The Most Wonderful Time...

As always, in the traditional Christmas blog post, I'd like to wish all my friends, followers, fans and family the very best of the holiday season.

It's been a hectic year for me. I seem to have been working non-stop on a whole range of projects. In fiction we've seen Sherlock Holmes: the Red Tower, Destiny's Call, and my short story One New Follower in the awesome Phantoms anthology. In gaming, the Here's Negan board game has just been released, along with Wave 5 of The Walking Dead: All Out War, and, of course, the Harry Potter Miniatures Adventure Game. Quite a list...

But that actually isn't all: most of the things I've been busy working on won't bear fruit for a little while to come. There's at least one huge (Huge!) tabletop game announcement to come in 2019, and I'm currently working on my new novel... Lots of exciting stuff to come in the New Year.

Thanks one and all for your support. Season's greetings to you, and a Happy New Year.

(This year's Christmas card is courtesy of the brilliant Dom Murray - follow him on Twitter @sinistersnowmen, or drop him a line - he's taking commissions! sinistersnowmen@gmail.com)

Beware! You’re in for a Scare…

In previous years I’ve written a bit about my favourite spooky stories. This year, I realised that for the first time, I actually have enough spooky stories of my own out there, in print, to blog about. WEIRD HUH? AND SUPER EXCITING!

*Ahem*

So without further ado, let’s have a Halloween round-up…

1. The Ghost Writer

In the village of Amblesford lies a house, known for miles around as a place of ill omen, where the stench of death hangs in the air and the shadow of the hanging tree can be seen by the light of the full moon. In to this fell place comes the ghost writer, an antiquarian and writer of tall tales, whose curiosity leads him to darker places than even his imagination can conjure…

The Ghost Writer is a novelette that I wrote for fun, and is my first and only self-published work to date. Really, this was an exercise in replicating the voice and style of the all-time greatest ghost story writer, M R James, and of all my pieces of short fiction I think this one is my favourite.

The Ghost Writer is available for e-readers here. (If you enjoy it, do remember to leave a review).

2. One New Follower

The most recent of the bunch, this is a short story from Phantoms, by Titan Books, edited by the wonderful Marie O’Regan. It was a real honour to be included in this collection, alongside some incredible writers such as Joe Hill, Alison Littlewood and John Connolly.

One New Follower is another Jamesian tale, but this time set squarely in the modern day. My goal here was to bring stories like Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad, and A Warning to the Curious, kicking and screaming into the present day, with social media providing a conduit between this world and the next.

3. The Red Tower

At this year’s FantasyCon I did a short reading from this novel, which is my most well-received Sherlockian tale to date, and second full-length Holmes pastiche.

This story centres on Watson, who spends the first third of the book getting scared out of his wits by spiritualist séances and ghost stories, before witnessing a terrible tragedy, prompting him to summon his friend, Sherlock Holmes. In fact, the San Francisco Book Review says: “[Watson]’s portrayed as super-competent, observant, and a worthy equal rather than a witless sidekick — the character shines in Latham’s hands.”

The Red Tower is out now from Titan Books.

4. The Cuckoo’s Hour

Another recent story to feature in an anthology, this time Edge Publishing’s Gaslight Gothic: Strange Tales of Sherlock Holmes. This is also the first time that I’ve included a genuinely inexplicable supernatural phenomenon in a tale of the Great Detective.

Canadian Holmes say: “The collection starts off strong with a story by Mark A. Latham that could have flowed out of Doyle’s own pen in a darker parallel universe.”

Publisher’s Weekly say: The best of this volume is “The Cuckoo’s Hour” by rising pastiche star Mark A. Latham, featuring a murder committed in a manor “full of symbolism and hidden chambers” and blamed on the Jack o’ the Green, who’s rumored to spend his summers searching for “guilty men to drag away to his realm.” 

Who am I to argue? You can buy it here!

5. The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow

Okay, so this one’s a cheat, as it’s not really a story per se. But Washington Irving’s modern legend is a quintessential Haloween tale for me. And so this book is an alternate-history take on the story, asking ‘what if it was real?’ and more importantly, ‘what if Washington Irving himself was a ghost-hunter who roamed the world searching for headless revenants?’ Silly? Maybe. Fun? Definitely. Spooky? Hell yes! 

As a bonus, this book is lavishly illustrated by the incredible Alan Lathwell, who's really brought the subject matter to [un]life.

Available from OspreyPublishing. Also available in the US as a children’s hardback edition from Rosen Publishing.

Flip it!

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog about my writing process, and I promised ages ago that I’d do more of these. So today I’m going to talk a bit about planning.

Let’s get one thing straight right away: I’m not a meticulous planner (much to the chagrin of some editors). In the spectrum of ‘Are you a planner or a pantser?’, I fall pretty much in-between. I do some planning – sometimes lots of it. But I know the plan will change once I start writing – the plan is guidelines, more than actual rules. Yarr.

My planning starts life in a notebook. I carry one everywhere, so I can jot down anything that pops into my head about the current project. Once I’ve got enough notes that a story has presented itself, the fun begins. That’s when I take a pack of Sharpies (other brands are available), and a big flipchart pad, and start mind-mapping story elements. I have one or more flipchart pages for almost every book and short story I’ve written/am writing.

I don’t always go about this process the same way, and sometimes I do multiple pages for different purposes, so let’s take a look at some specific examples.

    

The Iscariot Sanction

This particular page is really just a plot chart, but doing it this way allowed me to identify the gaps in the story, and add extra scenes easily, then link them all with arrows later. The eagle-eyed amongst you will see that The Iscariot Sanction changed quite a bit after the planning. The key points are still there, but in this version John Hardwick started out in Alaska investigating the thinning of the veil, while Lillian battled vampires in London, then I brought them together at the midpoint. I also changed Sir Arthur’s name (which we implemented in the final edits of the Lazarus Gate, too) from Cecil to Furnival.

The Red Tower

I do this type of chart occasionally for fine detail, and I use a flipchart rather than an Excel spreadsheet so I can pin it up somewhere over my desk and refer to it easily. This is an hour-by-hour breakdown of character movements in Sherlock Holmes: The Red Tower – absolutely invaluable when dealing with multiple characters interacting over a short period of time.

As you can see, flipcharts don’t always survive contact with #bdog…

A Betrayal in Blood

This is the more usual way for me to start my flipcharting, but I’ve saved it till last because this particular example is the most interesting.

What you have here is the very first mind map for A Betrayal in Blood, then called ‘The Trial of Van Helsing’. There are loads of little details that didn’t make the final book. The main reason was one of space. When I sold Betrayal, I’d assumed it would be a standalone book, and therefore length wouldn’t be an issue. It was only after I’d started writing that I found out it was to be published as part of an ongoing series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and therefore was subject to a strict word count. Chapters had to be cut, characters had to be conflated. A lot of my research into Stoker’s anomalous notes on Dracula sadly went unseen – I never got to really characterise Aytown, singleton, Young and Windeshoeffel, although I managed to put a little nod to them all in the book. There was also no room for the royal conspiracy I had planned, and to save space I ended up making Van Helsing far more villainous, and Arthur Holmwood less so.

Not all of these changes were to save space. Some became apparent during the writing process as being overly complex, or exemplifying the sin of showing too much research on the page. What we ended up with was a much tighter, more action-packed narrative, with clearer-cut villains and less ambiguity of motive. I’d love to revisit this plan one day, if only to write the essay about the inconsistencies in the ‘crew of light’s’ story.

Nothing to See Here...

I realised this morning that my blog has become rather neglected of late. Nothing to worry about - far from it, in fact. It's just that 2018 is the busiest year I've had since becoming a full-time writer and freelancer over five years ago, and finding time to blog, or even think sometimes, is getting hard!

Normal service will resume shortly. In the meantime, some quick updates:

• I'll be attending FantasyCon 2018 next month, which this year is in the lovely city of Chester. Currently in the process of sorting out which panels I'll be on, and whether or not to do a reading. Would love to see you there!
• Anthology news: First up, my new Sherlock Holmes story, the Cuckoo's Hour, is out now in the excellent Gaslight Gothic from Edge Publishing. Some words on that here. Secondly, I'm delighted to have a story in Marie O'Regan's ghost story anthology, Phantoms, available from Titan Books just in time for Hallowe'en.
• Next month also sees the launch of my first licensed novel (and my first published fantasy novel), Destiny's Call. Set in Osprey Games' Ghost Archipelago world, it's an action-driven tale about a young boy with mysterious powers, fighting the good fight far from home while the whole world seems stacked against him. Also, check out the fab cover by Dmitry Burmak, right.
• Speaking of fantasy novels, I'm currently writing one! Yes, the next project is a bit of a departure from Victoriana, but will be recognisable to fans as a dark tale of intrigue and mystery.
• The tabletop games side of my writing life has gone a bit crazy. I should have some big announcements to make over the next few months, including one tremendous, super-top-secret licensed property that I've been working on for months. Almost ready to come up for air...

That's all for now: more updates soon. Do not adjust your set.

UPDATE: Contributor copies of Phantoms arrived today. Pretty thrilled I got to be a 'cover author' this time, especially given the incredible line-up.

Here's Negan!

 

If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead and, in particular, tabletop gaming, then some pretty exciting news broke this month. Mantic Games have announced the imminent arrival of Here’s Negan, a board game (designed by Yours Truly) based on the popular TWD prequel comics.

Unlike The WalkingDead: All Out War, which is a wargame with board game elements, Here’s Negan is a full-on board game experience, with players creating a walker-infested factory using illustrated game tiles.

The game picks up right where the comic book leaves off, with Negan becoming the leader of his fledgling group of Saviors, and leading them into the factory to clear it out, ready to transform it into the Sanctuary. In this game, Negan is not controlled by the players, but instead makes his way through the factory layout towards the objective, while you and your fellow players must clear a path for him, and achieve the mission goals at the same time. It makes for some tense, frenetic situations, and failure at even the smallest level means you’re dangerously close to getting a jab from Lucille…

The tricky balancing act for this game was to create that sense of both a cooperative and a competitive experience simultaneously. You want to win, but you also don’t want the other characters to die, because not only will it make it that much harder to achieve the objectives, but Negan will be most displeased! In order to measure your success, you must achieve Reputation points by impressing Negan. But be warned – he’s a fickle son of a gun, and he thinks you’re sucking up he might just bawl you out on the factory floor, and attract a truck-ton of trouble in the form of ravenous walkers!

Dwight, when he was still pretty(ish).

There are five playable characters in the game: Dwight, Sherry, Tara, John and Laura, each with their own specialties and weaknesses. Again, you really need to work as a team, but at the same time you don’t want to let the others steal your glory.

As you scour the factory, you can pick up new and improved equipment and weapons, as well as triggering random events that might be detrimental or beneficial. All the while, as in All Out War, the Threat Tracker ticks along inexorably, ramping up the tension and bringing more walkers into play. If it reaches its max level before you achieve the scenario goals, it’s game over!

The Walking Dead: Here’s Negan is available from Mantic Games and all good stockists from November 2018, and you can pre-order it now!

Cloud Cuckoo Land

When Holmes and Watson are visited by the young Miss Harding, they cannot guess that they are about to embark on one of their darkest and most mysterious cases. Miss Harding's late uncle has left his entire estate to one of four cousins, but only the cousin who solves an elaborate puzzle can claim the prize – a puzzle contained within the very fabric of the bizarre Atreus Manor. The house has already claimed the life of one of the cousins, and drove another to madness, and Miss Harding will happily give up her claim if Holmes can get to the bottom of the secret. But is she really ready for the revelations about her family that the world's greatest detective will unearth?

Cover art by Dave Elsey

Really pleased to have an original Sherlock Holmes story published in the wonderful Gaslight Gothic anthology, edited by JR Campbell and Charles Prepolec. It contains stories by some of the finest horror and Holmes writers around, including Mark Morris, Steve Volk, James Lovegrove and Angela Slatter, so I’m delighted to be in such fine company.

My story, The Cuckoo’s Hour, is partly inspired by the recent trend for 'Escape Room' puzzles, though it’s really born of my obsession with Gothic fiction, especially Poe, and livened up with a healthy dose of classic Horror inspiration from the likes of Hammer and Amicus, that I've loved since my teens. Indeed, some of the same themes were used in my recent Holmes novel, The Red Tower (no surprise really, as I wrote them concurrently), although The Cuckoo’s Hour is rather more ‘sensational’ as the Victorians would have it.

But don’t take my word for it: the first review is up already at Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer:

  

The opening story by Mark A. Latham, The Cuckoo’s Hour, is not only a strong opening story and one of the best in the anthology, but also one of the best Sherlock Holmes stories I’ve ever come across. Latham seems to have an innate understanding of the Holmes canon and characters, as well as how to write gothic fiction, to the extent that there are times when the story feels less like a pastiche and more like a piece of fiction Conan Doyle might have written in his later, more spiritual years. It’s effective as both a detective story and a piece of quiet horror, and features an ending that is genuinely unnerving, both in terms of its implications and the subtle way that Latham introduces such a twist. 

If you’d like to know more, there’s a webcast with the editors here.

Gaslight Gothic is available now!

Chosen Men Update: Russia 1812

It's Freebie Friday here at Lost Victorian Towers. And this week, it's Chosen Men in the spotlight.

I've been asked for a Russian army list for Chosen Men probably more than any other game content, but finding the time has been tough.

At last, you can find the download here.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments below, and hopefully it won't be so long before I can produce more gaming content for you!

до скорого

There's No Place Like Holmes...

Hurrah, and huzzah (as they only say in the publishing world, so who am I to judge?). Today marks the official launch of my latest Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The Red Tower. Available here from Titan Books.


From the jacket:

A FAMILY SECRET

It is 1894, and after a macabre séance at a country estate, a young woman has been found dead in a locked room.

When Dr Watson is invited to a weekend party where a séance is planned, he is prepared to be sceptical. James Crain, heir to the estate of Crain Manor, has fallen in with a mysterious group of Spiritualists and is determined to prove the existence of the paranormal. Confronted with a suspicious medium and sightings of the family ghost, Watson remains unconvinced – until James’s sister, Lady Esther, is found dead in a room locked from the inside. Holmes is called to investigate the strange events at Crain Manor, but finds that every guest harbours a secret. Holmes and Watson must uncover the truth, and test the existence of the supernatural…

This was a particularly fun book to write, and one of my best mysteries to date, I think. I've played a little fast and loose with the format, taking elements that one might normally expect to find in an Agatha Christie country house mystery. But the reason for this will hopefully all become clear by the time you reach the finale.

Before we depart, here's the intro quote from the book, just because we all love a good quote, don't we? (And what a run-on sentence that is, from Dickens, master of the form).

Here Be Monsters...

It's been a while since I've posted bonus content for my various games. To be honest, it's been a while since I last had time to write any! Time to redress the balance, with a little trip to the alternate-history Roman Empire of Broken Legions...

Roman legionaries explore a temple of the Black Pharaoh.
Illustration by ªRU-MOR, (c) Osprey Publishing 2016

Last year I wrote three articles for Wargames Illustrated Magazine, essentially a mash-up of Broken Legions and my Osprey sourcebook, Cthulhu Campaigns: Ancient Rome. Although part two of those articles appeared online, part one only had a limited release in the magazine, and part three never saw the light of day at all. And so, I've set to work making the rules available, so all Broken Legions fans can enjoy them. Taken together, this makes a free expansion for your games - pretty neat, huh?

Part One

Part Two

Part Three: Monsters

That's all for now. Until next time: For the glory of Rome!

A Magical, Miniature Adventure...

For the last year, my friends at Knight Models in Spain have been working on something big. Initially announced as the Harry Potter Miniatures Game, a whole raft of behind-the-scenes 'stuff' has led to some big changes to the project.

Today, they've announced the Harry Potter Miniatures Adventure Game, and I can finally break my radio silence!

Designed by Gustavo Cuadrado and Sergio Garcia (with a little help from Yours Truly), the new-look Harry Potter game is a tabletop board game, combining strategy and magical battles with teamwork and problem-solving.

At the studio in Spain, with ace figure
painter and community manager
Borja (aka Hagrid Potter).

I visited Knight Models in February (a year to the day since my first visit, incidentally), and I've never seen a team so busy - it took me back to my days on White Dwarf when the monthly Deadline Week was in full swing. It was an honour and a pleasure to be involved in this project. They're gearing up for this Kickstarter in a big way, and have invested in some incredible talent to make the launch as seamless and professional as possible. this is going to be huge for them, and for Harry Potter fans.

So yeah, this is a biggie. Pretty soon I'll be able to spill a few more details, but for now just check out this video and get some goosebumps...