Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone

Recognise the names? These two were the creators of the Fighting Fantasy series of books, books that you’ll have come across, even if you’ve never read them.

Similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were being published at the same time (‘to open the box turn to page 45, to go through the door on the left turn to page 102, to go down the staircase turn to page 13′), the first Fighting Fantasy title ‘The Magic Quest’ was published in 1982 and distinguished itself by making use of dice in the game play. This tapped more directly into the Dungeon & Dragons role playing games that were hugely popular at the time, and the FF series went on to become a publishing phenomenon for Penguin, with 59 books published in the first series alone.

VICE have just published an interview with Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone online, find it here… http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n12/htdocs/steve-jackson-ian-livingstone-283.php

Christmas is over, but here comes… The Snowman

More than a month’s break from a blog is pretty poor going not matter how few readers are actually reading your blog. Christmas, a change of address, the dentist (twice), general sloth… the reasons are unreasonable, the excuses inexcusable.

But hey, it’s all over, I’m back.

The tweeters at Random House (RandomPR) run a quick competition every Friday on Twitter. Generally the prize is a free proof copy of an upcoming title Random House title, and last week I won a copy of The Snowman by Jo Nesbø.

Nesbø is better known for his six (now seven with The Snowman) book strong Detective Harry Hole series. I’m hoping that not having read any of the previous six books won’t disadvantage me in any way.

A quick pre read review: Looking at the literary agency blurb about the novel, the plot ‘The Snowman murders only when the first snow falls, choosing unfaithful wives as his victims and literally turning them into snowmen.’ Sounds entertaining, sadistic, and it made me think of an R L Stein, Point Horror book I read when I was very very young.

Also called The Snowman, Stein’s tells a story about a girl called Heather…

“Heather is unhappy. Her evil guardian hates her and treats her like dirt. She has few friends. Then one evening, a gorgeous blond guy walks into the café where she works. He calls himself the Snowman and he understands Heather in a war that no one else does. She feels safe, loved, warm. But is the Snowman what he seems?”

The only thing I seem to remember about the story is one scene where Heather’s been knocked out and The Snowman is packing snow around her, suffocating her, as he turns her into a snowman. It scared me then and the fact that Nesbø’s The Snowman has won a couple of good awards (2007 The Booksellers’ Prize (Bokhandlerprisen) for “Best Novel of the Year”, 2007 The Norwegian Book Club Prize (Den norske leserprisen) for “Best Novel of the Year”) makes me think it’s going to be really good, and very scary.

By way of a post script, and because with a name like Nesbø you can’t help but be Scandinavian (actually Norwegian) here is a short but interesting article on the recent proliferation of Scandinavian crime writers that Slate published last year.