The Official Site of Bestselling Author James Swallow - COMING SOON!
You can stream or download the podcast Here – and be warned, if you haven’t read Sight Unseen yet, the conversation is very spoiler-y…
In the cavern-like darkness of the arcade, the neon phosphor-glow of the screen beckons you close. Drawn to the dancing pixels like a moth to a flame, digging deep in your pocket you pull out a shiny coin and thumb it into the slot as the electronic siren sings the fanfare that marks your arrival. One hand on the joystick, the other splayed across the control buttons, your pulse begins to quicken.
You’ve barely begun but suddenly the discordant bleeps are trumpeting your failure as your 8-bit adventure comes to an abrupt end. At least in the world of the video arcade you get a second chance. But what is the true price you pay when you make a pact with the digital demon? There’s always another coin, an extra life to be earned, a second chance… Isn’t there?
GAME OVER: A dozen stories of creeping dread and savage horror inspired by the humble amusement arcade and the classic coin-ops of yesteryear. Twelve tales to chill your blood by twelve masters of the malevolent and the macabre.
Just keep reminding yourself, it’s only a game… Isn’t it?
As well as me, the GAME OVER anthology also features stories by James Wallis, Sarah Peploe, Jonathan Oliver, Simon Bestwick, Gav Thorpe, Laurel Sills, Alexandra Peel, Tim Major, Adam Chillman, George Pickett, and Michael Carroll, all ably edited by Jonathan Green – and right now, if you buy it direct from publishers Snowbooks you can get 50% off by quoting the discount code ‘GO’ for the ebook edition, and ‘GO-PRINT’ for the paperback. (The offer’s good for the next 24 hours so act quickly, mwah hah hah, Space Cadet).
Click Here to visit the Snowbooks website, or go check out the official GAME OVER Facebook page Here.
In the darkness of the arcade, the neon phosphor glow of the screen beckons you close. Attract mode flickering like dancing fire, you’re drawn in, digging deep in your pocket for that shiny coin, thumbing it into the slot as the chiptune siren sings the fanfare for your arrival.When I was a kid, I barely made it out of the era of Disco with my sanity intact, and if I hadn’t been bitten by the videogames bug (thanks to Space Invaders, Galaxian, Asteroids, Gorf, Tempest and a million more) I probably would have grown up well-adjusted.
Lucky for me, that bug laid eggs in my brain that later hatched and turned me into the writer of stuff that I am today.
I’m a gamer through and through, from my Binatone TV Master Mk.IV to my bleeding-edge octal-core PC, and so when I heard about m’colleague Jonathan Green’s call for a horror fiction anthology inspired by classic videogames, I had to sign up.
Game Over hits on August 12th from the good people at Snowbooks, and features a dozen tales of gaming made to chill your blood; my contribution is a story called “Screen Burn“, a speculation about the dark truth behind an unsolved mystery dating back to the height of the arcade era.
For more about Game Over, stay tuned to the anthology’s official Facebook page Here and the Snowbooks site Here.
I’ve been a mecha-head since I was a little lad, and that love of cool hardware truly blossomed when I discovered anime in my teens. Thanks to shows like Robotech, Mobile Suit Gundam, Metal Armor Dragonar (and later Patlabor, Martian Successor Nadesico, Neon Genesis Evangelion and others) I’ve kept alive that heavy metal thrill, kindling the flame anew when Pacific Rim rolled out.
So, naturally, when I heard that the gang over at Ragnarok Publications were assembling a new anthology dedicated to such things, I could not sign up fast enough.
I worked with Ragnarok on their previous short story collection about gigantic destructive things, Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters, and now I’m stoked to be joining an all-star crew of authors for Mech: Age of Steel – an anthology dedicated to giant robots of all kinds. Check out the awesome cover art by Victor Adame below…
Mech: Age of Steel powers up later this year as a Kickstarter project, and there will be a bunch of neat perks and stuff for backers to get their hands on.
Check out the official Ragnarok Publications page Here and watch the skies for more info in the weeks to come…
Mecha! Hasshin!
So the delightful folks over at the Nine Worlds Geekfest event have been kind enough to invite me along to their convention this year, which is being held over the weekend of the 7th-9th August, at the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel across from London’s Heathrow airport.
As they describe it, “It’s about gaming, film, cosplay, fandom, literature, science, geek culture, meeting people and having a really big party” and you can find out more about the event by visiting the website Here.
I’ll be along to talk about stuff – currently I’m on the dedicated Star Trek track but there may be more of me depending on how things shake out – and joining me will be a whole bunch of other interesting people, including my fellow Trek novelist Una McCormack and top gaming chap James Wallis. The current guest line-up is listed Here.
A couple of weekends ago, I got to round out my merry month of May with three days of relaxing nerdery at the UK Games Expo convention in Birmingham, a massive board gaming event packed with interesting folks, cool games and lots of to indulge my cardboard and dice habit…
While I was there, Steven Hesse of the ace Geek Apocalypse podcast/YouTube/Twitch channel sat down with me at my signing table for a chat to talk about such things as my love of games, how I got my start as a writer and the challenges of writing in a shared universe. You can find me Here on Episode 80 (from the 26.17 mark), or also via iTunes if you’d like to subscribe to Steven’s show.
This episode also features a whole bunch of other folks, including Librium Games, Dice Sports, The Next Great American Board Game, Andrew Harmen of Frankenstein’s Bodies, Chris Birch of Modiphius, Dave Cousins of North And South Games and Rob Burnham, editor of the new Tabletop Magazine.
