Category: Gamebooks

USA’94

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

After featuring graffiti with USA’94, here’s a book about USA’94, published about a week ago. It’s size A4 and lets you replay the football world cup from 1994. It looks very complicated to read. I’m not sure if I can make it despite watching the championship and knowing roughly what happened. It has 500 episodes and about half-a-book of rules about what to do with these 500 episodes.

I find it cool that people can come up with such ideas, publish them, and potentially even find someone to read them.

Daily Harvest

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

I got 3 new gamebooks from the 1990s today. Planning to read toe UFO one soon.

All three are on subjects that fell out of fashion in the literature over the years. Flying saucers, samurais, and the Vietnam war. I hope at least one is actually good. Has to be the flying saucer 🙂

January 2025 in Books

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

2025 starts well, as if the Goodreads challenge is still usable. I completed many good books last month.

Best books

  1. A Deadly Influence by Mike Omer – I had to read a book that says Instagram is evil. Well written, a bit heavy. 5/5
  2. The Waiting by Michael Connelly – Michael Connelly only gets better with time. His “new” character Renée Ballard is even cooler than Harry Bosch. 5/5
  3. Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat – Liquid anger against the oppressive regime in Iran. 5/5
  4. Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa – A slightly romantic finish of a great artifact disposal fantasy. 5/5
  5. Completely nuts by Gilles Legardinier – Low-stakes bubblegum. 5/5

Worst books

  1. Defiant by Brandon Sanderson – Spensa gets misbalanced nerfs and OPs, nothing to read there. 4/5 but really lower.
  2. Rainbow (Дъга 1) – a comic book about the dark twists of ordinary fantasy events. 4/5

Meeting Robert Blond at the Christmas Book Fair

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Today was the last day of the International Book Fair in Sofia. My book harvest this year was primarily gamebooks because there was a shortage of books I wanted and didn’t already buy before it. The Black Friday promotions were too good.

The Gamebook association organized a signing with one of our local gamebook celebrities, Robert Blond, who published a new book and a short story. I had a chance to read both. I finished the short story before it was published and the book – before writing the post.

The 2024 edition of Agamor is also out, which holds 4 gamebooks. One of the books is an official spinoff of Blood Sword. It’s expected to be published in English as well.

We also got a translation of Simon Duhope’s Shadow Chaser, which was surprisingly sophisticated. Took me 3 days to discover the path to the end.

The Shadow Chaser is available in English. Agamor is of local significance as of today.

Another writer who visited the city this week was Rhianna Pratchett. Despite being subscribed for updates on the publisher’s Facebook page, Facebook let me see the event’s announcement after it was over. Missed that opportunity.

Rhianna Pratchett is the author of Crystal of Storms. Would’ve loved to attend her signing.