The fine folks at Angry Robot are gearing up their diesel-powered PR machine for the impending debut of Amortals. Check out the snazzy action-movie-style cover on the left for a good gander at their graphic-design chops. I’m in total love with it and have been staring at it as my computer’s desktop background for months.

I have a lot more to say about the book and to help promote it myself, but I’m still blazing away at Vegas Knights, my next novel after that. Just brace yourself for loads of information about the book and why you’re going to want to grab copies for yourself and all your friends.

While I’m chained to my keyboard, though, the Robots are still hard at work. They recently released e-book ARCs (advanced reader copies) of Amortals to their Robot Army. If you’re a blogger or reviewer with a penchant for great genre fiction, you can volunteer for the Robot Army and get early access to Amortals and all sorts of other excellent books too.

They must have some fast readers in the Robot Army because one of them has already posted Amortal’s first review, and it’s a good one. (Whew!) As Lisa Farrell writes, “I really enjoyed this novel. It’s gripping, exciting, imaginative.” My favorite part of the review, of course, is its complaint: “My only gripe is, this novel is really American. I mean really American.”

Guilty as charged. I can’t wait for the rest of you to read it.

More news about my upcoming Guild Wars 2 novel is finally official. The book is done and should be out sometime this summer. The title has been changed from Fall of Ascalon to the far better Ghosts of Ascalon, which rings truer on multiple levels.

The biggest change is the addition of a co-author to the marquee: Jeff Grubb. Jeff’s a fellow member of my Alliterates writers group — although he’s in the Seattle branch, while I’m part of the Wisconsin lineup. I’ve known him since way back when I used to run RPGA events for his Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game at Gen Con, in the mist-shrouded past of the mid-’80s.

According to the official FAQ about the book:

As one of the chief game designers and writers of Guild Wars 2, Jeff Grubb has been heavily involved in working with Matt Forbeck to integrate Guild Wars 2 lore into the narrative of the book. As the editorial direction of Ghosts of Ascalon progressed, it became apparent that Jeff’s contributions to the novel merited his inclusion as a coauthor.

As one of the two in-house lore masters for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who knows the game and its world better than Jeff. Couple that with the fact that he’s a fantastic writer with over a dozen previous novels under his belt, and you can guess at how much his contributions meant to this book. I can’t wait for you to read it.

P.S. Massively and Kotaku have both picked up on the story, and so far the reaction seems good.

Lincoln Stollard, who I met at the GAMA Trade Show a few years back, just told me that he’s completed work on a book called The Learning Project. In it, Lincoln interviews dozens of people in different fields to discover different ways in which people learn. It’s aimed at teenagers, to show them that there are all sorts of different ways to become educated about anything, but anyone curious about such things should enjoy it. Lincoln’s looking for a publisher for a dead-tree version of the book, but you can enjoy his work online right now for free.

Lincoln interviewed me as one of the three writers profiled in the book. He caught me on the tail end of an exhausting, fun-filled show (aren’t they all?), and I was probably a bit more scattered and candid than normal. If you’d like to know about me and how I got here, his interview of me is an excellent place to start.

I get to work on all sorts of cool things, but I often have to sit on that news for months—sometimes forever. Last week, I mentioned the Yu-Gi-Oh 5DS Figure Reader that I designed for Playmates Toys. Today, in news from the New York Toy Fair, I see that Mattel has announced another project I worked on: Puppy Tweets.

This is a dog tag that fastens to your dog’s collar and then transmits data via WiFi to your home computer, which tweets updates about what your pet is up to. It’s hilarious. As the LA Times article says, this device isn’t a mind reader. It’s a high-tech toy used for pure fun. I didn’t come up with the idea—I just wrote a bunch of the tweets soon to be plastered all over the Twitterverse—but I can’t wait to see it in action.

Tomorrow Is Yesterday, the first game and comic-book shop I regularly shopped at as a kid, went under late last year. I had heard that they and Black Hawk Hobby Distributors, which were both owned by the same people, were having troubles last year, but it had been a while since I’d been able to get down to Rockford, Illinois, to visit.

Today, I had to run down to Rockford to trade in my son Pat’s violin for a larger one from Asher’s Violin Shop. He’s grown, and needs the next size up. On my way back, I tried to stop by Tomorrow Is Yesterday and found that Top Cut Comics had replaced it.

The new owners have done a fine job with the place, although they place a lot more emphasis on their Pokémon league and tournaments. They cleared out nearly half the store for gaming tables, and they had a bunch of kids in there playing when I stopped by. I’ll miss the old place and the people who ran it, but hopefully Top Cut will be around to soldier on in their stead for years to come.

My latest column for The Escapist’s High Adventure series is up. In “The Play’s the Thing,” I write about the wrap-up for the first adventure in the D&D campaign I started for Marty and his friends. Check it out, and comment there or here to let me know what you think.

Also, should I continue to write about the campaign, or should I take up other topics? Now would be a good break point if I’d like to switch, and I’m open to suggestions.

I work on lots of different things, but not all of them see the light of day. Some of them die at the idea stage. Others are killed during development. Some have the plug pulled when they’re already in production. Lots of times, I can’t even talk about these because I’ve signed NDAs that prevent me from mentioning them until they’re already public knowledge.

Sometimes, though, they come out in other parts of the world, and I don’t know about them until I stumble across them. Case in point: the Yu-Gi-Oh 5DS Figure Reader from Playmates Toys. I designed the gameplay and user interface for this electronic toy for use with a set of 2.5″ Yu-Gi-Oh 5DS figures sold separately. A general release for these were never made in the US, although you can find a selection of them on Amazon.co.uk.

According to the bits of sales information I’ve been able to find, the Figure Reader:

• Uses 2 AA batteries, not included.
• Reads 2.5” figurine names and ATK/DEF points and keeps track of  your collection.
• Holds name and power information for 50 monsters from the trading card game.
• Features lights and sounds from the Yu-Gi-Oh TV show.

The Figure Reader comes with a number of simple game modes, including:

1. Battle Game: Scan your figure and then fight with a randomly selected figure on figure reader.
2. Power Test: Compare two figures and guess which has a higher level in a stat.
3. Identify: See an image of a figure and identify it by name.
4. Type Test:  See an image of a figure and identify it by type.
5. Odd Out: See the names of three figures and guess which does not fit with the others based on certain criteria.

I had a lot of fun working on the Figure Reader. Here’s hoping that the kids in the UK enjoy it too.

Friday night, I handed off my duties as the quads’ soccer coach to take Marty to see Sylvia Earle accept the Roy Chapman Andrews Award. She is an amazing woman who’s done incredible things, and her presentation was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Marty and I were both fighting colds, so we bailed out before the absolute end of the event.

The Beloit Daily News put the event on the front page, along with a photo of Bill Green (director of the Logan Museum) and my father giving Earle the award. For Marty and me, the oddest part was hearing my dad referred at as “the Honorable Ken Forbeck.” To us, proud of him as we are, he’s just Grandpa/Dad rather than Judge Forbeck.

Either way, Dad did a great job of discharging his duties as this year’s president of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society. I keep thinking I’d like to write a Roy Chapman Andrews novel one of these days. First, though, I have to finish Vegas Knights!

A couple weeks back I wrote about the efforts of DriveThruRPG.com and many of its affiliated publishers to raise money for Haitian relief work. This included selling a huge bundle of RPG products worth nearly $1,500 for only $20.

The promotion is over now, and it was a stunning success. I’m told that DriveThruRPG.com will be cutting a check for nearly $180,000 to Doctors Without Borders. ICv2.com has all the details.

I couldn’t be prouder of the great people who put this together and those who chipped in for the cause. Go gamers!

Back in November, I mentioned that James Taylor is using Kickstarter to help fund a game he’s creating and selling as part of his college education: The Gentlemen of the South Sandwiche Islands. I’m pleased to report that James smashed through his fundraising goal for the game and will be going to press soon. If you’d still like to order a copy, you have until February 9, 2010, to get to it.