All right
First, Ian Livingstone didn't come because he lost a friend on wednesday, and funerals were on friday. The meeting was less impressive of course, but we got the best writer in the couple... Steve is a very reachable person, always smiling, speaking neat english (and that counts for me) even if we had a hot chic... professional translator. I came with my wife who didn't know anything about gamebooks but finally, enjoyed the anecdotes.
Steve presented some original 30 years old goodies : first french translation of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, original Sorcery Box, various Penguin stuff and some funny versions like the
hot-anime-school-girl-ish japanese version of "House of Hell" !
He related :
- how Games Workshop was born : they were 3 at the beginning with John Peak who got disinterested
- how they had the original gamebooks idea and they were not the only ones : Steve met a guy in a plane with same idea and a complete written gamebook !
- how they wrote WFTM (Ian for part before river, Steve for part after) and how he had to rewrite all Ian's part to impose his own rules for combat system (that was the deal with Ian !).
- how grew Fighting Fantasy collection so fast : they had to produce 1 book per month to pre-empt rival editors (dunno which ones) so they engaged several authors. His first author was Steve Jackson, Texas
- how they sold *** dozens of dozens of dozens of dozens of millions *** FF gamebooks and they still do (new publications in Portugal, Brasil for first time !)
- how illustrations are definitely indivisible from gamebook. He told that to me when I presented myself as an amateur illustrator and I told him that some original illustrations had been removed in french versions.
He signed my 25 years old "House of Hell" gamebook and the brand new translated J. Green's "Howl of the Werewolf" for my... son
"May your Stamina never fail !"
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