Интервю с Jamie Thomson

Кой е Джей­ми Томсън?

Съв­сем накрат­ко това е един от авта­ри­те на „Пътя на тигъ­ра” и кни­ги­те от Fabled Lands

Dear authors,

We have the pleasure to contact You from one little Eastern European
country – Bulgaria. And maybe You can guess that we want to ask you a couple
of question about the wonderful Gamebooks, the books of our childhood. But
first let us explain a little about who we are.

Our names are Damian Hristov and Lubomir Lisichkov – two die- hard fans of
the Gamebooks.

We see that right now there is something like a renaissance of this kind of
books in England and we are very happy with this fact. We have a similar
situation in our country – some of the Bulgarian authors from the 90s are
starting to publish new books and we even have a new magazine dedicated to
gamebooks. We also have a site and a forum with a strong community -
http://knigi-igri.net/ and here is the address of our forum -
http://knigi-igri.net/forum/. The English gamebooks were very popular in
Bulgaria back in the day and one of the most beloved ones published in our
country was the Blood Sword series. The Way of the Tiger is also very
popular.

So we have a couple of questions and requests:

1. Could you give an interview for our site http://knigi-igri.net/. We can
assure you that the old bulgarian fans will be very happy to see such a
thing – an interview with the authors of the best gamebooks ever!
2. Back in the day we wanted to read some information about the history of
the gamebooks as a genre, but because we were very young back then and the
fact that we didn’t have Internet made that quest impossible. But now in the
era of communications maybe this goal is possible.

We know that such a request is not easy, but we’ve been wanting to do
something like this for a long time. And in our search we found an issue of
Fighting Fantasy Magazine Warlock. What an artifact! And in Your article Mr.
Jamie Thomson “Omens and Auguries” and this paragraph exact:
“By the way, if you are interested in a short history of gamebooks, have a
look at a new magazine, from Games Workshop, The Good Game Guide – I’ve
written an article on the subject from Warlock of the Firetop Mountain to
the present day”

We were really exited to find this piece of information, but we cannot find
this magazine anywhere. So…our question is – is it possible for you to send
us the article so we can use it in our work about the History of gamebooks
around the world?

Best Regards!

Damian Hristov
Lubomir Lisichkov

PS: In Wikipedia there is a little information about our Bulgarian
gamebooks:

“In the 1990s, after the fall of Communism, the genre became highly popular
in Bulgaria for a period of about ten years,[26] although it was well past
the peak of its popularity in the West by that time.[1] While
internationally known series such as Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting
Fantasy were also translated, the period was mostly characterized by the
work of a vast number of Bulgarian gamebook authors, some of them immensely
productive and popular. Since Bulgarian publishing houses at the time
believed that only Western names would sell, virtually all Bulgarian
gamebook authors wrote under English pseudonyms,[26][27] a tradition that
persisted despite the fact that their nationality soon became clear to the
public.”

Hi, Damian and Lubomir.

An interview shouldn’t be a problem — you can just send us a list of
questions and we’ll answer them for you and email them back. We’re very busy
at the moment though, so it might take a while. Dave Morris is working on an
interactive version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
http://www.inklestudios.com/press-release-nov11/ and I’m very busy on my
next novel in this series.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teenage-Years‑D … f_gw_p_t_1

(Sorry, had to try and sell you something ). Plus you might also be
interested in these:

http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/

http://www.sparkfurnace.com/

As for the Warlock magazine article, I’m afraid I don’t have any of those
anymore. It was so long ago! I don’t even have copies of the magazine. I’m
sorry, I can’t help you there! Let me know if you track down the magazines
yourself though!

Regards,

Jamie Thomson