Solar War is now out – great news! – and so I immediately started thinking: What to do now? Well, I’ve started work on a few more projects. I need a sense of momentum behind one before I know which will be the next to reach production stage, but it’s likely to be one of: A gamebook focussed squarely at 7-11 year olds Another in the style and world of Escape From Portsrood Forest, but this time based in a city An ambitious piece of collaborative fiction in a new fantasy setting in which the reader shapes the world around them as much as their own story While the creative part of my brain has been working on…
Author: Sam Isaacson
I published both The Altimer and New Gaia in 2019, and had every intention of releasing the finale in the Entram Epic trilogy in early 2020. But life happened, didn’t it? I was moving house, the stress from which simply stopped my creativity. That was sad. And then the lockdown inspired Escape From Portsrood Forest. That was great! I then got distracted writing a non-fiction book, which was very interesting but didn’t leave me enough time, and 2020 ended without the book I’d planed to release at the start of the year. That’s why I’m really happy to have Solar War nearly ready to go. Coming in at 500 sections it picks up right where New Gaia left…
The first time I discovered a spelling mistake in a book it was as if a piece of reality had suddenly cracked open, leading me to question everything I’d ever thought true. As a child I found spelling mistakes relatively straightforward to spot, and made few myself, and so the idea that a grown-up would make a spelling mistake in an actual book simply seemed ludicrous. And then I tried writing a gamebook and discovered that spelling mistakes were a laughable inconvenience in comparison to trying to make the reader’s experience consistent, logical and simply possible. When I hit publish on a book, every check I’ve performed gives me confidence that there are as near to no errors…
Gamebooks ought to inherently be the most inclusive medium on the planet. The hero of each story is YOU, the reader, regardless of skin colour, gender, social class, or anything else. And yet gamebooks are a microcosm of the problems that the west in particular faces. The fantasy tropes that have formed so much of the bedrock of this craft are ultimately inspired by British myths as a general rule, in which almost all characters are Caucasian men. But the world has changed since those myths emerged. I’ve always been quite aware of gender when I’m writing, and in The Altimer and New Gaia I also intentionally gave particularly influential characters African names. I’d love to rest on…
My first introduction to the phrase “four eyes” came in trying to understand the strange alien creature Twoflower depicted by Josh Kirby on the cover of The Colour of Magic. It was several months after finishing the book as an eight year-old that I got the joke. Since then, I’ve developed an appreciation for having an extra pair of eyes look at my work. Or, in the case of Escape From Portsrood Forest, four extra pairs of eyes. And let me tell you, the book is so much better thanks to their honest and helpful input. Some of the phrases I’ve had addressed at me over the last few weeks by my playtesters have been: “the writing is…
Escape From Portsrood Forest is essentially an experience of wandering around an enchanted forest, filled with mythical creatures at every turn. But that’s not what makes Portsrood Forest enchanted. In fact, I’d argue that every forest is enchanted. I’ve found a tendency to treat trees like stones – interesting bits of scenery – when they’re so much more than that. Trees can feel, communicate, and care for their own children. Trees can see, count, play, move, and make decisions. Trees are alive. More alive than I think we realise. I hope that I’ve captured my awe in the presence of the remarkable creatures that trees are in the pages of Escape. In many gamebooks, the star of the…