Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, part of my ongoing series of quick interviews with authors talking about their new or upcoming books. These are short and sweet interviews, with the idea being that each author will answer (more or less) the same questions – by the end of each interview I hope you will have a good idea of what the new book (or audio drama) is about, what inspired it and why you might want to read or listen to it.
This time around I spoke to Jonathan Green about his new gamebook Dracula: Curse of the Vampire, which at the time of writing is approaching the end of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Whether you’re a veteran of gamebooks and interactive novels or you’ve never come across the concept before, read on to find out more about what to expect from this intriguing new adaptation of a classic horror novel.
Without further ado, over to Jonathan…
A mockup of the final cover design
Track of Words: What’s the elevator pitch summary for Dracula: Curse of the Vampire?
Jonathan Green: it’s an interactive gothic horror novel inspired by the works of Bram Stoker. In this adventure gamebook – a multi-path book, very much in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure or Fighting Fantasy gamebooks – YOU choose the course of the story, deciding which routes to take, which perils to risk, and which of the terrifying creatures you will meet along the way to fight.
Play as Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray and Dr John Seward…or even Count Dracula! Whether you succeed in your quest or succumb to the curse of the vampire will be down to the choices YOU make. Do not tarry, for the dead travel fast, and remember, the blood is the life! I’m very pleased to say that it is being illustrated by gamebook fantasy art legend Martin McKenna.
ToW: For anyone who’s not familiar with them, what’s a gamebook and how is it different from a ‘regular’ novel?
JG: A gamebook is an interactive novel in which the reader is the hero. Rather than read the book from cover to cover, at the end of a narrative section you are presented with a choice. You then decide what you would like to do next and turn to the relevant section. The game element comes in the form of rolling dice, or picking playing cards, to resolve combat or test your character’s different abilities, just as you would in a conventional roleplaying game. In other words, a gamebook is a solo roleplaying experience disguised as a novel.
ToW: In case anyone hasn’t read Dracula – without spoiling anything, who are the main characters in the book and what do we need to know about them?
JG: A young solicitor, Jonathan Harker, travels to an isolated castle in the Carpathian Mountains, to assist a mysterious Count with purchasing a number of properties in England. But what he witnesses there drives him to the edge of madness…
Meanwhile, in Whitby, his fiancée Mina Murray visits her dear friend Lucy Westenra. But during her stay, Lucy is attacked and becomes seriously ill…
In London, Dr John Seward becomes preoccupied with the case of a certain Mr Renfield, an inmate at his lunatic asylum, who seeks to collect lives for his master…
And so the pieces for the game are set. For they are all pawns in a plan devised centuries ago by the Voivod of Wallachia, Vlad Tepes, a cruel tyrant whom history remembers as the Son of the Devil, his bloodthirsty deeds having earned him another name…Dracula.
You can play through the gamebook as either Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray or Dr Seward. However, what makes this retelling of Bram Stoker’s classic gothic horror novel unique is that you can even play as the eponymous Count himself, and try to thwart the Vampire Hunters who are ranged against you.
ToW: Why this story? What made you want to turn Dracula into a gamebook?
JG: Part of it is the intellectual challenge, giving readers a brand new way to experience the story, while also providing them with a few surprises here and there along the way. But mainly it’s the chance to revisit the idea of Dracula himself being a monstrous, corrupted, undead horror – someone who was a psychopath in life and who in death has only become more heartless and ruthless – rather that some misunderstood hero.
ToW: You’ve written a lot of gamebooks over the years – what appeals to you about this style of storytelling in particular?
JG: I am by nature indecisive. The great thing about writing a gamebook over a novel is rather than having to choose between the hero facing down a dragon or battling an evil necromancer, for example, you can explore both narrative paths.
And I loved gamebooks as a child because they are, by their very nature, empowering. I was a geeky kid back in the 1980s, before being a geek was cool, but reading a gamebook I was transformed into a swash-buckling hero who could go toe-to-toe with an axe-wielding fire giant – and win! I guess the appeal of that aspect of gamebooks has never left me.
Also, I’ve been doing it for so long now – my first gamebook, the Fighting Fantasy adventure Spellbreaker, was published in 1993, and Dracula: Curse of the Vampire will be my twenty-second work of interactive fiction – I suppose it’s in my blood.
ToW: What are the main challenges of writing a gamebook? Are they very different from writing traditional stories?
JG: Yes, they are very different for a number of reasons, and these are also why they can be challenging to write. For one thing, usually everything is presented in the second person present tense; everything is described as if it is happening to the reader right now, in the moment. Also, as the reader is the hero, you have to handle things like character development and internal monologues differently, but they can still be done. But the hardest thing is making sure that the game element is balanced fairly and that all the sections link up as they should, so that one flows into another as seamlessly as possible, even though inevitably numerous sections can all link to the same section.
ToW: How does this story compare to the rest of your work? Have you done anything differently with the structure or the format this time around?
JG: In several of my ACE Gamebooks – notably The Wicked Wizard of Oz and NEVERLAND: Here Be Monsters! – you can play as one of multiple characters. However, you can only play as one character at a time. Where Dracula: Curse of the Vampire differs is that you can swap between the three Vampire Hunters as you play through the adventure. It’s only Count Dracula who you have to play with right the way through without swapping.
ToW: You’re publishing this via Kickstarter, and the campaign has been a success – congratulations! Can you talk a bit about why you chose Kickstarter as a way of publishing this?
JG: For me adventure gamebooks wouldn’t be gamebooks if they weren’t full of illustrations. But quality art is expensive, and gamebooks are now a niche interest, so I basically use Kickstarter to raise the money to pay for the artwork.
One of the rewards available to backers of Dracula: Curse of the Vampire on Kickstarter is to have themselves included in one of the illustrations in the final book, and there are still some of those rewards available!
ToW: Is the book going to be available through other channels, once the Kickstarter campaign closes?
JG: Yes. You will be able to buy it through online retailers as well as at various events and conventions.
ToW: What do you hope horror fans will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
JG: I hope they will enjoy revisiting a classic, while also being presented with a few surprises. But I think what they will enjoy most is experiencing the story from the point of view of Count Dracula, who is not a doomed romantic hero in my version but a bloodthirsty undead monster bent on conquering the British Empire.
ToW: Can you talk at all about what you’re planning next, once Dracula: Curse of the Vampire is completed?
JG: I have various ACE Gamebooks in different stages of development. I actually ran a poll recently on Twitter asking people what they would like to see next, although I didn’t actually tell them what the adventures are called. Third place went to a bucolic alien invasion story, second was a mystic martial arts adventure, but the most popular idea, by a whisker, was a weird Western. I’m still trying mulling over which one I’m actually going to write next.
I also have a few non-fiction projects that I’m hoping to work on over the next couple of years, and I’m writing a new short story for the Black Library.
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Many thanks to Jonathan for taking the time to answer these questions! If you’d like to know a bit more about Jonathan’s writing you can find a couple of reviews and an interview regarding his Black Library work here, follow him on Twitter @jonathangreen or check out jonathangreenauthor.com.
Dracula: Curse of the Vampire concludes its run on Kickstarter at 1pm GMT on Tuesday 31st March 2020 – check out the campaign here.
Click here if you fancy taking a look at some other Author Interviews. If you have any questions, comments or other thoughts please do let me know in the comments below, or find me on Twitter.