The Toy & Game Inventor Awards

200809170041.jpgThe fine people at the Chicago Toy and Game Fair (Chi-TAG) and the Toy and Game Inventors Expo (TAGIE) just launched a new awards program aimed at honoring not toys and games but the people behind them: the TAGIE Awards. On November 21, at a gala dinner at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, they plan to hand out the inaugural awards for Excellence in Game Inventing, Excellence in Toy Inventing, and “Rookie” Rising Star Inventor of the Year.

If you are a toy or gaming industry professional, you can join in for free by stepping up and nominating anyone you think is worthy of any of the awards. Then you can sit back and wait for the fun with the rest of us.

I’ve been asked to attend the dinner as a guest, and I’ll be participating in the “Meet the Experts” at the show on November 23. If you’re in the area and want to chat, this is probably as good a chance as any to sit down and say hi!

Mutants in the House!

mutant-chronicles-poster.jpgUPS just showed up with a big box o’ books from Random House. I sliced it open to find my author’s copies of my novelization of the upcoming Mutant Chronicles film.

There’s nothing like holding a fresh copy of one of your novels in your hand. It has that new-book smell.

To celebrate, I found a copy of a movie poster that uses the same image as the one on the cover of the book. I also tracked down a trailer for the film. Consider it a preview for the novel as well.

Flames Rising Needs Monsters

My friends at FlamesRising.com are looking for writers and artists to contribute monsters for this year’s run up to Halloween. I chipped in a fun one, which you can look for on their site next month. You can also find bits from E.E. Knight, Jess Hartley, Jason Morningstar, Monica Valentinelli, Rich Dansky, Gregor Hutton, Alana Abbott, Jared Sorenson, Jason Blair, Brad McDevitt, Leanne Buckley, Jeff Preston, Aaron Acevedo, and many more.

If you’d like to join the fun, just hit their site and give them a shout.

Of Dice and Pen Discount

29460489.jpgMy short story “Prometheus Unwound” first appeared in The Book of All Flesh, edited by Jim Lowder and published by Eden Studios, and it won the Origins Award for Best Game-Related Short Work of 2001. Flying Pen Press and editor Fred Poutre recently reprinted it in a new collection of game-designer written stories called Of Dice and Pen. This features the last of Gary Gygax’s Gord the Rogue stories, co-written with K.R. Bourgoine, plus stories from Chris Clack (of Inner City Games), Andrew Looney (of Looney Labs), Jim Cambias (of Zygote Games), Liz Danforth, Rick Loomis (of Flying Buffalo), and many others.

As a publication present, Fred gave all the authors a code for a Friends of Flying Pen direct-order discount of 20% off the book and then asked us to pass it on to whomever we like. I like the people who visit my website, so here it is: B7TV76.

If you want a taste of the contents of the book, you can download “Prometheus Unwound” for free right here, right now. Don’t say I never gave you nothing.

Blood Bowl: Killer Contract #3 Out Now!

BBKC_03_A_.jpgThe Boom Studios website informs me that Blood Bowl: Killer Contract #3 hit comic-book stores yesterday. It also shows the book with a snazzy, new cover I’ve never seen before (apparently that was Cover C I had up earlier), provided by the series’ stunning artist Lads Helloven. I haven’t seen the book yet myself, but I plan to go hunting for it while I’m in Madison today at the ACD Distribution open house. If you spot it in the wild, let me know what you think.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the free, nine-page preview of this issue, courtesy of Comic Book Resources.

Tweeting

I’ve joined Twitter, and I’m using it as a sort of sideblog on this site. See the box at the top of the first sidebar for a sample or follow me directly if you like.

Mutant Chronicles Cover

MCCover.jpgYesterday, an envelope showed up from Random House (which owns Del Rey) with a short stack of cover flats* for my novelization of the Mutant Chronicles film. The new cover looks great, much better than the original one Del Rey had mocked up. Tom Jane makes a great Mitch Hunter.

Better yet, Del Rey has posted an excerpt from the book on its website. Paradox gave me a tremendous amount of freedom with the book, allowing me to create many new scenes to fill in some of the blank spots in the film’s necessarily compressed story. I’m pleased with out it turned out.

The Mutant Chronicles novelization goes on sale September 30, I’m told. Be sure to look for it then.

*Covers are printed on a different kind of paper than the rest of the book, so they’re done separately from the pages. Most publishers are smart enough to have the printer make a couple hundred extra unfolded covers–known as “cover flats”–for promotional use. The cost of adding a relatively small number of covers to the regular print run isn’t much at all, so you wind up with a stack of inexpensive, full-color ad slicks for the book.

ACD Open House

My friends at ACD have asked me to come up to Madison, Wisconsin, for their open house for retailers later this week. I’ll be there this Thursday, September 11, starting at 2 PM. If you’re a games retailer anywhere nearby, you should stop by and say hi. I’ll be happy to scribble my name all over anything you like, within the limits of the law. It doesn’t even have to be mine.