Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Peter Pan meets Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in a new Kickstarter that’s currently funding.

NEVERLAND – Here Be Monsters! is a brand new adventure gamebook – a multi-path novel, very much in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, in which the reader chooses the course of the story – inspired by both J. M. Barrie’s  Peter Pan and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, and given a Steampunk twist. (Anybody who has read and played the ACE Gamebooks Alice’s Nightmare in Wonderland or The Wicked Wizard of Oz will have a very clear idea of what to expect!)

The book’s author is Jonathan Green, a veteran gamebook designer having written Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebooks, as well as YOU ARE THE HERO – A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, and gamebooks for such popular franchises as Doctor Who, Star Wars, Warhammer 40,000, and Sonic the Hedgehog. He is also well-known for his Pax Britannia Steampunk novels.

In NEVERLAND, having survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic, Wendy Darling finds herself washed up on the shores of a mysterious island that is home to creatures long thought extinct. There she meets a forgotten tribe and a boy who can never group up. But the notorious pirate Captain Hook and his crew have also found their way to Neverland, and the island is angry…

Play as shipwreck survivor Wendy Darling or automaton avenger Peter Pan, and if the Kickstarter reaches its stretch goals you will also be able to play as heroic hunter Tiger Lily or the plundering pirate Captain Hook himself! You decide which path to take, which risks to brave, and which of the strange denizens of Neverland, you will meet along the way, to engage in battle.

Success is by no means certain and you may well fail to complete the adventure at your first attempt. However, with experience, skill, and maybe even a little luck, each new attempt should bring you closer to your ultimate goal. Will you ultimately manage to escape from Neverland?

NEVERLAND – Here Be Monsters! will be illustrated by Kev Crossley, a very talented artist already known to fans of the ACE Gamebooks Alice’s Nightmare in Wonderland and The Wicked Wizard of Oz, published by Snowbooks, as well as fans of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, having provided the gruesome illustrations for Ian Livingstone’s 30th anniversary title Blood of the Zombies.

NEVERLAND – Here Be Monsters! is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter and is available to backers in three different formats – eBook (with embedded hyperlinks), paperback, and a special limited edition signed collector’s hardback, which will include artist’s sketches, designer’s notes, and a brief history of both J. M. Barrie’s  Peter Pan and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World.

Other rewards include playing cards and dice, T-shirts, All Rolled Up game rolls, and cloth maps of Neverland.

The Kickstarter is live now here and will finish at 10:00pm GMT on Saturday 2nd December 2017.