Next weekend, I’ll be in Wheeling, IL, for Capricon 32. It’s the first time I’ve been to the show, but I’ve heard excellent things about it. My schedule for the show is below. If you’re in the area, come on out and join us!

Saturday, February 11

1 – 1:30 PM: Reading Probably something from Carpathia

2:30 –4 PM: Autographing with Paul McComas

7 – 8:30 PM: Writing Is a Business
As aspiring writers enter the field, they will do almost anything to become published. This attitude often can lead to others taking advantage of their work. These professionals will share advice about agents, contracts, retirement, and…gulp…taxes.
Tim Akers (M), Richard Chwedyk, Matt Forbeck, Gene Wolfe

Sunday, February 12

10 – 11:30 AM: Take That, Gutenberg! New Publishing Models in the 21st Century
Clay tablets, roaming minstrels, mimeographs, Big Publishing Houses, corner bookstores, ePubs, self-publishing, and Kickstarter are just some examples of how we’ve financed and distributed stories over the years. How have stories gotten from the author to the reader, how is that model changing, and why? For whom is this a good change or a bad change? Why is how we get our books important?
Cory Doctorow (M), Matt Forbeck, John Klima, Les McClaine, John O’Neill

12 – 1:30 PM: Gaming Is Research for My Novel!
Who said gaming isn’t good for your writing? For these writers, role-playing games helped hone their skills as storytellers. How can role-playing help your writing? What are the pitfalls?
Matt Forbeck, E.E. Knight (M), Jennifer Lawrence, John O’Neill

1:30 – 3 PM: The Wide World of Comics Media
There are more ways to get a comic book or graphic novel these days besides picking one up at your local comic book store. Let’s look at the various delivery methods for comic books and graphic novels and how that changes their impact. We will look at this from the perspective of the reader, writer, and artist. Excelsior!
Matt Forbeck, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Barry Lyn-Waitsman, Les McClaine, Bill Roper (M)

Today I wrote a guest post over at Slacker Heroes about how I set out on my 12 for ’12 plan and how I managed in the first month. Go ahead on over there and give it a read!

"I have read several books by Bruce Cordell but I think that the books in this trilogy might be my favorites. From the beginning the Lovecraftian vibe these books bring to Faerûn captured my attention and didn’t release it until the story was complete."

Between now and Valentine’s Day, my friends over at Kobold Quarterly are giving out free copies of Kobold Quarterly, their tabletop fantasy roleplaying game (i.e. D&D and variants) magazine. The issue they’re handing out gratis is #14, their Gen Con 2010 issue, which featured articles by my pals Monte Cook and Rob Heinsoo, among other excellent entries. To get the freebie, just use the coupon code KoboldWelcome when you check out.

While you’re there, check out the Kobold Guide to Board Game Design, in which I have an essay. If you’re a game designer of any stripe, it’s a damn good book.

One thing about writing tie-in or other work-for-hire books is that no one needs to let you know when they’ve sold the foreign-language rights to those books. This makes for some interesting moments when you find your name popping up on a book you’ve never seen before in a language you don’t speak.

While looking for data on Amortels, I stumbled across a couple good examples of this. The first is Blood Bowl: Blut und Speile, which my limited command of German tells me translates to Blood and Games. This is a German edition of the Blood Bowl: Killer Contract comic I wrote for Boom Studios a couple years back, published by the fine folks at Panini.

The ironic part is that German has to be the worst choice for a translation of that book. When I first starting writing the Blood Bowl novels on which the comic is based, I was told I had to make the names more Germanic to fit in with setting better. Figuring it was all a joke anyhow — Blood Bowl is meant to be funny — I just ran exactly who the characters were through Babelfish.

The main hero’s name, for instance, is Dunkel Hoffnung, which means “Dark Hero.” His horse is Pferd, which means “Horse.” While these might be funny the first time you get them, I can imagine that it could become tired if every time you come across them they read as “Dark Hero mounted his faithful steed Horse!”

But I suppose that’s funny in its own way.

I also came across this French edition of More Forbidden Knowledge called 101 Trucs Fous Que Vous Ne Devriez Pas Savoir Faire. According to Bablefish, that’s 101 Insane Tricks Which Should Not Know To You To Make, while Google translate renders it as 101 Crazy Stuff That You Should Not Know How.

I just hope they also translated the disclaimer in the book, or they probably should have called it 101 Ways to Get Sued in a Foreign Court.

If you read French, you can now get a free sample of the first chapters of Amortels, the French edition of my novel Amortals, published by L’Atalante. I’m happy to see them pushing the book hard, including advertising the book in the header on their website.

If English is your native tongue, then head over to Voxael’s blog for a new review of Amortals. He loved the book and writes:

I’m not really a a sci-fi connoisseur in this area, but Amortals is possibly the best science fiction book that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. [H]e’s earned a place on my list … of authors that I trust to write something engaging and entertaining, even it’s it’s outside of my comfort zone.

Over at Sci-Fi Bulletin, Paul Simpson got a real kick out of Vegas Knights. He writes:

At times it’s humorous, sardonic, deadly serious, horrific — and that can be on just one page! There are so many sudden shifts in the narrative that there are times when you wonder exactly what’s going on but Matt Forbeck knows where he’s taking his story — and when you reach the end, you realise that it’s been under control the whole time.

Recommended.  8/10

Last summer, I joined up with an all-star team of game designers to pitch in on the upcoming Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game coming out from Margaret Weis Productions. That made me part of the game’s Illuminati, along with Cam Banks, Rob Donoghue, Will Hindmarch, Philippe-Antoine Ménard, and Jesse Scoble.

Cam, who’s developing the game, has since run with it and drafted Jack Norris, Jesse Scoble (again!), Aaron Sullivan, and Chad Underkoffler (among others) in to handle the actual writing. The Basic Game is already off to press and should be in stores on February 28. (Coincidentally, that’s the same day my novel Carpathia is released. Going to be a busy day.)

MWP has been releasing previews of the game on its website. Go check them out and whet your appetite for what’s sure to be an amazing game.

#14 was the big Gen Con issue, and it includes:

·         Exclusive Pathfinder content, including two articles by Paizo staff

·         The Ecology of the Tengu—in Golarion and in Zobeck

·         An interview with 4th Edition D&D lead designer Rob Heinsoo

·         Treasure Trove articles with phat loots to improve your game and bring smiles to players

·         Paladins, secret languages and aasimar PCs