Origins Awards Nominations Out

The nominations list for this year’s Origins Awards just came out. I’m proud to see two projects I worked on make the cut this year: Leverage: The Roleplaying Game and The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design.

Of course, I only wrote small parts of each. The lion’s share of the credit goes to Cam Banks for developing the Leverage game and to Mike Selinker for editing the Kobold guide. They both did fantastic job shepherding multiple authors through their respective projects and fusing them together into amazing books.

Congrats to both Cam and Mike and to all the creators and developers behind the other nominees as well!

Want to Be a Gen Con Guest?

If you’re part of the tabletop games industry and plan on attending Gen Con, you can now apply to be an Industry Insider Guest of Honor at the show. I’ve been a part of this program ever since the show moved to Indianapolis back in 2003, and it’s fantastic fun. In the past, there’s been no clear way for people to get into the program, though, and Gen Con has decided it’s time to blaze that trail and set landing lights along it.

So, if you’re a professional in that industry and think you’d enjoy sitting on a number of panels during the show, you can now head over to the Gen Con site and apply for consideration. The spanking-new selection committee consists of three stalwarts of the program: Ken Hite, Stan!, and me. Please spread the word to anyone you think might be interested, as we’d love to have a large and diverse slate of guests to chat with on the panels. Thanks!

Twitter Chat on March 21 #SFFWRTCHT

Tomorrow evening, starting at 9 PM Eastern Time, March 21, I’ll be a guest on #SFFWRTCHT. That’s the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer Chat held on Twitter every Wednesday night and hosted by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. I’ll be answering all sorts of questions and chatting about many things, including Carpathia, 12 for ’12, the Magic: The Gathering comic, Kickstarter, and anything else people care to bring up.

To join in, all you have to do is get on Twitter and look for the #SFFWRTCHT hashtag. You can swing in and out as you like, and if you can’t make it, a transcript will be posted soon afterward for your reading pleasure. Hope to chat with you soon!

Many More Carpathia Raves

Just because the Shotguns & Sorcery Kickstarter sucked up nearly all my attention last week doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world stopped reading. Many of those folks even read Carpathia and were kind enough to say several nice things about it.

At the San Francisco & Sacramento Book Review, David Marshall gushes over the book.

This is a beautifully constructed horror novel with the tension ratcheting up inexorably as night falls on the Atlantic. A good word to describe it is relentless. You may not learn a great deal about true history, but the vampires, like the Titanic, are first class.

At Warpcore SF, Ros Jackson loved the book.

It’s not a relentless disaster orgy of fangs, blood, and people leaping to their deaths or drowning in icy water. It’s much more civilised, yet during the quieter passages I was on tenterhooks just as much as I was when the stakes came out… However at heart this is a thrilling disaster story and bite carnival, with vampires that sizzle like sausages at the touch of a cross but keep coming back, and it’s never too serious for its own good.

On his blog, Tony Lane gives the book high praise.

[T]his could well be Matt’s best work to date, and it certainly has the chance to capture the imagination of a wide audience. It is easy to read, has violence and bloodshed that is vital to the story and not just to shock, and most importantly in my eyes it is a very hard book to put down. I loved it start to finish.

Karen Conlin (formerly Karen Boomgaarden of TSR fame) heaps compliments on the book on Amazon.

For sheer creativity and excitement, this book deserves five stars… The pace picks up steam until it hits that breakneck speed at which if you can put the book down, I’ll say there’s something wrong with you… With just enough levity to break the tension, and tension crafted from word choice, dialog, mood, and more, Carpathia should be at the top of any horror aficionado’s “to read” list.

At Goodreads, Chris Bauer (who won an ARC of the book from me through the Crossing the Streams contest), wrote many kind things:

In the spirit of “taking your protagonists from the frying pan into the fire,” Forbeck does a fantastic job of creating tension and drama with subtle overtones, rather than ANY bludgeoning “shock-gore” scenes. It’s obvious significant research went into this work, and the attention to the little details really pays off… [H]is undead are classic apex predators based on Stoker’s Dracula and were strangely refreshing to read about.

Finally, Upstart Projects gives the book a sharp rave too.

Carpathia is cinematic in its scope… It has an intriguing premise, great characters, and is plain well-written.  If you’re looking to satiate your bloodlust for vampires,Carpathia is a good diversion from the recent crop that harkens back to the monster’s pop culture roots.

Magic Comics Selling Well

On Friday, IDW sent out the press release that confirms what anyone who read Diamond’s Previews the previous week already knew. The first Magic: The Gathering comic book miniseries sold well, and we already have a second miniseries in the works. It’s called Magic: The Gathering: The Spell Thief, and it follows the continuing adventures of Dack Fayden, the hero from the first miniseries.

Best of all, we’re keeping the whole team together, so you’ll not only get my writing but also Martin Cóccolo’s fantastic artwork and J. Edwin Steven’s amazing colors. Many thanks to editor Carlos Guzman for doing such a great job with the series after Denton Tipton handed the reins over to him and John Barber. Getting a licensed book rolling means putting many moving parts in order, and he does a great job of it.

So, how well is the book doing? According to the latest estimates from ICv2.com, Magic: The Gathering #1 and #2 were IDW’s bestselling books in February. I call that a win.

Thanks to everyone who went out and bought the comic. Just wait until you see what we have brewing up for you next. For a sample, check out the snazzy cover art from The Spell Thief #1 by Christopher Moeller. (Believe it or not, the alternate cover he did for Magic #1 was the first comic cover he’s done since Lucifer, from DC/Vertigo.)

The Shotguns & Sorcery Kickstarter Is Done!

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this soon, but thanks to everyone who lent a hand! I’m absolutely stunned at what a great day this has been.

The Shotguns & Sorcery Kickstarter began the day with $7,644 and 205 backers. When it was all over, we totaled up $12,800 and 332 backers, a gain of $5,216 and 127 backers. That’s well over a 50% increase in both numbers.

To put that in perspective, the best day we’d had before this – on both this Kickstarter and the last – only made it to under $2,000. Even though I lowered the stretch goal to unlock the last book from $12k to $10k yesterday, I doubted we’d make that. My wife told me to hold steady, and you all proved her right. Thanks so much!

I’m going to collapse in bed now after such a wonderful day. But I’ll be dreaming of writing three more books all night!

Entire Shotguns & Sorcery Trilogy Unlocked!

Wow! What a day! The Shotguns & Sorcery Kickstarter began the day at $7,644, and I wasn’t sure we were going to make it by the end of the night. I’m thrilled to report that we smashed through the $10,000 barrier at 4:36 PM, despite losing an hour to the Daylight Savings Time switch!

That unlocks all three of the books in the Shotguns & Sorcery trilogy. It also means that anyone who pledges $50 or more gets a free unsigned set of the Brave New World ebooks from the first Kickstarter.

Not to push too hard on people I’m already grateful too, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this makes the omnibus levels more attractive than ever. Rather than getting one autographed book in whichever format you were looking at, you can now get all three.

Also, the drive has only six hours or so left. Once it’s over, the doors close on this one. If you or a friend has been sitting on the fence about joining, it’s time to make the call.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped out with this. In particular, boosts from John Rogers, Scott Sigler, John Kovalic, and Neil Gaiman really primed the pump over the past day and a half, as did this morning’s article on Wired.com by Michael Harrison.

On top of that, though, I’m grateful to every one of you who Tweeted, blogged, shared, and/or harangued their friends and family and complete strangers about this project. The hardest part with any Kickstarter – well, any creative endeavor like this – is not always doing it. It’s getting people to know it’s happening, and for lending a hand with that, I’m truly grateful.

I’m even more grateful to those of you who were able to back the project at whatever level made sense to you. It’s truly humbling, and I’m determined to deliver the best stories I can to make it worth your while.

Thanks for encouraging my mad plan!

Book 2 Unlocked! Drive for Book 3 Ends Tonight!

Early this morning, we unlocked Book 2 in the Shotguns & Sorcery trilogy. Woo-hoot! Thanks to every one of the backers for making that happen. It’s been a wild ride to this point, and it’s all down to them.

From here, it’s a flat-out sprint for Book 3, as the drive ends tonight at just before midnight Central Time. Last night, I lowered the stretch goal for that from $12k to $10k, so it’s a much shorter distance to roll. At the moment, that’s only $1738 $1713 $1708 away and closing fast.

Spread the word far and wide! Michael Harrison helped out with that with an article this morning at Wired.com’s Geek Dad blog. You may already know the details, of course, but it’s a great place to point your friends for a quick recap or to get a summary for yourself.

Only 12 hours left!

Last Day! Lower the Goal!

As we roll toward the last day of the Shotguns & Sorcery Kickstarter drive, it seems clear that I set the final goal too high again. I think there may be a lot of reasons for this, and I hope to write a post-mortem about it all once this drive is over. Kickstarter is such a new thing – and writing 12 novels in a year is so insane – that I don’t have much history to base decisions on. In short – and in the best tradition of Indiana Jones – I’m making this up as I go.

Which I don’t think shocks any of you, right?

Anyhow, I really want to write these books – all three of them. So I’m going to do what I did last time to help ensure that.

I’m lowering the stretch goal for Book 3 – this time to $10k! 

So, help me out here, folks! I’m reaching in your direction. Reach out in mine. Tell anyone you know who might be interested. Consider jumping in if you’re on the fence, or jumping in farther if you’re already there. Remember, one of the things I cannot change about this drive is the end date, and that’s tomorrow, March 11, at just before midnight. It all blazes across the finish line then, ready or not.

Thanks to each and every one of you for your support. Here’s to a fantastic race to the finish!

Two Days Left!

The Shotguns & Sorcery Kickstarter is winding down to its final moments. As I write this, we have jut 56 hours to go, and the total stands at just under $7,000. HUGE thanks to everyone who chipped in and helped out.

I’m pretty confident we can crack the $8k barrier, which unlocks Book 2. I don’t know if we’ll make the $12k to unlock Book 3 as well, but that’s all part of the way a Kickstarter ratchets up the tension at the end, I suppose.

With so little time left, it’s vital to get the message out to everyone who might be interested. If you can help out with that in any way, I’d truly appreciate it. Meanwhile, I’ll sit here and refresh my web browser and check my email constantly until the very end!