Drew Wagar: Author, Astronomer, Anachronism, Ashford.

This blog has been left a little derelict in the last few weeks, apologies for this. My new project has consumed all my available spare time and will do so until Summer of 2014. The Shadeward Saga will, unfortunately, be on hold until that time.

What is this project? In short, I sought £4,500 from the internet at large in order to secure the rights to write an official ‘Elite:Dangerous’ novel. Raising this involved active participation on a crowdfunding site called ‘Kickstarter’.

End result? I raised £7,043. This got me the license and enough spare cash to be able to hire an editor, publisher and cover artist. Thus I can write a book I’ve always wanted to write, and have it officially recognised and promoted by a far larger and more notable organisation than ever before. Elite has hundreds of thousands of fans already. Game on!

For those of you who enjoyed the Oolite Saga, this is almost the ‘official’ version. This is not a repeat however and is 100% a new story, not a sequel or prequel to the Oolite Saga.

As you’d expect, the novel will feature an ensemble cast of memorable characters, a dark and dystopian future and a plot which will twist from political intrique, via epic space battles, to a tense page-turning finale.

This project needs to be complete by March 2014, and specific updates about it will be posted over at www.elitereclamation.co.uk

After the round of media attention last week, I got a request for an interview. I dutifully responded and was informed it went live yesterday.

You can read it at the PCGamesN site.

Utterly delighted to announce that Elite : Reclamation has achieved its funding goal. I’ve made the pledge and am raring to go with the novel!

In a fortuitous piece of timing, my pledge co-incided with Elite : Dangerous being taken over the 50% pledge threshold, so the game is also now on the home stretch.

I can’t properly express my thanks to all who supported me on this mission. It seemed like an almost impossible target to hit, but hit it we have, in a mere 9 days. Extraordinary!

Within minutes the achievement was acknowledged by the author of Elite, David Braben himself.

Thanks to all who’ve pledged their support to me. Elite : Reclamation is go!

Write on, Commanders!

Well, no guesses for what this blog post will be about. Elite. A game I played when I was 13, that reinforced a love of space, astronomy, adventure and sci-fi, started me off as a writer… well it’s come full circle.

This could be a definitive point in my life, certainly it will be a real ‘dream come true’ for me. I’ve got a chance to officially be a part of something that shaped my life from an early age.

You might think I’m nuts, how can I be so enthused about an old game from a begone decade. I’ll tell you why – this game expanded the mind, fostered creativity, built imagination. If I could provide something similar for my own kids now – wow, just wow.

Here’s my video about it, pitched directly to camera. This is a big deal for me. I guess you get that now.

I’m doing a shoutout to other author friends of mine too:

Here they are:

John Hoggard – http://www.twitter.com/DaddyHoggy (Fellow author in ‘Fusion’!)
Louise Gibney – http://www.facebook.com/#!/Louise.Gibney.Writer?fref=ts
Stifen Emreys – http://www.facebook.com/#!/stifynpemrys?fref=ts

Folks, an opportunity has come up that, for me, is impossible to resist.

The computer game aficionados amongst you won’t have failed to notice the Elite:Dangerous kickstarter project. (See previous blog, otherwise!). Elite was the best game of the 1980s bar none, and it’s being given a 21st century makeover.

As you all know, I wrote a series of fan-fiction novellas for the open-source ‘Oolite’, which are set in (almost) the same universe. The original Elite came with a Novella, and I felt Oolite deserved the same.

Now there’s a new Elite on the horizon.

The Elite:Dangerous project has a “Writers’ Pack” – there’s the opportunity to write an officially recognised story set in the Elite:Dangerous universe, publish it and even have parts of the game rearranged to suit the events of the story.

Trouble is, it requires a pledge of £4,500. Believe it or not, I don’t have that kind of cash just lying around.

Thus I’m resorting to my own kickstarter project, hoping to raise the money in order to pledge for another. It’s got to be raised prior to the 5th of January 2013.

This is clearly a bit of a mission! I don’t think it’s impossible. More than 100,000 people have downloaded my Oolite Saga novellas over the past 6 years.

Everyone who pledges £5 or more will get an ebook copy of the new story. Stretch goals include professional cover design, editing, type-setting and a paperback production run.

So if you’ve enjoyed the Oolite Saga and want more, here’s your chance. Help me raise the money and bring an official Elite novel to life. I’m aiming for 70-90k words, 250-350 pages.

The working title is Elite:Reclamation

You can pledge here.

Elite, the seminal 8-bit computer game probably needs little introduction to regular readers, but just in case you know absolutely nothing about computer games at all, essentially ‘Elite’ is the best computer there has ever been.

Written back in 1983 it broke the mould of the “3 lives and a highscore” approach that was set in stone at the time. It provided 3D graphics, an unending universe to explore and no particular goal you had to achieve. You just went where you wanted.

Since then, many attempts to recreate this extraordinary style of game play have come, failed and gone. Virtually all games have scripted ‘missions’ and linear story driven game play. You don’t have choice.

Other than fan remakes of the original, the best being Oolite, there has been a dearth of games of this type and genre.

Now, atlast, there is a possibility we might finally get a sequel. David Braben, one of the original authors of Elite, has requested pledges to the tune of £1.2M in order to begin developing the game – to be called ‘Elite:Dangerous’. He needs to raise this amount by January 7th 2013. So far, after less than a day, the total stands just north of £107,000.

You can pledge to the project here.

Right on, Commanders!

Edit : Updated with the video! Check it out, it’s cool

Folks, the Sci-fi anthology Fusion (containing ‘Metal’ – one of my stories) has gone live.

For just £1.02 you can enjoy 25 excellent short stories and have the knowledge you’re contributing to Worldwide Cancer Research. Please support this worthy cause and my fellow authors. Thank you!

Amazon/Kindle Users Click Here.

All other formats (including PDF) Click Here.

EDIT: Fusion launches this weekend on Amazon and Smashwords! Direct links will be posted when available. – 2/11/2012@22:00

Here’s the cover of the upcoming anthology my short story ‘Metal’ is featured in. As you can see Metal will be sitting alongside 24 other stories, some of which will be even better than mine!

Friend and fellow author, John Hoggard, also has a story in here – ‘Baby Babble’, of which I’ve seen an early draft and was impressed at the time. The final version should be excellent.

Quality of entries was very high, so it should be a great read throughout.

Proceeds go to supporting cancer research, so all in a good cause. If more than 8,000 ebooks are sold there will be a print run too. What’s not to like?

Details on pricing soon.

Folks,

You may recall that one of my short stories (Metal – as yet unpublished) was selected as part of an anthology to be published later this year.

Apparently it’s almost ready. It will go on sale as an ebook initially and if (here’s the big if!) more than 8,000 ebook copies are sold then there will be a print run too.

My friend and fellow author, John Hoggard, is also included and the standard of entries should be very high indeed. I rate my story ‘Metal’ as one of the best pieces I’ve written to date and I wasn’t in the top three.

Proceeds go to cancer research, so it’s a great cause too.

More details when they arrive, but please consider buying a copy when it’s out!

I gave a talk at my local Astronomical Society last friday and it was videoed. So if you’d like to watch me cavorting around and generally having a ball doing my best to explain fairly advanced physics with the aid of some marbles, biscuits and a glass of water… click below.

Edit : Google suddenly decided to allow me to upload longer videos… thus it’s now full length.