Lightning Kings

Here’s something else I worked on that never made it over to the States: Inazuma-Oh! (That’s “Lightning King” in Japanese, I’m told.) It was originally a Japanese set of customizable racing cars that clipped together in three different levels. You mixed and matched layers, then rammed them into each other to see which could dish out or take the beating best.

At the request of Playmates Toys, I came up with a new set of factions and names for the various cards, along with the framework for a storyline to tie it all together. Tomy apparently put out the toys in Europe, where they failed to set the world on fire, so they never hit shelves in the US. Despite that, I had a lot of fun working on it. Here’s hoping they come back someday.

Die Geister von Ascalon Available Now

The German version of Guild Wars: Ghosts of AscalonGuild Wars: Die Geister von Ascalon – officially hit stores yesterday in Germany. It’s published by Panini, a publisher I know best from its long relationship with Marvel Comics in Italy and through my friend Marco Lupoi. If you speak German or can fake it well enough, you can download and read the first three chapters for free.

Big thanks go out to translator Cora Hartwig, as it can’t be easy to translate a fantasy novel like this. My favorite part of the free sample is the translation of my dedication:

Von Matt: Wie immer gebührt der größte Dank meiner Frau Ann und meinen Kindern Marty, Pat, Nick, Ken und Helen. Ohne ihre Liebe, Unterstützung und ihr Verständnis kann ich gar nichts tun.

It just tickles me to see “Frau Ann” and “meinen Kindern Marty, Pat, Nick, Ken und Helen.”

Give My Old Games Good Homes

Now that I’m done running around for the summer, my son Marty has stepped up to give me a hand with clearing out my closets and attic, which are clogged with old games, books, and more that haven’t seen enough love over the past few years. He’s putting them up on eBay for me, one at a time.

Part of the impetus for this is that a small disaster struck while I was at Gen Con. The quad boys’ bedroom sits directly over my office, and their toilet overflowed. The water rained down into my office and wrecked the ceiling and the carpet below, along with a set of paneled doors in between. It also took out a few comics and games in the closet behind those doors.

Fortunately, I had my laptop with me at Gen Con, besides which I always keep a continuous backup of all my data both onsite and off (I use BackBlaze for the latter). We’re insured, and that’s covering everything, less the deductible. The real drag is not being able to use my office much until the work is complete.

Getting forced out of my office made me want to clear out more room in the house. We’re in a good-sized place, but with seven of us it sometimes feel packed to the gills. The best fix for such clutter is to get rid of things we’re not using. To that end, we’re having a yard sale on August 28 to clear out the kids’ old toys, bikes, clothes, and so on. My extra games, comics, books, and such, though, are headed for eBay.

I set up a widget to show off what Marty’s posted there. If you have requests for certain things I might have, let me know and I’ll see if I have any to spare. And if you can, give my old games a good home.

New Amortals Review

Gill Polack recently read my upcoming novel Amortals. In her review, she writes:

I keep wanting to use that old slogan “Tight, taut and terrific” about Amortals, which is accurate, but oh, so wrong. There’s not a wasted word. There’s not an idea that doesn’t make sense. I meant to start it tonight and finish other work, then finish it tomorrow, but it’s a read-at-one-sitting book so I’ve rescheduled some other things.

Thanks, Gill!

Listen In On Gen Con

During all my running around at Gen Con, I wound up being recorded for three different podcasts. In the first, Cam Banks and I chatted with Ryan Macklin and Kevin Weiser for This Just In … From Gen Con! We ranged over a lot of topics, including the Smallville RPG and the Diana Jones Award. It was 11 AM on Gen Con Thursday, so we were all still relatively fresh.

Next, Jason Pintre recorded “The Intersection of Games and Stories,” a seminar that Jeff Tidball, Stan!, and I ran at 11 AM on Gen Con Saturday. Jason posted it on his Genesis of Legend Publishing site, along with a handful of others he enjoyed.

Finally, while Marty and I wandered around the exhibit hall on Gen Con Sunday, Don Dehm of Pulp Gamer dragged us into an all-star podcast he was recording with Mike Selinker, James Ernest, and Marcelo Figueroa. Guido TeuberLisa StevensPete Fenlon, and Jean Vanaise popped through too, and Marty even commented on how much fun he was having.

For extra points, listen to all three in a row and hear how my voice deteriorates as the convention rolls along.


Tied-In Paperback Out

I mentioned before that the IAMTW put out an excellent e-book entitled Tied In: The Business, History and Craft of Media Tie-In Writing. Besides being out for the Kindle and other e-book formats, it’s also now available as a trade paperback. If you’re a fan of tie-ins and would like to know about how they make their way to you, be sure to pick it up.