Changes, part 1

Hi. Yeah, I know ... it's been a while. You look good. Me? Well...

...I've been through some changes.

Before I start, let me just say these changes aren't life changing changes, they're just ... changes. Since I was last here I've qualified from the Open University with a First Class Honours (yeah baby, a First; check me out!), I've begun the journey to becoming a teacher, several of my heroes have died, I've written my next book...

...And I've started writing for tabletop games.



Baron von Fancyhat

One particular studio I'm working for is Goblin King Games, creators of the beautiful Moonstone. A fantasy skirmish game, Moonstone has recently been Kickstarted, and has completely changed my opinion on 3D sculpting. Previously I felt 3D sculpting produced very bland, characterless miniatures, but now, having seen Tom Lishman, Dave Kidd and Raul Tavares' bold and charismatic work for Moonstone, I'm a convert. The rulebook— written by Tom Greenway and Richi Paskell and featuring lavish illustrations by Micah Epstein— will be published soon. Said rulebook not only promises to be a thing of beauty, but will also contain fiction by your truly. If you'd like a wee preview, here's The Ballad of Baron von Fancy Hat. You're welcome.



Shabaroom, one of Moonstone's less lucid denizens.

Oh, and that Myasthenia Gravis I'd been wrestling with since 2002? It's gone into remission. so, yeah, like I said, I've been through some changes. And on reflection? Maybe I was wrong...

...Beating Myasthenia Gravis? That's pretty life changing, not least because I know that if I can beat that, I can beat anything. So look out world ... 'cos you ain't seen nothing yet.

A Gaggle of No-Good Goblins

If you have enjoyed this blog, please consider making a donation to my preferred charity, the Myasthenia Gravis Association. Thank you.

The Magical Mystery Tour

Hello and welcome aboard this whistle-stop tour of what's new(ish) in the Paul L Mathews' House of (Recycled) Ideas.

Looking to our right we can see that, since my last entry, the latest edition of the magnificent Murky Depths magazine includes my comic strip Desire, as drawn by the jazzy James McLean. Previous visitors will know that Murky Depths won last year's British Fantasy Society's award for Best Magazine/Periodical, and issue #17 shows exactly why. Edited by Terry Martin, Murky Depths is a mixture of comics and illustrated prose featuring zombies, demons, bullfighting and black flatworms amongst a whole load of other weird shit. All that and the stunning Dead Girls comic strip by Richard Calder and Leonardo M Giron. Well worth £6.99, don't you think?

To our left, we can see Polish sci-fi mag Nowa Fantastyka have released a Polish translation of my Victorian fantasy Weak. The tale of a fatally ill sorcerer and his wife as they attempt to evade a relentless killer, Weak has yet to be published in English. So, unless you speak Polska, you'll have to take my word that it's really really good...and read the English version in my forthcoming anthology Ten Cobbler's Tales.

Looking ahead, that purveyor and publisher of fine anthologies, Accent UK, is due to release both their Predators and Zombies 2 collections in short order. One of these tomes includes my WWII comic Clean, as drawn by the prodigious Pedro Lopez, and the other my one-pager iZombie, as drawn by the devilish David Golding.

A little further down the road... Can you see there, just toward the end of 2011? The beautiful Mirror Dance e-zine is scheduled to publish my historical fantasy Little Sister (Romans, alchemists and and golems! Oh my!) and issue #18 of Murky Depths will include my steampunk comic I Don't Remember. If that isn't enough for your inner maschocist, you may also wish to check out the forthcoming Mythos Dossiers RPG supplement. Released by Cubicle 7, it's a weird and wonderful collection of source material and background information for their excellent The Laundry Role Playing Game (itself based on the works of Charles Stross and HP Lovecraft). It also includes a bucket load of material by me! That's right folks, I've been let loose in a Lovecraftian sandbox. Oh, the tentacled lack of humanity!

And that concludes tonight's tour. I hope you've enjoyed your short stay with us, and we look forward to you travelling with the Paul L Mathews House of (Recycled) Ideas again in the near future. I know you had a lot of other blogs to choose from this evening, and I thank you for choosing mine.



If you have enjoyed this blog, please consider making a donation to my preferred charity, the Myasthenia Gravis Association. Thank you.