StoryBundle just launched a new collection of superhero books curated by my friend Kevin Anderson. With StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay for a crate full of ebooks. For a minimum of $5, you get the basic bundle of five novels. These include:

• Captain Nemo: The Fantastic Adventures of a Dark Genius by Kevin J. Anderson
• Cynetic Wolf by Matt Ward
• Working Class Hero by James Robert Smith
• Dove Season by Robin Brande
• The Superhero’s Test by Lucas Flint

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular books, plus eight more more books, for a total of thirteen. These extra ones include:

• Playing a Hunch by Dean Wesley Smith
• Fid’s Crusade by David Reiss
• The Enlivening by Ashlyn Frost
• Nobody’s Hero by Mark Leslie
• Morning Sun by Jeremy Flagg
• Overlook by Jon Mollison
• Hellbent by Tina Glasneck
• Brave New World: Revolution by Matt Forbeck (hey, that’s me!)

This bundle is available only for a limited time. All books are provided as DRM-free ePub and Mobi files.

Also, when you make your payment, you have the option of donating 10% of your purchase to the Challenger Center for Space Education. It doesn’t cost you a penny extra, and the money goes to a good cause.

Even if you already have my Brave New World novels, this is a great deal on a lot of wonderful read. If you don’t have Brave New World: Revolution already, it’s even better. Be sure and check out the sale soon. It won’t last long.

Honestly, the whole show is loads of fun. My public schedule for the convention includes:

• Brave New World RPG demos on Friday at 12 PM and 2 PM and Saturday at 12 PM. There are still tickets left for these. Fair warning: I haven’t gotten too far on the second edition of the game yet, so we’re going to be shaking the dust off the first edition instead.
• A signing on Saturday at 3 PM.
• A panel on “Games & Stories” on Saturday at 4 PM, with James Lowder and Doug Niles.

I’ll be running around the hall with a few of my kids for the rest of the time, as well as hanging out and playing games. If you’re anywhere near Madison, Wisconsin, this weekend, you should join me there!

This is the show I never miss. It’s Gen Con 50–and my 36th time going in a row–so it’s sure to be even bigger than ever.

If you’re a gamer, there’s no better place to be, but Gen Con’s also a haven for readers and writers. The Writer’s Symposium features dozens of amazing writers chatting about their books and their craft, and I always appear on three or four panels with them. On top of that, there’s the Industry Insiders program, which stars dozens of the top game industry professionals talking about their craft. I’m on the advisory panel that selects these pros from a slew of applicants every year, and this year’s packed full of amazing talent.

Anyhow, here’s what’s on my public slate. (The rest of the time, I’m hanging out with friends, having business meetings, and playing games with my kids. Not necessarily in that order.)

Wednesday, August 16

• The Diana Jones Award party. (This is a private affair I host every year for industry professionals. If you’re one and don’t know about it, ping me for details.)

Thursday, August 17

• 5 PM: Writer’s Life: Develop Your Writing Process. With Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon, and John Helfers.
• Hitting the They Might Be Giants concert.

Friday, August 18

• 11 AM: The Secrets of Superhero RPGs: With Crystal Frasier, James Lowder, Jessica Price, and Amber Scott.
• 1 PM: Playing Exploding Kittens at the Worldbuilders party. All proceeds go to Worldbuilders, a fantastic charity!
• 6 PM: Writer’s Craft: How to Write Bestselling Tie-In Fiction. With David Mack, Aaron Rosenberg, and Christopher Morgan.

Saturday, August 19

• 11 AM: Humor in RPGs: Are You Having a Laugh? With James Wallis.
• 12 PM: Business of Writing: Hybrid Publishing–Covering All the Bases. With Kameron Hurley, Linda Robertson, and Gail Z. Martin.
• 1 PM: Signing in Author’s Avenue in the Exhibit Hall.
• 2 PM: Brave New Worlds Seminar. Come discover what’s in store for the second edition of my Brave New World RPG!
• 3 PM: Every Meeple Tells A Story: Games & Narrative. With Jake Alley, Nicole Lindroos, James Lowder, and James Wallis.
• 4 PM: Brave New Worlds demo. A demonstration of the second edition of my Brave New World RPG. All proceeds go to Child Advocates!
• 6 PM: Writer’s Craft: Writing Stories That Are Fun to Read. With Larry Correia and Aaron Rosenberg.

Today, the Bundle of Holding launched a deal that features the PDFs of my 1999 roleplaying game, Brave New World. This includes all of the products currently available for the line: nine full books. The only thing that’s missing is the long out-of-print guide’s screen, known as the Power Shield, as that’s never been released as a PDF.

After the American dream died in 1963 – when superpowered terrorists assassinated Jacqueline Kennedy – and the Bicentennial Battle destroyed Chicago in 1976, the USA has become a battleground where superpowered people known as deltas fight a US government under never-ending martial law.

The central theme of the game is this: How much freedom are you willing to give up to feel safe? 

Brave New World was inspired by many comics I loved, including Watchmen, Kingdom Come, Marshal Law, and American Flagg! Marvel’s Civil War came out many years later, but the themes of that epic storyline make for an uncanny match with my game.

The total retail value of the titles in this offer is $120. If you pay just $11.95, you get all four titles in the Starter Collection (retail value: $57) as DRM-free PDFs:

• Brave New World corebook (retail price $18): The 209-page rulebook.
• Ravaged Planet (retail $15): The player’s guide to the world of this alternate-history 1999.
• Delta Prime and Defiants (retail $12 each): The sourcebooks for government deltas and the rebels who fight them.

Those who pay more than the threshold (average) price – which is set at $19.95 to start – also get the entire Bonus Collection with five more titles (retail value $63):

• Bargainers and Covenant (retail $12 each): Character sourcebooks for two opposing forces: the deltas who broker deals with demonic forces, and the super-agents of the Catholic Church.
• Crescent City (retail $12): From the ruins of Chicago rose this amazing high-tech city, home to more deltas than anywhere else.
• Evil Unlimited (retail $12): If you want to use your super-powers to make a fortune, go to these guys.
• Glory Days (retail $15): The World War II-era sourcebook for Brave New World – a time before it all went bad.

Note that 10% of the proceeds from your purchase go to benefit Human Rights Watch. Seems perfect, right?

The sale starts today at the Bundle of Holding, and it runs through 2PM Eastern US time, Tuesday, May 17. So, go grab it fast before it disappears!

As a college basketball fan, I know all too well how March Madness can sneak its way into April. I’ve been to four Final Fours in my life, including three in which my alma mater (the University of Michigan) appeared. I even drove from Ann Arbor to Seattle in 1989 to watch Michigan win the championship in double overtime. I’d love to be in Atlanta this weekend, but I’ll be watching it from home instead.

In honor of Michigan making it into the Final Four, I’ll continue the sale until Monday evening, bringing it to a close when the NCAA basketball tournament comes to an end. If you want a trio of great books at a low price, don’t wait until it’s too late!

Sure, I could have, but that’s not how I roll. Sooo, you can now grab the omnibus through DriveThruFiction.com too if you like. They offer the exact same files as you’ll find here: copies in ePub, Kindle, and PDF formats, all free of DRM. None of the other retailers can offer that, which is why you won’t find this massive bargain on Amazon, BN.com, iBooks, and so on. Only in the places where it’s the best deal for you.

I just posted the Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World: Omnibus in the ebooks store on this site. That includes all three ebooks in the trilogy, zipped up into one big file, at a fantastic price. Normally each ebook goes for $4.99 for a total of $14.97. Right now you can grab them for the low price of only $7.50.

That’s 588 pages worth of action-packed superhero fiction for less than the cost of a movie ticket, and I guarantee it’ll last you longer any film. This deal is available only here, on my site, for a limited time.

If you prefer to hold an actual book in your hands, there’s good news on that front too. I slashed the prices of the hardcopies for sale over at DriveThruFiction.com. The hardcovers were $20 and they’re now $15, while the softcovers were $15 and are now a bargain at only $10 each. Also, if you buy them there, I toss in copies of the ebooks for you for free.

The hardcopies will likely stay that way for a while, but I suspect I’ll wind up raising the price of the Omnibus sometime soon, to bring it back in line with the individual books. Grab it now while it’s hot!

Gen Con was fantastic. I had my wife and kids with me the entire five days of the show, and they were wonderful. Marty (my eldest) spent most of his time with me, while Ann wrangled the quads. Gen Con’s a fantastic time, but it’s hyperstimulating even for adults, so we let the kids have it in small doses.

I, of course, gorged myself on it and saw all sorts of wonderful people, old friends, new fans, and fun folks. Highlights of the show include:

• The Diana Jones Award party, which I host, at which I rode a mechanical bull for the first time in my life. I set the record for the night at 41 seconds. My secret? Tip the bull operator well.
• Playtesting Legendary: The Marvel Deck-Building Game with Marty and the designer, Devin Low. A great game with lots going on and plenty of depth, it’s supposed to come with something over 500 cards, which means you can play it forever.
• Sitting on panels with the Industry Insider Guests of Honor and the Writer’s Symposium. I have lots of smart, talented friends, and it’s great to see them in their element like that.
• The Tsuro of the Seas launch party, to which Ray Wehrs invited Marty and me. Ray’s a wonderful guy, and he and Calliope Games know all about fun.
• Meeting Justin Gary and interviewing him about his Kickstarter for SolForge, a game he designed with Richard Garfield.
• Being a Dream Date for the ENnies cocktail reception. Thanks to Ben McFarland for winning that auction. He’s an excellent designer and a strong supporter of the industry.
• The showing of a rough cut of the InSpectres movie I co-wrote, co-produced, and acted in as a zombie, from Reactor 88 Studios.
• The Reactor 88 Studios afterparty, after the film. We had a blast listening to two of my great friends spin tunes.
• Playing in the Apples to Apples tournament with my entire family. We lost badly but had a great time with the family who shared the table with us.
• Playing Munchkin Apocalypse with Andrew Hackard in the convention hall with all my kids on Sunday. He’s a gracious host, a great teacher of games, and wonderful with kids, not to mention one hell of an editor/designer/manager.
• Delivering copies of the Brave New World Omnibus to several of my Kickstarter backers at Gen Con and chatting with many others. It’s so great to meet the people who make it possible for me to write those book this year.

All right, I lied. That was already enough for a single blog post. I’ll try to add more soon. It’s been one wild summer.

This completes the Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World trilogy and the first of my 12 for ’12 trilogies. I’m going to have them available as print-on-demand books soon, but they’re still wending their way through the printer’s approval system. In any case, you can grab the ebooks today!

Brave New World: Revelation

The Truth Is Finally Revealed

In the aftermath of the mass breakout of superpowered deltas from New Alcatraz, fear and chaos grips the United States. Patriot – the leader of the rebellion known as the Defiance – and his friends Street, Lisa, and Charge work tirelessly to help the people in their organization’s swollen ranks.

When a madman attacks a family of rogue deltas hiding in the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies, Patriot and his friends rush to their rescue. What they find when they arrive forces them to grab the family and race to Denver, where they wind up in a standoff against Delta Prime, the government agency of superpowered soldiers determined to crush their rising resistance.

In the course of this, the second book of Matt Forbeck’s Brave New World trilogy, the heroes of the Defiance learn more of the truth about the disappearance of the city of Chicago back in 1976, and what they discover will change the world forever.

Brave New World: Resolution

Meanwhile, I’ve been sending out the hardcopies of Brave New World: Revolution to the people who backed at the $35 and $50 levels. I still have a few folks who haven’t responded to the survey yet, so if you’re expecting to get one of these and didn’t get a survey from Kickstater, don’t be shy. Check your spam filter, or drop me a line at matt@forbeck.com.

In other news, Brave New World: Revolution hit the #1 spot onDriveThruFiction.com the day after the ebook debuted! It’s since slipped to #2 and been hovering there all week, right behind Don’t Read This Book, an anthology by Chuck Wendig, in which I have a story. I’m just thrilled to see it rocket so high. Many thanks to everyone who’s bought it.

If you enjoyed Brave New World: Revolution, I’d appreciate if if you could take the time to tell people about it. The best way is often through online reviews. The ebook is now for sale through most major retailers, so if you frequent one of these places, stop by and tell the folks there how much you liked the book. It’s also up at GoodReads – thanks to some help from Abhinav Jain – so you can leave a rating or review there too.

• GoodReads
• Kindle
• Nook
• DriveThruFiction.com
• Forbeck.com store

Thanks again for all your support! It’s both humbling and thrilling at the same time, and I truly do appreciate it.