On Saturday 7th September, I’ll be running a stall at Fighting Fantasy Fest 5, in Ealing, West London. This’ll be my fourth attendance, and it’s something I really look forward to. At Fighting Fantasy Fest 2, I stalked ‘big fish’ in the gamebook community and sowed the seeds for my first Steam Highwayman kickstarter. By Fighting Fantasy Fest 3, I had gained some traction, even had a few fans of my own, and had a second volume to show off. By Fighting Fantasy Fest 4, I was pretty much a fixture. I had the third book to share and enjoyed meeting on a par with other independent gamebook writers.
This year Jon Green has invited me back, so I’ll be selling the three volumes of Steam Highwayman, some nice unbleached cotton tote bags, lots of maps, and spreading the word about volume IV – or possibly explaining why it hasn’t been published yet. Tonight I’ve actually been looking at my stock, pricing it up and generally preparing my stall.
In just under two weeks’ time I’ll be at Fighting Fantasy Fest III, in Ealing, to showcase Steam Highwayman and to meet up with others in the gamebook community. FFF3 is a small convention born out of the international appreciation for the incredible Fighting Fantasy gamebook series – the ones that probably did the most to popularise gamebooks in the UK, and possibly worldwide. People come from all over the world to meet authors and illustrators of the original 54 books, including Jon Green, who organises the event.
But FFF3 isn’t simply backward looking. It’s also the hub for the future of the gamebook renaissance in the UK. Dozens of writers of self-published or amateur gamebooks, of a wide variety of styles, will be attending. Some are members of the Gamebook Authors Guild, a new group for independent writers, and some are simply fans of the original Fighting Fantasy series who are flexing their own muscles. At the previous convention, Fighting Fantasy Fest II in 2016, I met James Schannep, who writes the Click Your Own Poison series of interactive novels, as well as Jon Ingold, narrative director at Inkle. This was also the very first place I publicised Steam Highwayman: Smog and Ambuscade, and the organisers were good enough to let me flyer recklessly as well as hand out some freebies and sample pages.
I’ll have a stall and Smog and Ambuscade and Highways and Holloways will be available for purchase, but I’ll also be publicising the upcoming Steam Highwayman: The Reeking Metropolis Kickstarter campaign. Attendees will be able to see the smoking, shining Ferguson Velosteam by Captain Seekerman in all its 3d-printed glory and even get a glimpse of some limited Kickstarter reward samples…
I’ve also been honoured to be asked to conduct an interview with Chris Achilleos, the legendary fantasy artist who painted the covers for Armies of Death, Temple of Terror and other Fighting Fantasy books, amongst a varied and massive oeuvre. That’ll be at 3pm (15:00) in the Weston Hall.
There are still tickets available online, so if you’re interested in the cutting edge of printed interactive fiction, or in the nostalgic wonder of the Fighting Fantasy Series, why not come along?
