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.

A few reviews of my work — both past and future — have come in from different quarters over the past week. Here’s a quick roundup.

Over at BlogCritics, Greg Barbrick raves over Book of Extreme Facts. He bought it as a Christmas gift for his son but couldn’t resist reading it himself. I had a wonderful time doing the research for this book and co-writing it with IDW founder Kris Oprisko, and I think it shows throughout.

Guys Lit Wire enjoyed Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon. As the review states up front, “Books based on computer games? It’s the best of both worlds!”

On her blog, Gill Polack gives Carpathia its first non-blurb review I’m aware of. She calls it out for being a bit pulpy in spots — a charge to which I’ll gladly cop — but she winds up loving it despite that. As she says:

Forbeck’s capacity to build tension is wonderful. Where most writers would add one, two or even three lines of worry, he adds a fourth and a fifth and they’re all well-founded and reasoned out. We know that things are going to go wrong (the Titanic, after all, did sink) but in Carpathia it goes wrong in all kinds of new ways. In a typically Forbeckian fashion, characters are not wasted and the story is fast and evil right until the end.

It’s a tribute to Stoker, and a good one.

To top all that off — and to get away from my work — fellow Angry Roboteer Lauren Beukes assembled a wonderful collection of recommended Christmas gift books from many of her worldly and famous writer friends, among which I’m happy to count myself. Check out both Part One and Part Two for the full list. (I chipped in a graphic novel recommendation in Part Two.) It’s a fantastic roundup, and I wish I not only had every one of the recommended books in hand but the time to read them all.

PLUS: Forgot to mention Paul Barrett’s kind review of Vegas Knights on his blog too. “A good book that will keep you engaged and is well worth your time.”

This past Sunday, I was named RPG Geek of the Week over at RPG Geek. I’m flattered all to hell, of course, and I’ve been taking care of my duties over at the RPG Geek forums. These consist entirely of answering the barrage of questions the fine folks over there have been flinging at me all week.

If you’d care to read my answers to queries that range from the standard to the provocative to the odd, head on over and give it a look. And if you find you have some questions of your own that I still haven’t bothered to answer, chip in over there, and I’ll give those a shot too.

IDW recently released this image of the card that will accompany the first issue of the Magic: The Gathering comic I wrote for them. Like all the cards for the series, it’s an older card with gorgeous new art, which makes it collectible and fun but not something anyone should feel forced to buy so they can use it in their game. It features the series’ hero doing what he does best: taking something that’s not his.

The first issue is due to hit stores in December. I cannot wait for you all to read it!

Over at Kobold Quartlery, to celebrate the release of the Kobold Guide to Board Game Design, they’ve asked a number of the contributors, “What’s the first board game you fell in love with?” I gave them an answer, and they posted it this week.

Hint: It’s Dungeon, but hustle on over there to see why. While you’re at it, check out the rest of the essays up so far, from Mike Selinker and Richard Levy.

My pal Ed Healy has spent the last several weeks wandering the country and visiting game stores, helping promote games. Along the way, he’s filmed all sorts of people telling stories about games and what they mean to them. For a heartwarming example, check out blind game store owner Phil Glotfelty’s account of meeting a customer who was deaf. Lester Smith and I met with Ed while he was at Noble Knight Games in Janesville, Wisconsin, a few weeks ago, and Ed recorded my story about how I first got involved with adventure games.

It may be coincidence that this was released during Speak Out With Your Geek Out, but I’m happy to take advantage of that and declare this my official geeky post for the week.

Once again, I’ll be at guest at this year’s Geek.Kon up in Madison, Wisconsin, which runs from September 9 through 11. I’m joining a fantastic group of guests, including my pals Bill Bodden, Troy Denning, Jim Frenkel, John Kovalic, Matt McElroy, Aaron Pavao, and Monica Valentinelli.

I may be at the show Friday or Sunday, but I’ll be there for sure all day Saturday, September 10. So far, my Saturday schedule looks like this:

• 9 AM: Designing Game Mechanics
• 10 AM: Ebooks vs. Traditional Publishing
• 11 AM: Autographs
• 1:30 PM: Writing for Shared Worlds
• 2:30 PM: World Building
• 3:30 PM: Writing Panel
• 5 PM: Getting Published in Gaming
• 8 PM: Tie-In Fiction
• 9 PM: Guests Geek Out Panel

It’s been a crazy few weeks since Gen Con as I scramble to catch up with deadlines and help Ann get the kids ready for school. During that time, I’ve written the first issue of an ongoing comic (details coming soon), polished off the first draft of the second Dust novel, and helped out with the Marvel tabletop RPG development team. Next I’m sprinting away on Carpathia, but before I put my nose to the virtual grindstone again, I wanted to mention another cool project I’m involved in.

My friend Dan Verssen makes some of the best military games out there. I played a lot of his Modern Naval Battles in college, and it was a real pleasure to get to know him in person as I joined the tabletop games industry. He’s tinkering with a new board game called Global Domination, and he asked me to help him with the color text for the game’s cards. It’s been a ball working with him, and I’m looking forward to playing the game myself.

Every now and then at SFSignal.com, they gather together a group of authors and ask them a question. This time around, they drew my name from the hat, and the question of the day is: “If you could reboot a book series, which one would it be?” Scroll all the way down to the bottom to read my heretical answer.

Cyril Pasteau gives Amortals an excellent review over at his website. Among other things, he says:

“Amortals is a very enjoyable summer read. It is packed with action and reads like a Hollywood blockbuster script.”

That’s just the sort of feedback I like.