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Tuesday 2 April 2013

A saga of the hero twins

I've been doodling some sketches for the covers of the Infinite IF books. This one, for Maya heroquest adventure Necklace of Skulls, is going to be painted by my favourite Dragon Warriors artist, Jon Hodgson. Which is really rather exciting, actually.

There will be few interior pictures this time out, so if you want to appreciate the great job Russ Nicholson did in evoking the One World when the book was first published, I recommend snapping up a secondhand copy on Amazon. Or you could wait for Russ to post those illustrations up on his blog, which he plans to do shortly.

I'll sign off with the doubtless du Maurier inspired opening of the book:

Last night you dreamed you saw your brother again. He was walking through a desert, his sandals scuffing up plumes of sooty black sand from the low endless dunes. It seemed you were hurrying to catch him up, but the sand slipped away under your feet and you could make no headway up the slope. You heard your own voice call his name: 'Morning Star!' But, muffled by distance, the words went rolling off the sky unheeded. 

You struggled on. Cresting the dune, you saw your brother standing close by, staring at something in his hands. Your heart thudded with relief as you stumbled through the dream towards him. But even as your hand reached out for his shoulder, a sense of dread was growing like a storm cloud to blot out any joy. You saw the object Morning Star was holding: an obsidian mirror. You leaned forward and gazed at the face of your brother reflected in the dark green glass. 

Your twin brother's face was the face of a skull. 

 

3 comments:

  1. H Dave, Thanks to you, I'm about to publish the work.

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    1. Hi Russ - they look great! Just wish we were using those pics in the new edition... Sigh.

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    2. I spoke too soon. When the deal with Osprey fell through, we got to use Russ's art instead of the few new pieces Osprey had commissioned to go into their ebook-only edition. So, while it would have been great to partner with Osprey, I'm sure gamebook fans everywhere will be happy to hear that - and that the books are now out in print as well as ebook editions.

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