Yesterday, Ghost Recon Online was officially announced to the world. That means I can now reveal that this is the game I helped out with when I was in Singapore for a couple weeks back in March. It’s a free-to-play MMO for the PC set in the world of the Tom Clancy games, including Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six. The beta starts this summer, so if you’d like to get in on the fun, stop by the site and sign up.
Earlier today, Angry Robot announced the winners of the contest we ran to remix the “Angry Robot” song I co-wrote with John Anealio. John, Marc Gascoigne, and I listened to and ranked the songs and picked three winners.
David De La Hoya took third place with his mix, Denis Cherryman took second, and Dale Chase – who blew us away with his overlaid rap – took first. As their prize, I’ll include fictional versions of each of them in Carpathia, the next novel I’m writing for Angry Robot to publish – and then I’ll kill them. (The fictional versions, of course.) To thank all the talented people who took the time to submit a mix, I’m going to include everyone of their names in the book too.
John’s busy putting together an album collecting the various remixes, but in the meantime, you can listen to the winners on the Angry Robot site. They’re fantastic.
Over at the Itzel Library – a Mexican book review site – Yel interviewed me about Vegas Knights. While all our interactions were in English, she translated the entire interview into Spanish as well and posted a braided version of the interview in both languages.
Back when I graduated college, I could speak Spanish fluently. As part of my degree through the Residential College at the University of Michigan, I took two terms of intensive Spanish, plus a term of conversational Spanish. Each of the intensive courses was worth eight credits, and we met for two hours four days a week, plus had 15 minutes of lab work each day. On top of that, we had a Spanish-only lunch table in the cafeteria and met for a Spanish-only coffee hour once per week.
At the end of those two terms, I had to pass a United Nations level 3 fluency exam, which was a three-hour exam topped by a fifteen-minute interview with two native speakers of the language. If I failed it, I risked losing out on all eight credits for that term. I studied so hard, I actually wound up dreaming in Spanish for the week before the exam.
Of course, now I’ve lost most of it. I can puzzle out some of what Yel wrote, but mostly because there’s a reliable translation right next to it. Someday I’ll get back into it. Someday. Or maybe I’ll just come to rely on Google Translate even more.
Meanwhile, Yel’s giving away an autographed copy of Vegas Knights to one of her followers. Win it, and I’ll dedicate it to you and ship it on out. Good luck!
Over at Pornokitsch, Jared read Vegas Knights and mostly enjoyed it. Unlike other reviewers, he didn’t care much for the chase scenes, but he really dug the mix of magic and gambling, especially the game Mojo Poker, which plays a huge role in the book:
Mr. Forbeck’s invention of “Mojo Poker” may be the best magical contest since Assumption. Above and beyond the pure fun of wizards duelling over the card table, Mr. Forbeck also uses the card game as a vehicle to demonstrate both cunning and sorcery.
He then sums up:
Vegas Knights has a core handful of intriguing scenes surrounded by a lot of self-consciously blockbuster icing. The latter, as crowd-pleasing as it is, is a shame. The book has the potential to be tense, low-key and subtle, but instead opts for brash flamboyance. Not unlike the city itself (which seems to be doing pretty well out of it).
Some of the other reviews have said the exact opposite of this. Those readers loved the chase scenes and the splashy stuff, but they found the card games tedious. To me, this means two things.
First, you can’t please everyone. Second, Vegas Knights is a book with a mix of sharp flavors in it, and not everyone is going to love them all. Hopefully, though, they’ll find enough to their liking that they enjoy the book as a whole.
Star Wars vs. Star Trek had been slated to be released on May 18. However, it looks like Star Wars Day yesterday may have inspired a bit of early selling. The book is showing as shipping now through Adams Media’s website, Amazon, and BN.com.
So! You don’t have to wait a moment longer. Go out and grab the book and see how the debate settles out once and for all! Thanks!
Thanks to everyone who participated in the Star Wars vs. Star Trek contest I ran yesterday. I had something over 70 entries, including match-ups made here, on Twitter, and on Facebook. The winner is Randy Mac Kay, who entered via the Facebook poll. I’ll ship him out an autographed copy of the book today!
It was the first time I’ve ever run a giveaway like this, and I had no idea what to expect. Star Wars Day (May the Fourth) kind of snuck up on me, but when I realized that the book would be out soon, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. My friends over at Tor.com agreed, and they ran a free excerpt from the book and also offered to run a giveaway of their own, which hauled in 97 entries itself.
Many of the entries were fantastic, and it’s probably no coincidence that a number of them already appear in the book – which none of you could yet know, of course. Thanks to everyone who joined in, and another thanks to those who helped spread the word. A special thanks to Scott Rouse, who thrashed out the contest with me on Twitter the night before I got it rolling.
I hope you all had as much fun as I did. We’re definitely going to have to do this again.
You can read the full list of match-ups submitted after the break.
Thanks to my friends at Tor.com, you now have even more chances to win an autographed copy of Star Wars vs. Star Trek. I wrote about the first contest earlier today, and I’ve loved watching the match-ups roll in. For the rest, all you have to do is head over to Tor.com and post a comment in their post about the contest. They have three copies to give away, so be sure to enter there too!
To help celebrate Star Wars Day – which falls in the middle of their Star Trek movie marathon week – the fine people at Tor.com (for which I occasionally blog) just posted the first chapter of Star Wars vs. Star Trek on their site for free. Go on over and give it a read.
The better part of the book features match-ups just like the ones in the sample. It also includes a trivia quiz to lead off each chapter and introductions by both Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) and Tim Russ (Tuvok). I had a great time writing the book, and I hope you enjoy the sample.
If it intrigues you, don’t forget that I’m giving away an autographed copy of the book today. Details are here.
Star Wars vs. Star Trek hits stores in May 18.
Over at SFRevu.com, my friend Drew Bittner raves about Vegas Knights. In part, he writes:
Matt Forbeck creates a fast-paced and deeply engaging story… Every hero is measured by his villains, and Forbeck has created some great villains here… [S]hows a flair for writing breathtaking action scenes… The story itself delivers rock solid entertainment with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing up to the last page.
Head over there to read the whole thing, and remember: Vegas Knights is on sale now!
Today, in honor of Star Wars Day, I’m going to give away an autographed copy of Star Wars vs. Star Trek to one lucky reader. The contest is simple. All you have to do is give me what you think would be a fantastic match-up between things from the two universes.
For instance, you could make it Han Solo vs. James T. Kirk. Or the Death Star vs. the Borg Cube. Or Jar Jar Binks vs. Wesley Crusher. Make it as silly or as awesome as you like. Just have fun with it and go.
At the end of the day, I’ll select a winner at random. I’ll chose that person from responses here, on my Facebook profile, and on Twitter. (On Twitter, use the #SWvsST hashtag so I can find it.) I’ll also collect the best ones and post them here too.
The book, by the way, is slated to hit shelves on May 18. However, I have my author’s copies already, and I’ll be sharing one of those.
Good luck!