YOU ARE THE HERO - Putting out the call

I am so close to finishing the manuscript for YOU ARE THE HERO that you could say I'm at paragraph 395 (to use a gamebook analogy). I have interviewed a great many people about Fighting Fantasy and their experiences of it - and they've had some great stories to tell - but there are still a significant number of creators I have not been able to contact*, despite having trawled the Internet, and called in all manner of favours.

So, if anyone could help me in tracking down and contacting any of the following, I would greatly appreciate it. But time is, as they say, of the essence...

Emmanuel (original cover artist on The Citadel of Chaos)
Malcolm Barter (interior artists for The Forest of Doom)
Duncan Smith (illustrator of Scorpion Swamp)
Gary Ward & Edward Crosby (interior artists for Caverns of the Snow Witch)
Tim Sell (illustrator of House of Hell)
Steve Jackson US (of Steve Jackson Games and writer of Scorpion Swamp)**
Bob Harvey (artist)
Andrew Chapman (writer)
Geoffrey Senior (artist)
Kevin Bulmer (artist)
Bill Houston (artist)
Brian Bolland (artist)
Declan Considine (artist)
David Martin (artist)
Gary Mayes (artist)
Dave Carson (artist)
Martin Allen (writer)
Jim Bambra (writer)
Stephen Hand (writer)***
Keith P Phillips (writer)
Simon Dewey (cover artist on The Adventures of Goldhawk series)
Pete Tamlyn (co-writer of the Advanced Fighting Fantasy series)
Carl Sargent (writer)
Nik Williams (artist)
Chris Moore (cover illustrator for the Wizard Books edition of Starship Traveller)
Richard Corben and R Courtney (cover artists of some of the US editions of FF gamebooks)
Clarecraft (who made a range of Fighting Fantasy figurines)
Richard Scrivener (Puffin commissioning editor on the FF series towards the end of Puffin's tenure)

I know that seems like I lot, but I can assure you I have already interviewed a lot more for the book!

Feel free to pass this on to anyone who you think might be able to help.

* Or who have not returned my calls, if you know what I mean.

** Every time I contact Steve Jackson Games, they seem to think I'm trying to contact Steve Jackson UK (whom I know), despite me repeating repeatedly that this is not the case.

*** I'm really keen to talk to Stephen Hand.

YOU ARE THE HERO according to Wordle

I thought you might like to see a Word Cloud of YOU ARE THE HERO, having finished my second pass on the book...

Out of the pit they come...

Any ideas what this might be?

That's right, Iain McCaig has sent through his rough sketches of the images he's producing of the Bloodbeast and Zanbar Bone the Night Prince for YOU ARE THE HERO.

Iain has stayed quite close to the original designs but, as he points out, they are very retro and not at all how he would go about designing either of the characters today. He has expressed an interest in giving them a complete overhaul, and I'd be interested in hearing your views on the subject.

Remember, this is the man who, since illustrating City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon, has gone on to design Darth Maul, one of the most memorable characters in modern movies, and is currently working on Start Wars Episode 7. And he's offered to give a couple of Fighting Fantasy icons a fresh lick of paint for the new millennium!

(I know, I can't quite believe it either.)

Please let me know what you think by commenting on this post, or via the YOU ARE THE HERO Facebook page, but do bear in mind the final decision will be mine and mine alone. I know which way I'm leaning at the moment, but I'd be interested to hear what you'd like to see too.

The Legend of Firetop Mountain

I am currently well into the first edit of YOU ARE THE HERO (thirty years of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks in thirty chapters) and I've been struggling with, of all things, chapter names.

At one point I had toyed with giving all of the chapter names a common theme. I have now decided against that, but if I had gone with it, here's what the chapters could have ended up being called. Can you work out what each one is about? (Admittedly, some are more obvious than others.)

Chapter 1 - The Origins of Firetop Mountain
Chapter 2 - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Chapter 3 - The Phenomenon of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 4 - The Art of Firetop Mountain 

Chapter 5 - The Older Brother of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 6 - The World of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 7 - The Cartographers of Firetop Mountain 

Chapter 8 - Firetop Mountain in Space! 

Chapter 9 - The Magazine of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 10 - Beyond Firetop Mountain

Chapter 11 - Tales of Firetop Mountain – Part 1

Chapter 12 - Tales of Firetop Mountain – Part 2

Chapter 13 - The Chronicles of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 14 - Leaving Firetop Mountain

Chapter 15 - Tales of Firetop Mountain – Part 3

Chapter 16 - The Dungeoneers of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 17 - A Decade of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 18 - Tales of Firetop Mountain – Part 4

Chapter 19 - The Young Pretender of Firetop Mountain 

Chapter 20 - The Fall of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 21 - Lost Tales of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 22 - The Trialmasters of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 23 - Return to Firetop Mountain 

Chapter 24 - The Heirs of Firetop Mountain (or Tales of Firetop Mountain – Part 5) 

Chapter 25 - The Silver Peak of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 26 - The Fandom of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 27 - Le Sorcier de la Montagne de Feu

Chapter 28 - The Digital Adventures of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 29 - The Film Makers of Firetop Mountain

Chapter 30 - Thirty Years of Firetop Mountain

Derek the Troll, by Lew Stringer

What's that, you say?

"Is that the new Derek the Troll strip by Lew Stringer, commissioned for YOU ARE THE HERO, a history of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks?"

Why, yes it is!

(Well the start of it anyway.)

Return of the Troll

Just to keep all you Derek fans out there frothing...

In other news...

... these came in the post today. :-)