen Con 2010 issue, which featured articles by my pals Monte Cook and Rob Heinsoo, among other excellent entries. To get the freebie, just use the coupon code KoboldWelcome when you check out.

While you’re there, check out the Kobold Guide to Board Game Design, in which I have an essay. If you’re a game designer of any stripe, it’s a damn good book.

Lost in Translation

One thing about writing tie-in or other work-for-hire books is that no one needs to let you know when they’ve sold the foreign-language rights to those books. This makes for some interesting moments when you find your name popping up on a book you’ve never seen before in a language you don’t speak.

While looking for data on Amortels, I stumbled across a couple good examples of this. The first is Blood Bowl: Blut und Speile, which my limited command of German tells me translates to Blood and Games. This is a German edition of the Blood Bowl: Killer Contract comic I wrote for Boom Studios a couple years back, published by the fine folks at Panini.

The ironic part is that German has to be the worst choice for a translation of that book. When I first starting writing the Blood Bowl novels on which the comic is based, I was told I had to make the names more Germanic to fit in with setting better. Figuring it was all a joke anyhow – Blood Bowl is meant to be funny – I just ran exactly who the characters were through Babelfish.

The main hero’s name, for instance, is Dunkel Hoffnung, which means “Dark Hero.” His horse is Pferd, which means “Horse.” While these might be funny the first time you get them, I can imagine that it could become tired if every time you come across them they read as “Dark Hero mounted his faithful steed Horse!”

But I suppose that’s funny in its own way.

I also came across this French edition of More Forbidden Knowledge called 101 Trucs Fous Que Vous Ne Devriez Pas Savoir Faire. According to Bablefish, that’s 101 Insane Tricks Which Should Not Know To You To Make, while Google translate renders it as 101 Crazy Stuff That You Should Not Know How.

I just hope they also translated the disclaimer in the book, or they probably should have called it 101 Ways to Get Sued in a Foreign Court.

You Say Amortels, I Say Amortals

If you read French, you can now get a free sample of the first chapters of Amortels, the French edition of my novel Amortals, published by L’Atalante. I’m happy to see them pushing the book hard, including advertising the book in the header on their website.

If English is your native tongue, then head over to Voxael’s blog for a new review of Amortals. He loved the book and writes:

I’m not really a a sci-fi connoisseur in this area, but Amortals is possibly the best science fiction book that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. [H]e’s earned a place on my list … of authors that I trust to write something engaging and entertaining, even it’s it’s outside of my comfort zone.

Sci-Fi Bulletin Loves Vegas Knights

Over at Sci-Fi Bulletin, Paul Simpson got a real kick out of Vegas Knights. He writes:

At times it’s humorous, sardonic, deadly serious, horrific – and that can be on just one page! There are so many sudden shifts in the narrative that there are times when you wonder exactly what’s going on but Matt Forbeck knows where he’s taking his story – and when you reach the end, you realise that it’s been under control the whole time.

Recommended.  8/10

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying On Its Way

Last summer, I joined up with an all-star team of game designers to pitch in on the upcoming Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game coming out from Margaret Weis Productions. That made me part of the game’s Illuminati, along with Cam Banks, Rob Donoghue, Will Hindmarch, Philippe-Antoine Ménard, and Jesse Scoble.

Cam, who’s developing the game, has since run with it and drafted Jack Norris, Jesse Scoble (again!), Aaron Sullivan, and Chad Underkoffler (among others) in to handle the actual writing. The Basic Game is already off to press and should be in stores on February 28. (Coincidentally, that’s the same day my novel Carpathia is released. Going to be a busy day.)

MWP has been releasing previews of the game on its website. Go check them out and whet your appetite for what’s sure to be an amazing game.

Magic #1 Out Today!

The first issue of the Magic: The Gathering comic book I’m writing for IDW hits stores today. Be sure to hustle down to your local comic shop to grab yourself a copy, which comes with a playable, alternate-art card for the bestselling Magic: The Gathering collectible card game, on which the comic is based.

If you don’t want/need the card or just prefer your comics in a less tangible format, you can also order the comic through comiXology and download it immediately. You can then read it through your web browser or on your iOS, Android, or Kindle Fire device.

I’m thrilled to be involved with this book. I’ve known about Magic since before it was published back in 1993, and I’ve watched it grow into a global phenomenon. I’ve also been pals with the folks at IDW since they were all back with WildStorm Productions in the day, and it’s wonderful to be working with them on comics again.

To top it all off, the art team on this book is amazing. Martin Cóccolo‘s pencils and inks make the book even better than it looked in my head when I was writing it, and J. Edwin Stevens‘s color bring it all to stunning life. Big thanks also to my editors at IDW – Carlos Guzman, John Barber, and Denton Tipton – for juggling all three of us plus Wizards of the Coast to make this the best book it can be.

As a taste, I’ve embedded a free preview of the first several pages of the book for you to check out.

Carpathia Reviews and Interviews

My historical horror novel Carpathia is due out at the end of the month. It hits most of the world on February 28, which is the release date for the ebook edition as well. The UK print edition reaches shelves a couple days later on March 1. There’s also an audiobook edition in the works for June 1.

Today, L. Dean Murphy interviewed me about the book for The Big Thrill, the International Thriller Writers’ webzine. In it, I chat a bit about how I work and one of the scenes in the book that stuck with me for weeks.

Last week, over at Libris Leonis, Daniel Franklin raved about Carpathia. Among many kind things, he wrote:

Carpathia doesn’t have the kind of emotionless hero who is simply brave, but nor does it have heroes who are terrified but act despite it without reason, instead being blessed by Forbeck with Lucy, Quin and Abe, a trio who are brave because it is what they feel they ought to be, or because of each other.  It’s a real strength of the novel, because it makes it much more plausible; these are characters who feel human and alive…

Intelligent, well-written and enjoyable fiction that doesn’t take itself too seriously without descending into farce. Carpathia is definitely a novel to watch out for.

Also, over at Terror Tree, Theresa Derwin gets a real charge out of the book. She writes:

Part historical drama, part romance, part adventure, Carpathia revamps (groan) the vampire genre and there are absolutely no sparkles in sight. Laced with wit, irony and gallows humour, this novel boasts a decent amount of blood and guts, a large dose of humour as mentioned and a dash of romance. The chapters are short and sweet aiding pace and the characters are well drawn.

To top it all off, as I wrote this post, Ranting Dragon released its list of its five most anticipated books of the month, and Carpathia made the cut! Its summary says:

When a novel is published by Angry Robot Books, you know you’re in for a weird and exhilarating ride. When that novel is written by Matt Forbeck, author of great novels like Vegas Knights and Amortals, you know it’s a must-read.

I can’t wait for the rest of you to read it. Less than four weeks to go!

BNW Book 1 Done!

Last night at about 10:45 PM, I put the finishing touches on the first draft of Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World: Revolution, the first book in my 12 for ’12 plan. That cut it a bit close to the end of the month, but it means I’m still on track for the year, and I get a huge amount of satisfaction from that.

The next step is to get the book compiled and out to my backers who set themselves up with the “read as you go” levels of rewards. Then I’m going to set to plotting Book 2 and Book 3. I have ideas for them already, but I need to set down actual outlines for them yet.

Once I’m done with that, I should have enough distance from the book to revise it for a second draft. Then it’s copyediting, cover art, formatting, printing (for the backers who grabbed POD editions), and release!

When I set up the BNW Kickstarter, I put June in as the expected delivery date. With luck, I should be able to do much better than that. I can’t wait for you to have a chance to read this.