My first curation is up and running! It’s called Herbie Brennan’s Occult Archive and it’s available on BiblioBoard.
Here’s how you can find out more.
Download the app BibioBoard (free) onto your iPad. Open the app and there I will be. (Or, if I’m not, do a search for Herbie Brennan’s Occult Archive or even just Herbie Brennan.) If you don’t have an iPad or other suitable tablet, don’t lose heart: the archive will soon be available via your usual Web browser when a desktop version of BiblioBoard is launched.
A curation is a collection of various materials linked by a common theme. The BiblioLab people who run Biblioboard approached me a couple of months ago and asked for a collection on an esoteric theme. They give you access to special software (called Nuvique) which allows you to put the collection together. It’s quite hard work, although not so hard as writing a book, but you see the results of your efforts far more quickly than you would in conventional publishing.
I feel like I just joined the 21st Century.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Kind Words from Kirkus
Kirkus, the company who produce the world’s toughest book reviews as guidance for the trade, have just called me a ‘master of many genres’ (heh-heh) in the introductory paragraph of their pre-publication review of The Secret Prophecy. The rest of the review is only available to Kirkus subscribers until two weeks before publication in October when it goes public, but I’m reliably informed it contains words like ‘spellbinding’ and ‘outstanding.’
Monday, July 23, 2012
Masterpiece, eh?
Feeling decidedly chuffed. My new novel, The Secret Prophecy, has had its first pre-publication review in VOYA, America’s leading young adult library journal, which was kind enough to call it a ‘masterpiece.’
It’s a conspiracy theory thriller, set in the real world for once, and those who’ve read it in manuscript had a hard time putting it down.
If you enjoy that sort of thing, you can read more and access some excellent pre-publication price links by clicking here. Official publication date, in America, is October 30, 2012, but they’re taking orders now.
It’s a conspiracy theory thriller, set in the real world for once, and those who’ve read it in manuscript had a hard time putting it down.
If you enjoy that sort of thing, you can read more and access some excellent pre-publication price links by clicking here. Official publication date, in America, is October 30, 2012, but they’re taking orders now.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
New Novel
Decided to take a few months break after finishing the first draft of Spiritus, my analysis of the influence of spirit contact on human history, but then had an idea for a new fantasy novel and made the huge mistake of thinking I’d just play around a little with the theme to see whether or not it worked.
Today it’s some months later and I have almost 30,000 words in the can now. The opening setting for the book is the Lucca Comics and Games Festival. (Wonder where I got that idea...) Where my heroine has ended up, I’m still trying to find out. Working title is Dark Elf, but this has absolutely nothing to do with Faerie Wars.
Today it’s some months later and I have almost 30,000 words in the can now. The opening setting for the book is the Lucca Comics and Games Festival. (Wonder where I got that idea...) Where my heroine has ended up, I’m still trying to find out. Working title is Dark Elf, but this has absolutely nothing to do with Faerie Wars.
Monday, December 05, 2011
I Loved Lucca
I loved Lucca. I was there a few weeks ago as literary guest of honor at the Lucca Comics and Games Festival, the third largest of its kind, so I’m led to believe, in the world.
Lucca itself is an Italian city about an hour’s drive from Florence. The outskirts are urban modern, bustling with traffic. The centre, inside ancient walls, takes you back to Medieval times with (almost) no vehicular traffic, narrow, cobbled streets and high buildings. I made the journey from Ireland by car, ferry and train — I don’t fly anywhere, ever — a trip wonderfully organized by Jacks, who accompanied me to stroke my fevered brow when I got harassed.
The festival was amazing, packed with fans in heroic fantasy costume. The organizers were adorable and many of them have now become friends for life. I had a busy schedule of signings, presentations, interviews, a civic reception, a lunch with a fan club and one workshop.
When I accepted the invite, I assumed the emphasis would be on Faerie Wars, which is a best-seller in Italy. There was certainly a lot of interest and the omnibus edition sold out in days, but the real surprise was that the fans, now grown up, actually remembered my GrailQuest game books from the 1980s.
Remembered? Heck, I‘m being coy. They brought dog-eared copies for signing, talked endlessly about their favourite characters, asked questions about the books at the presentations and interviews. Turned out the owner of the restaurant where we had the club lunch was a GrailQuester as a boy: he arranged to have the original book covers printed on the menus.
All in all, it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I’ve only now got my emotions well enough under control to say a heartfelt thank-you to beautiful Italy, to my publishers Mondadori, to those kind, generous, wonderful fans and to everyone who looked after us so well at that amazing festival. I love you all.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Ebook Gamebook: EgyptQuest Now on Kindle
Back in the 1980s, I passed a pleasant year or two writing solo adventure gamebooks. (Something of a fad at the time.) I’m pleased to say readers looked kindly on them. So much so, in fact, that they literally sold in their millions right across the globe and are still in print in certain countries — notably France and Japan — to this day.
Now for the first time, there’s a gamebook of mine available in ebook format. It’s called EgyptQuest: Lost Treasure of the Pyramids and it’s sort of educational as well as funny and thrilling and bonkers. You get to learn the basics of hieroglyphic writing, for example, provided you throw your dice right. You still do have to throw dice, same as in the old days, but the ebook format was just made for gamebooks since the computer looks after things when you track from section to section.
If you’re too young to remember gamebooks, you don’t read them like a novel, but create your own adventure story by tracking through the various sections the way you want to. It’s a ton of fun and a bit compulsive after a time. I have my own copy of EgyptQuest on my Kindle now and it’s brilliantly easy to play.
My epublishers, Andrews U.K. Ltd., have so far uploaded to Kindle, Omnilit and Apple’s iBookstore. If you’re interested in buying a copy for iPhone, iPad or iPod (and my bank manager really hopes you will be) you can use this link in the U.K...
And this one in the U.S...
For the Kindle edition, use this...
For Omnilit, it’s...
There will be more gamebooks to follow. (At least if I have anything to do with it.) Enjoy.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Secret Prophecy
Just finished the first draft of The Secret Prophecy — it ran out at a little more than 95,000 words. As Churchill once remarked, this is not the end, not even the beginning of the end. But it may be the end of the beginning. Since I’m in a quotation mood this morning, let’s note too that Hemingway said ‘The first draft of everything is crap.’ So what happens now is I wait until I can approach the text as a reader might, thus discovering its strengths and weaknesses, and, in the process, produce a second draft which may or may not be good enough to send to the publisher. Meanwhile, I shall celebrate progress so far with some tapas.
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