Good news! Demon-Bone Sarcophagus is finally stumbling to a close. Files are away to the printers (though there will likely be feedback on those) and PDF editor, fees have been paid and though there may be delays with fulfilment which stop shipping until October, the book will actually definitely be made.
Bad News - I am utterly fuuuuuuucked financially.
Blame Putin.
Also my own financial and organisational failings, VotE going out of print, our map-maker disappearing for several months without any contact, general slowness and the book being roughly eight months over my assumed timetable leading to print costs rising 40% between our first quote and our final one.
Tis truly a glorious disaster in every respect other than that the book will actually exist.
Yet the spice must flow and the end of one book means only the beginning of another. As one book is born another is already conceived, so I shall tell you now about my plans for 'Speak, False Machine', a substantial tome which will hopefully not bankrupt me (more).
SPEAK, FALSE MACHINE
test print only
Is essentially a (near) complete record of the first ten years of the False Machine blog.
"Near" because I removed anything I thought was pretty bad and anything that appeared in a different form in other books, or that is expected to appear in future books. So much of the development posts for things like FotVH and VotE won't be there.
Still its... substantial, at least in its test print version. A crown-quarto hardback with around 650 pages and half a million words.
space marine for scale
Know peace because it is not simply a chronological cut and paste with every post in order. Instead they are arranged by subject;
History of the Blog - "event" posts, these are actually arranged chronologically.
On Games; I do (or did) occasionally write about game design, broken down into 'Adventures', 'Characters', 'Gaming Culture', 'Making Adventures', 'Play', 'Time', 'Tools', and 'Worlds'.
False Readings; fiction and short stories, there were a handful of these.
Uncertain Worlds; more on the side of world building rather than just world design, 'Chivalric Encounters', 'Cryogenic Rats', 'Knights of Mars', 'Modern Heroes/Modern Monsters' and 'Fantastic Lands'.
I Read a Book; I write about the books I read, 'Culture', 'Comics', 'Fiction', 'Games', 'History' and 'Nature'.
Cryptoculture; my cultural ramblings, broken down into 'Film', 'Marvel', 'Miscellanea', 'Star Trek', 'Television', 'Warhammer' and 'Weebery'.
And finally 'Kleinplastik' where I talk about sculpture largely through the lens of minis.
ART
I am aiming for a black and white print to keep costs down.
There are three main kinds of art in the book. The first is made up of diagrams and small illustrations which illuminate descriptions or just fill odd spaces. There are about 50 of these.
There are extensive images in the 'Kleinplastik' section, this is the only part here I worry about not having colour as many of the arguments interrelate more with colour. I was half-thinking about having a central 'photographic' section like you used to see in old books, depending on the cost.
And finally there are eight 'title pages' which I have left blank. My hope is that through the Kickstarter I can maybe get B&W images from actually-famous artists. I was hoping for Ian Miller, Killian Eng, maybe Adrian Smith? We will see I suppose.
LAYOUT
Promises to be _less_ of a nightmare than most D&D books as, compared to a gaming book, a normie book is easy mode, but still quite hard due to the sheer volume of text.
THE EDIT
I am leaving the blog posts as they were written partly for authenticity, partly because of the huge difficulty of editing the actual contents and partly because even if I did "even them out" with spelling and layout a lot of the life and particularity of some of the more odd posts would be lost.
HOWEVER - I do want an index for the book, and considering the capacious range and strangeness of the contents that looks to be a very difficult project.
SO;
I will need;
- A layout person.
- An editor willing to take on the insane requirements of the Index.
- Someone to do black and white diagrams and small illustrations.
If anyone wants to volunteer hit me up in the comments or my email pjamesstuart at thecompanyweallknowmail.com. Work would be paid for via Kickstarter, which won't run till late in this year, depending on when DBS can ship out. Experience and a proven record of not being a flake is important as I can't live through the utter chaos of my last project again. Considering who I am immunity or indifference to being cancelled may be useful.
Peace!