Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland is a brand new adventure gamebook with a dark Steampunk twist. To give you an idea of just what that means, here's the first draft of the introduction to the adventure... (click to enlarge)
“You’re late! Wake up!”
Alice woke with a start and sat up, blinking in surprise and looking about her in bewilderment. It was a balmy summer’s afternoon and she was sitting beside a river, the long grass that had formed her bed dotted with daisies. The waters gurgled softly as they passed by on their way downstream.
Something about the scene seemed very familiar.
“Don’t just sit there! Get up! You’re late!” came the shrill voice again.
The hot weather making her feel sleepy and dull-witted, Alice’s gaze followed the sound to its source. There, standing in the shade of a chestnut tree, was a white rabbit.
But this wasn’t just any white rabbit. This particular rabbit was dressed in the manner of an English gentleman – jacket, waistcoat and all. The rabbit’s ears were a little threadbare, the stuffing poking out through holes worn in the skin, and as it tilted its head to one side to observe her with its glassy pink eyes, Alice thought she heard a grating of gears.
Alice started to her feet, as it flashed through her mind that, once upon a time, she has seen something like this rabbit, wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket-watch, on some previous occasion. But there was no timepiece clutched in the rabbit’s paws this time.
“Who are you to say I’m late when you are not even carrying a pocket-watch?” Alice asked, not one to be outdone by an animal that looked like nothing more than a taxidermist’s test subject.
The rabbit said nothing, but simply unbuttoned its waistcoat, and Alice gasped as her former cockiness was consumed by gut-wrenching terror. Where the rabbit’s stomach should have been, a huge watch ticked – a clock large enough to fill the cavity from ribcage to pelvis – raw and ragged scrags of meat poking between the wire stitches that bound watch and rabbit together.
“How can I be late,” Alice asked the rabbit, “when I don’t even know what it is I’m late for?”
She was suddenly aware of the wind having picked up, as scuds of cloud raced each other across the sky, a sky which had changed from sapphire blue to a seething, bloody claret colour.
“You are needed in Wonderland,” the White Rabbit informed her, the twitching of its nose accompanied by a mechanical whirring sound.
“Wonderland?” There was something familiar about that name, Alice was sure of it, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
“It’s the Queen of Hearts. The whole realm has suffered the ravages of her tyrannical reign, and if you thought things were bad before, they are considerably worse now. It’s a miracle I managed to escape her Tick-Tock Men.”
“Before?” Alice whispered in a daze. “Tick-Tock Men?”
“Yes, Tick-Tock Men! How else do you think I ended up like this?” the rabbit said, looking down at his stomach and the ticking timepiece embedded within what little flesh remained there.
Alice stared at the creature in dumfounded amazement before finally finding her voice again. “Why are you telling me this? What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Why?” gasped the rabbit, in incredulity. “We need you, Alice. Wonderland needs you.”
“But what do you need me to do?”
“We need you to kill the Queen, of course.”
“Kill the Queen?” Alice echoed. “But why me?”
The White Rabbit gave an exasperated sigh and took a deep breath, in an attempt to compose itself, before speaking again.
“Because it’s your nightmare!”
If that sounds like your sort of thing (and if you're a fan of my Ulysses Quicksilver
Pax Britannia novels then, let's face it, it probably is) you should definitely
check out the Kickstarter page and plan your pledge.
Ada Lovelace Day maybe still be almost a month away, but fans of Steampunk and Pax Britannia should check out BBC Four at 9.00pm tonight. Calculating Ada: The Countess of Computing tells the story of 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' Lord Byron's daughter, Ada Lovelace, who is recognised today as the world's first computer programmer.
The very first Pax Britannia novel Unnatural History may have been published over 8 years ago(!) but some people are still discovering it - and loving it - for the first time.
Someone else has just discovered Pax Britannia: Unnatural History for the first time, and here's what they had to say about the book.
Google have marked the anniversary with a doodle, and I am marking it to with this post. Because, as readers of my Pax Britannia novels will already know, the eighth Ulysses Quicksilver adventure Time's Arrow is set in Paris and the climax of the adventure takes place at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Redemption '15, the Multimedia Science Fiction Convention kicks off today at the Britannia Hotel in Coventry. The event runs until Sunday 22 February, and I shall be there this year as Guest of Honour.
Saturday 21 February
