Archive
The Twelve Books of Christmas: Part Seven
My seventh book of Christmas is another multi-author anthology from the excellent Stone Skin Press. In The Lion and the Aardvark, no fewer than seventy authors give their takes on Aesop-style fables for the modern age. While all of the stories will raise a wry smile from adult readers, most also make nice bedtime stories for the young’uns, teaching them a few things about pride, critical thinking, and other important matters just as Aesop’s originals did.
My contribution was a tale I called “The Lemmings and the Sea,” which was based on a story my dad told me when I was small: that lemmings threw themselves of cliffs not to commit mass suicide, but out of overconfidence: after all, they had successfully crossed every body of water they had encountered so far. I turned that idea into a story about the risks of following leaders uncritically when they urge us to stay the course.
Here is what some reviewers said about it:
“Another solid anthology product from Stone Skin Press. If you haven’t been reading their collections, I strongly recommend you do so.”
– Goodreads“I have always loved Æsop’s Fables, so leaped upon a modern collection of similar tales with eager glee! And I have not been disappointed.”
– DriveThruRPG
…and the book’s page on the Stone Skin Press web site is here. Links to various online retailers can be found on the My Books page.
Tomorrow, and every day until Christmas, I will be covering another title. If you’re not done with your Christmas shopping, or if you are expecting to receive some gift tokens, take a look: you might find something you like.
Click here for Part One: Colonial Horrors.
Click here for Part Two: Nazi Moonbase.
Click here for Part Three: Werewolves – A Hunter’s Guide.
Click here for Part Four: Theseus and the Minotaur.
Click here for Part Five: The New Hero.
Click here for Part Six: Knights Templar – A Secret History.
Click here for Part Eight: Thor – Viking God of Thunder.
Click here for Part Nine: Tales of the Frozen City.
Click here for Part Ten: Blood and Honor.
The Twelve Books of Christmas: Part Three
Today, I am showcasing another book I wrote for the Dark Osprey line: Werewolves: A Hunter’s Guide. As always, you can find links to various online retailers on the My Books page.
This was a companion volume to two previous titles, covering zombies and vampires. In the first, author Joe McCullough had established the fiction of the Nightmen, a fictional U.S. Army unit specializing in supernatural warfare. Using this as a basis, I examined werewolves in film, folklore (including historical trials), and elsewhere.
The first thing I discovered was that there are many different kinds of werewolf. As well as the classic movie version – the “viral” werewolf – I identified shamanic werewolves created by spirit travel, sorcerous werewolves created by witchcraft – by far the most common kind in records of medieval trials – werewolves created by divine and saintly curses, and those arising from delusion and other mental illness. I also looked into other animal shapechangers, such as Native American skinwalkers and Japanese hengeyokai.
I had almost as much fun with the various werewolf-hunting organizations worldwide. In addition to the Nightmen of the U.S. Army, you will find the Tyana Society founded by Benjamin Franklin, which did much to combat British Freemasons in the Revolutionary War; Britain’s Talbot Group, founded during World War II for commando and anti-supernatural operations; the Japanese yokai jingcha, the aristocratic Zaroff Society, among others. The obligatory Nazi werewolves are covered, as are the ulfhednar berserkers of Norse traditions.
Here is what some reviewers had to say:
“I can’t imagine anyone with even a passing interest in horror and werewolves passing on this particular book, but if you’re considering doing so, then well…. just think very, very carefully before the next full moon.”
– Unbounded Worlds
“I don’t usually take notes when I read a book for entertainment, but in this case I did. … [A] well-researched, lavishly illustrated and clearly organized book.”
– Goodreads
…and here’s a link to the book’s page on Osprey’s web site. It is available in paperback, ePub, and PDF formats.
Tomorrow, and every day until Christmas, I will be covering another title. If you’re not done with your Christmas shopping, or if you are expecting to receive some gift tokens, take a look: you might find something you like.
Click here for Part One: Colonial Horrors.
Click here for Part Two: Nazi Moonbase.
Click here for Part Four: Theseus and the Minotaur.
Click here for Part Five: The New Hero, vol. 1.
Click here for Part Six: Knights Templar – A Secret History.
Click here for Part Seven: The Lion and the Aardvark.
Click here for Part Eight: Thor – Viking God of Thunder.
Click here for Part Nine: Tales of the Frozen City.
Click here for Part Ten: Blood and Honor.
Colonial Horrors: Denver Life Interview and Appearances
Hanna Smith of Denver Life magazine recently interviewed me about Colonial Horrors. You can find the interview here.
I’ll be at The Bookies bookstore in Denver on October 29th for a reading and signing. It’s at 4315 E Mississippi Ave, a block east of South Colorado Boulevard: I’ll be there from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.
Halloween night I will be reading and signing at Denver’s famous Tattered Cover bookstore in LoDo. The address is 1628 16th Street (at Wynkoop), and I will be there from 7:00 pm.
I will be updating this post with more information, link, and reviews as they become available.
If you aren’t in Denver, you can find the book at your favorite bookstore or e-tailer. I have posted some links on the My Books page.
Colonial Horrors: Goodreads Giveaway!
I’m looking forward to the release of my anthology Colonial Horrors in October. Between now and Halloween, I’ll be posting details of promotional events, including some readings and appearances that I will be doing in the Denver area. The first, though, is global: a Goodreads giveaway where you can win one of three copies that are up for grabs.
Here’s the publisher’s blurb for the book:
The most spine-tingling suspense stories from the colonial era—including Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, and H. P. Lovecraft—are presented anew to the contemporary reader.
This stunning anthology of classic colonial suspense fiction plunges deep into the native soil from which American horror literature first sprang. While European writers of the Gothic and bizarre evoked ruined castles and crumbling abbeys, their American counterparts looked back to the Colonial era’s stifling religion and its dark and threatening woods.
Today the best-known tale of Colonial horror is Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” although Irving’s story is probably best-known today from various movie versions it has inspired. Colonial horror tales of other prominent American authors—Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Fenimore Cooper among them—are overshadowed by their bestsellers and are difficult to find in modern libraries. Many other pioneers of American horror fiction are presented afresh in this breathtaking volume for today’s reading public.
Some will have heard the names of Increase and Cotton Mather in association with the Salem witch trials, but will not have sought out their contemporary accounts of what were viewed as supernatural events. By bringing these writers to the attention of the contemporary reader, the book will help bring their names—and their work—back from the dead. Featuring stories by Cotton Mather, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft, and many more.
The book was inspired by the success of the TV show Sleepy Hollow – now canceled, alas – and my involvement with Colonial Gothic, Rogue games’ tabletop roleplaying game of adventure, horror, and conspiracy at the dawn of American history. As I read more about the period, I found a whole body of literature – some famous, some long forgotten – and discovered the native soil of American horror fiction.
Publisher Pegasus Books has done a bang-up job of design and production, creating a book that I’m very proud of. Here are a few more links:
Colonial Horrors at Pegasus Books
Amazon
Amazon.co.uk
Barnes & Noble
Waterstone’s
Books-A-Million
Goodreads
2016: The Year in (belated) Review
Here it is, March already. How did that happen?
While a lot of the most popular posts on this blog are about the old days (and especially my Games Workshop days), I also like to keep readers up to date with what I’m doing now – so go to My Books and BUY! BUY! BUY!
Ahem.
Anyway, here’s a brief look at what came out in 2016.
GAMES AND BOOKS
Dawnbringer
Danish game developer Kiloo is best known for their hit mobile game Subway Surfers. They hired me to help develop the setting and characters for this high fantasy swipe-and-slash game for iOS and Android. You play a fallen angel battling demons in a ruined world, and searching for redemption along the way.
Kiloo’s Dawnbringer page
My earlier post about Dawnbringer
Of Gods and Mortals: Celts
The first army supplement for Andrea Sfiligoi’s mythological skirmish game, and yet another chapter in my ongoing love affair with Celtic history and myth.
Ganesha Games’ Of Gods and Mortals page
My earlier post about Of Gods and Mortals: Celts
The Investigators of Arkham Horror
I contributed five stories to this gorgeously-presented collection based on Fantasy Flight’s acclaimed Cthulhu Mythos boardgame.
Fantasy Flight Games’ page
My earlier post about The Investigators of Arkham Horror
Nazi Moonbase
All the Nazi super-science conspiracy theories I could find, collected and wrapped up in a unifying narrative that also explains the urgency behind the Cold War space race.
Osprey Publishing’s Nazi Moonbase page
My earlier post about Nazi Moonbase
Cthulhu Confidential
I edited the text of Robin Laws’ thought-provoking solo Cthulhupulp game, where the Mythos is arguably the least of the horrors.
Pelgrane Press’ Cthulhu Confidential page
ARTICLES
Pyramid 3/92: Zombies
I contributed “The Viking Dead” on Icelandic draugur and haugbui, as well as a systemless look at several varieties of “Indian Ghouls.”
Buy it here
Pyramid 3/87: Low-Tech III
“Tempered Punks” contains some systemless advice for dealing with gadget-happy players whose modern knowledge wrings unbalancing power from old-time technology.
Buy it here
Fenix, Kickstarter special edition
I contributed a systemless article titled “Mummies: A New Approach” to support this bilingual Swedish-English roleplaying magazine. It includes seven mummy sub-types based on the ancient Egyptian multiple-soul concept, along with descriptions of ancient Egyptian mummy amulets with powers to affect both the living and the undead.
Fenix Kickstarter page
Fenix #6/2016
My Call of Cthulhu adventure “Spirit of the Mountain” takes the investigators into the Wild West.
Fenix back issues page
Fenix #2/2016
“La Llorona” discusses the famous Southwestern ghost, with notes for Speltidningen’s Western RPG. I’m told that an English-language edition of Western is in the works: I’ll have more to say about that in the future.
Fenix back issues page
Aviation History, September 2016
I indulge my love of vintage aviation with “Aussie Battler,” tracing the rushed, post-Pearl-Harbor development and surprising career of Australia’s home-grown (and largely improvised) CAC Boomerang fighter.
Aviation History magazine
Freebies
I posted a couple of new pieces in 2016, including “Converting Between Call of Cthulhu and Colonial Gothic” (which does exactly what it says on the tin) and “A Green, Unpleasant Land,” which presents some previously-unpublished British Call of Cthulhu adventure seeds I wrote in early 1986 for Games Workshop’s supplement of a similar name.
Go to the Freebies page
Nazi Moonbase – The First Reviews
My Dark Osprey book Nazi Moonbase has been out for a couple of weeks now, and is starting to garner some good reviews. If you’d like to know what other people are thinking about the book, here are some links. I’ll add more in the comments section below as I come across them.
Amazon.com: currently rated at 4+ stars. “A great read,” “great dark fantasy … good fun!” and “very well melded fact and fiction” are among the comments.
Goodreads.com: Currently rated at 3.5 stars. “…for those of you who like science fictional worldbuilding (or Nazi Moonbase-building), you’ll have quite a treat.”
Suvudu.com: A nice background article on my book and its place within the greater realm of Nazi superscience conspiracy theories. It sums up very nicely how this became such an irresistible topic for conspiracy fans.
As a lifelong vintage aviation geek who was lucky enough to grow up during the hottest part of the space race, I had a lot of fun researching and writing this book. There are some wild conspiracy theories out there, from Nazi flying saucers to the hidden Antarctic base to the faking of the Apollo moon landings, and I set myself the task of constructing a narrative to support the proposition that every one of the conspiracy theories was true. I also snuck in a few references to movies and video games for people to find.
Whether you use it as a systemless game sourcebook or just as an entertaining read, I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Click here to order Nazi Moonbase and my other current books from your favorite e-tailer.
Agent of the Imperium: A Traveller Novel by Marc Miller
In the early days of tabletop RPGs, there were only two games: D&D for the fantasy geeks, and Traveller for sci-fi fans. Now the creator of Traveller, Marc Miller, is Kickstarting his first novel in the universe that saw countless star-spanning adventures. Check it out here, but hurry – the campaign closes in five days!
Dark Osprey: Systemless Game Settings, Cheap but Deep
I’ve been writing for Osprey Publishing’s Dark Osprey line for a little while now: I have two titles published and a third on the way. It is an interesting line, full of books that blend history, fiction, and conspiracy theory to produce well-researched works gamers will love: exactly what you would expect, in fact, when a renowned military history publisher like Osprey expands into science fiction and fantasy.
I’ve blogged about my own Osprey titles before, and you can find all the relevant posts by clicking on this link. But in this post, I’d like to look at the range as a whole.
I’m in some very impressive company as a Dark Osprey author. Series editor Joe McCullough is a longtime tabletop RPG fan, and he has recruited quite a few names you’ll recognize.
Mike Brunton was the voice of the multiple award-winning Total War AAA PC strategy game series until recently. Before that, he worked on countless video games, edited White Dwarf magazine during Games Workshop’s late-80s golden age, co-wrote the legendary Realm of Chaos sourcebooks for Warhammer, and authored the rarest D&D module ever published. For Dark Osprey, he turns his considerable command of military history to the Anglo-Martian War of 1895 in his book The War of the Worlds. If you like classic science fiction, military history, steampunk, roleplaying, or miniatures wargaming, I can guarantee you will enjoy this book.
Phil Masters was a regular contributor to White Dwarf in the 80s, and has written a number of sourcebooks for GURPS, Castle Falkenstein, and other tabletop RPGs. He was the only author Terry Pratchett trusted to adapt the Discworld into a game setting. The Wars of Atlantis is not his first work on the Lost Continent – his GURPS Atlantis sourcebook is still available – and The Wars of Atlantis holds a wealth of well-researched information on a subject that is sure to appeal to gamers of all stripes, as well as to anyone with an interest in the Atlantis myth.
Kenneth Hite is another prolific GURPS author, and together with gaming luminary Robin D. Laws he co-hosts the podcast Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff. His book on The Nazi Occult packs an incredible amount of information between the covers, and offers a fantastic resource to any gamemaster or tabletop gamer with an interest in Weird War II scenarios. Coming in May 2016 is his exhaustive history The Cthulhu Wars: The United States’ Battles against the Mythos. I can hardly wait.
As well as editing the series, Joseph McCullough kicked it off with Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide. Zombies are taking over popular culture right now, but Joe digs deeper into zombie lore and covers multiple types, from the brain-eating lurchers we know and love to the voodoo zombies of the Caribbean, the necromantic zombies of fantasy lore, and the atomic zombies of the Cold War era – and much more beside. He also traces the history of zombie outbreaks across the world and offers us an unprecedented level of access to the 34th Specialist Regiment (a.k.a. the Nightmen), the U.S. Army’s elite supernatural warfare unit. Somehow, he has also found time to create the wildly popular Frostgrave fantasy miniatures game for Osprey. Some old Games Workshop fans are hailing it as the new Mordheim.
Chris Pramas, founder of Green Ronin and creator of the Freeport fantasy-pirate setting, has written Orc Warfare, a systemless overview of Orc weapons, tactics, and military organization that will be of interest to fantasy fans everywhere. With Dwarf Warfare due out in January, he looks set to turn this into the definitive series on fantasy warfare.
To take a look at the whole Dark Osprey range, click this link. No matter what your gaming or reading interests, I expect you will find something to intrigue and entertain. And while you’re there, check out the Osprey Games and Myths and Legends books as well. One thing is for sure: when Osprey Publishing decided to expand into fantasy and games, they did nothing by halves. Just look at what they’ve announced for 2016!
The Bundle of Holding
The latest Bundle of Holding features seven titles from Osprey’s Osprey Adventures line: just $16.95 gets you all seven PDF ebooks with a retail value of $104.00. A couple of them are mine, and I’m in some very good company, including Chris Pramas, Phil Masters, and series chief Joseph A. McCullough. Here’s a link: take a look and I think you’ll be impressed.
Thor: Viking God of Thunder retells the Norse myths and covers Thor’s history from 6th-century Germany through the Viking Age to Marvel’s Avengers. Here’s a link to some of the great reviews it’s received.
Knights Templar: A Secret History is a roundup of history, rumor, and conspiracy theory surrounding the Templars and the Holy Grail. It even includes a brand new conspiracy theory that I made up, based on actual events and relationships, that could provide a great setting for all kinds of games. You can read more about it here: scroll down to the comments for links to reviews.
The Osprey Adventures line includes a lot of well-researched titles that are ideal as systemless sourcebooks for games. Take a look: you won’t be disappointed.
Tales of the Frozen City
A little while ago, I was contacted by Joe McCullough at Osprey Publishing with an invitation to contribute to Osprey’s first fiction anthology.
Joe has edited all five of the books I’ve written for Osprey so far*, and I guess he must have liked my work. As well as being one of the most pleasant editors I’ve ever worked with, he’s designed a very nice little fantasy skirmish game called Frostgrave, where wizards of various schools assemble bands of minions to explore and loot an ancient city as it emerges from an icy prison. I got a sneak preview, and it looks like a lot of fun.
Tales of the Frozen City was put together to help support the game, and I’m in some distinguished company in this 11-story collection. There’s Fighting Fantasy historian Jonathan Green, fellow Games Workshop alum Matt Ward, and, as they say, many others. I’m proud to be counted among them.
I just received my author’s copy of the collection, and it looks beautiful. Both electronic and dead-tree versions are available from Osprey and from your favorite retailers and e-tailers. I hope you’ll check it out. Check out the game, too: it looks like a lot of fun.
*My books for Osprey so far:
Thor: Viking God of Thunder (Osprey Myths and Legends)
Theseus and the Minotaur (Osprey Myths and Legends)
Knights Templar: A Secret History (Dark Osprey)
Werewolves: A Hunter’s Guide (Dark Osprey)
Nazi Moonbase (Dark Osprey) – scheduled for April 2016
Graeme Davis 