Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - RPG of the Year?

I am delighted to report that the Portuguese language edition of my Steampunk-themed gamebook Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - Alice no País dos Pesadelos, published in Brazil by Jambô Editora - is up for an award.

Having been nominated in the RPG OF THE YEAR category, it has made it through to the final round of the Ludopedia Prize 2019.

Although there are only five entrants in the category, it's not going to win because it's up against both Dungeons & Dragons and The Call of Cthulhu - but that's not bad company to be in!

Alice no País dos Pesadelos is just one of three Jambô Editora products that have made it from the the final round.

If you are able to vote (and it's easy to register to do so) it would be great if you could throw your support behind Alice no País dos Pesadelos and the others.

The Wunderbar Wizard of Oz

Mantikore-Verlag, who have had great success with Alice im Düsterland in Germany, are releasing the German translation of The Wicked Wizard of Oz next year, and here's the cover...

Scarlet Traces on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast

The latest 2000AD Thrill-Cast focuses on the new Scarlet Traces anthology. It consists of an hour-long discussion between Scarlet Traces co-creator and anthology editor Ian Edginton, writer Maura McHugh, Rebellion commissioning editor David Moore join, and 2000 AD publicity droid Molch-R, about the world of Scarlet Traces, the legacy of H G Wells' original novel, imperialism and speculative fiction, and moving from comics into prose.

It's an interesting listen, but when the spectre of steampunk rears its ugly, cog-adorned head, it's clear that people have a problem with steampunk, to the point where Pax Britannia, Rebellion's own steampunk novel series, doesn't even get a passing mention.

You can purchase Scarlet Traces: A War of the Worlds Anthology, which includes my story Wonderful Things, here.

Steampunk Thursday: Scarlet Traces - Out Now!

Scarlet Traces: An Anthology Based on H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, edited by Ian Edginton, is available now!

It is the dawn of the twentieth century.

Following the Martians' failed invasion of Earth, the British Empire has seized their technology and unlocked its secrets for themselves. It is a Golden Age of discovery, adventure, culture, invention—and of domination, and rebellion.

Scarlet Traces reveals a world of ant-headed nightmares; vacuum salesmen; war machines; deadly secrets; clockwork marvels; and Sherlock Holmes, T. S. Eliot and Thomas Edison as you've never seen them before...

Including stories by Stephen Baxter, I. N. J. Culbard, Adam Roberts, Emma Beeby, James Lovegrove, Nathan Duck, Mark Morris, Dan Whitehead, Chris Roberson, Maura McHugh, Jonathan Green, and Andrew Lane.

Ian Edginton is a New York Times bestselling author and multiple Eisner Award nominee.

His recent titles include the green apocalypse saga The Hinterkind for DC/Vertigo; Steed and Mrs Peel for BOOM, the steam- and clock-punk series Stickleback, Ampney Crucis Investigates and Brass Sun for the legendary UK science fiction weekly, 2000 AD; game properties Dead Space: Liberation and The Evil Within for Titan Books, and the audio adventure Torchwood: Army of One for the BBC.

He has adapted the complete canon of Sherlock Holmes novels into a series of graphic novels for Self Made Hero, as well writing several volumes of Holmes apocrypha entitled The Victorian Undead. He has also adapted H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds as well as writing several highly acclaimed sequels, Scarlet Traces and Scarlet Traces: The Great Game.

He lives and works in England. He keeps a bee.

Magnificent Desolation

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The Moon has inspired people in so many ways for countless millennia, including me. Ulysses Quicksilver braved the Moon's magnificent desolation in the sixth Pax Britannia novel, Dark Side, published nine years ago in 2010.

Ulysses Quicksilver visits the British lunar colonies, searching for his missing brother, Barty, believed to be on the run from gambling debts on Earth. The clues lead our detective and his faithful butler into the path of unsolved murders, battling robots, shady millionaires and stolen uncanny inventions. Used to working inside the law, Ulysses is stalled when his pursuit puts him on the wrong side of the Luna Prime Police Force.

But why is Ulysses' ex-fiancée Emilia also in the colonies? Who is the strange eye-patched man following Ulysses? And what is really happening in a secret base on the dark side of the moon? Used to meeting every adventure with a devil-may-care attitude and a snappy one-liner, Ulysses will be forever changed by the revelations he discovers on this most deadly of trips.

You can pick up a copy of Dark Side here.

Ulysses Quicksilver's Gun

It may be a year since Ulysses Quicksilver's most recent outing, in the story Reckless Engineering, but people are still enjoying my Pax Britannia stories and being inspired by them. One of those people is 3D artist Andrew Bjarnsen.

Only today, Andrew got in touch to let me know that he has modelled Ulysses Quicksilver's gun, as originally designed by Pye Parr. And here it is...

Happy Birthday, Big Ben!

On this day in 1859, 160 years ago, Big Ben's chimes were heard for the first time. However, it won't be chiming today, as the Elizabeth Tower is currently in the middle of a £61 million revamp project.

The Clock Tower (as it used to be called) at the bell Big Ben itself, are a vital part of Tempus Fugit, the Pax Britannia short story I wrote for Abaddon X, the slim volume published to mark Abaddon Books' tenth anniversary, back in 2017.

Pax Britannia: Reckless Engineering

Available now from Newcon Press is Steampunk International, an anthology of new steampunk stories from Finland, Portugal and the UK.

My contribution is entitled Reckless Engineering, and is the first story to move the Pax Britannia timeline forward properly since 2012's Time's Arrow. Reckless Engineering was to be the title of the 11th Ulysses Quicksilver novel, but unfortunately it was not to be, so you have this instead:

Following a break-in at the top secret Whitehall facility known as 'Think Tank', agent of the crown Ulysses Quicksilver and his trusty manservant Nimrod set off in pursuit of the perpetrator. It is a chase that will take them from the railway sheds of London to the dockyards of Bristol, and an encounter with a long-dead engineering genius.

The book is, of course, also available in Finnish and Portuguese language editions.

     

Steampunk International/Internacional

There's not to go now until Steampunk International is published here in the UK, and this week, editor Ian Whates posted some photos of the books which have indeed now been printed.

However, both the Finnish and Portuguese editions are already available to buy! I have an order in for the Finnish one myself, as I have never had anything of mine published in Finland before.

Steampunk International officially goes on sale on 17th July and features the brand new Ulysses Quicksilver short story Reckless Engineering.

Steampunk International is available to pre-order on Kindle

You may have seen my post about Steampunk International last month. Well, if you prefer your reading material as a series of zeroes and ones, rather than in the more traditional processed tree carcass format, you will be pleased to hear that the anthology is now available to pre-order on Kindle here.

Steampunk International officially goes on sale on 17th July and features a brand new Ulysses Quicksilver short story entitled Reckless Engineering.

Don't forget that the previous Pax Britannia short story Worthless Remains features in Clockwork Cairo, which is also available for your Kindle.

The Great Ulysses Quicksilver Giveaway

This weekend, I will be attending the UK Games Expo, from 9.30am on Friday until 4.00pm on Sunday.

If you buy an ACE Gamebook from me, over the course of the weekend, you will also receive a FREE copy of The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus Volume 2 - containing the three Pax Britannia novels Evolution Expects, Blood Royal, and Dark Side - while stocks last. So that's potentially four books for a tenner!

Sounds like a win-win to me. ;-)

New Newsletter - Subscribers Welcome!

Having launched my blog 11 years ago, to keep readers informed about my various projects, I've finally got round to setting up a subscriber list, so that I can keep interested parties informed even more effectively.

If you sign up to receive my Newsletter, you will get the lowdown on all the different things I'm working on - from short stories to novels, and gamebooks to anthologies - as well as advance notice of when new Kickstarter projects are launching and information about events I'll be attending.

It would be great to have you along for the ride, and if you would like to subscribe, you can do so at the end of this link.

You can read more about my Privacy Policy and how I'll use your data here.

Pax Britannia Reading Order

Whether you've been following the adventures of Ulysses Quicksilver since the publication of Unnatural History in 2007 or not, with the release of a brand-new Ulysses Quicksilver story this summer - as part of the Steampunk International anthology published by Newcon Press - I thought it might be helpful if I published the correct reading order for the series to date.

Remember, this the chronological order in which the stories take place, not the order in which they were written.

1) Conqueror Worm - November 1797 - published in Evolution Expects
2) Unnatural History - April-June 1997 - first published in 2007
3) Leviathan Rising - July-August 1997 - first published in 2008
4) Fruiting Bodies* - September 1997 - published in El Sombra (2007)
5) Vanishing Point* - October 1997 - published in Leviathan Rising
6) Human Nature - November 1997 - first published in 2008
7) Christmas Past - December 1997 - published in Human Nature
8) Evolution Expects - January-February 1998 - first published in 2009
9) Blood Royal - March-April 1998 - first published in 2010
10) White Rabbit* - May 1998 - first published in 2007
11) Proteus Unbound - May 1998 - published in Dark Side
12) Worthless Remains - June 1998 - published in Clockwork Cairo (2017)
13) Dark Side - June 1998 - first published in 2010
14) Anno Frankenstein - September 1943 - first published in 2011
15) Time's Arrow - May 1998 (again) - first published in 2012
16) Tempus Fugit - June 1998 (again) - published in Abaddon X (2015)
17) Reckless Engineering - July 1998 - published in Steampunk International

Stories marked with an asterisk * are also available as part of The Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection eBook. The first three Ulysses Quicksilver novels, and associated short stories and novellas, have been collected together as The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus Vol.1, while the fourth, fifth and sixth (and associated short stories and novellas) are now available as The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus Vol.2.

You can even pick up the eBook of Ulysses Quicksilver's first adventure Unnatural History for free here! Just remember, "Evolution Expects!"

Steampunk Thursday: Reckless Engineering

I regularly get asked by fans of the Pax Britannia steampunk series when I will write a new Ulysses Quicksilver story. Well, if that applies to you, you will be pleased to know that I have a new one coming out this summer from Newcon Press, as part of the Steampunk International anthology, which combines steampunk stories from three different countries released by three different publishers in three different languages.

My contribution is entitled Reckless Engineering, and is the first story to move the Pax Britannia timeline forward properly since 2012's Time's Arrow.

Following a break-in at the top secret Whitehall facility known as 'Think Tank', agent of the crown Ulysses Quicksilver and his trusty manservant Nimrod set off in pursuit of the perpetrator. It is a chase that will take them from the railway sheds of London to the dockyards of Bristol, and an encounter with a long-dead engineering genius.

Steampunk International launches at this year's Eurocon, Nemo 2018, but you can pre-order your copy direct from Newcon Press by following this link.

Steampunk International

Available to pre-order now is Steampunk International, an anthology of brand-new steampunk stories with a difference.

Steampunk International is published in the UK by Newcon Press and showcases the very best steampunk stories from three different countries released by three different publishers in three different languages.

The UK contributors are George Mann, who has penned a new Newbury and Hobbes tale, Derry O’Dowd, and Yours Truly, with a new Pax Britannia story.

The three contributors from Finland are Magdalena Hai, winner of the Atorox Award and the Finnish Literary Export Prize, multiple award-winning Anne Leinonen, and J.S. Meresmaa, whose work has been shortlisted for the Anni Polva, Kuvastaja, and Atorox Awards.

There are also three contributors from Portugal - Anton Stark, Diana Pinguicha, and Pedro Cipriano, winner of Fórum Fantástico's Choice of the Year Award.

I was delighted when publisher and editor Ian Whates approached me last July about writing a tale to the anthology and saw an opportunity to move the Pax Britannia timeline on again, for the first time since the publication of the eighth Ulysses Quicksilver novel Time's Arrow in 2012.

The anthology actually launches at this year's Eurocon, but you can pre-order your copy of Steampunk International by following this link. And check back here on Thursday for the lowdown on my story Reckless Engineering.

An Homage to Georges Méliès

Today Google Doodles are celebrating trailblazing film director Georges Méliès with a the first Virtual Reality / 360° video. You can watch it here.

Of course, the Pax Britannia series featured its own homage to Georges Méliès on the cover to Pax Britannia: Dark Side, the sixth Ulysses Quicksilver adventure, published back in 2011, a cover that garnered the book a fair bit of interest.

And so popular and effective was that particular cover, that it was used again on the second Ulysses Quicksilver omnibus.

     

British Science Week

Seeing as how this week is British Science Week, it seemed like as good a time as any to plug my Pax Britannia steampunk books.

Early on in writing the series I made the decision not to include anything supernatural or magical in the books. Yes there are vampires and werewolves, but these are a form of genetic mutation.

However, having said there's no magic, there's actually magic aplenty in the books, it just goes under the catch-all term of 'mad science'. The crazy inventions and experiments of various characters have the same affect as magic on the narrative, helping to drive the plot into unexpected places and generally causing Ulysses Quicksilver and his friends no end of grief.

If you've not tried the books out for yourself yet, there are eight in total, plus various short stories, and the first six novels have been collected in two omnibuses.

     

Talking of mad science, Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein* text is published today, complete with husband Percy’s corrections of her misspellings.

Frankenstein inspired Stan Lee when he was creating the Incredible Hulk, and both of them inspired my own take on the Creature that appears in the Weird War Two adventure Anno Frankenstein.

* And first published 200 years ago this year.

Chatham Dockyard Festival of Steam & Transport

Despite my first steampunk novel having been published eleven years ago(!) in 2007, I have never visited Chatham Dockyard. But that's all about to change as this year I am going to be attending the Festival of Steam & Transport as one of their guest authors.

The event takes place on 1st - 2nd April 2018, on Easter Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday, and you can find out more here.

Scrooge and Marley (Deceased)

If you're a fan of my Pax Britannia books, then you'll love Scrooge and Marley (Deceased). Coming Soon...

NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! 3 days to go!

NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! is down to its final three days of funding.

I've you've yet to back my new gamebook - which merges J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Wendy with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, and gives the whole a steampunk twist - make sure you don't miss out and back today!