The Dangerous Games Trilogy

Once a year, the greatest tabletop gamers in the world descend upon Indianapolis for Gen Con, the Best Four Days in Gaming, to play games, see friends, and have fun. They play things like D&D, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40,000, Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, and everything else they can get their hands on. Mostly the competition is friendly.

Sometimes it is not.

When a world-famous game designer turns up murdered at the convention, a group of gamers makes it their quest to figure out who killed him, and why. As they dig deeper, they start to question everything they thought they knew about the man: who he is, why someone hated him enough to kill him — and if he’s really dead. In the end, they must figure out who’s playing whom or risk not only losing this most dangerous game but their lives.

Ask Not What Your Country Could Do For you. Ask What It Could Do To You.

John Cruise — better known as the superpowered delta Patriot — only wanted to serve his country, which has suffered under martial law since the assassination of the First Lady back in 1963. For years, he did so as a member of Delta Prime, the federal paramilitary organization dedicated to keeping deltas and the rest of the population in line. Then, during the Bicentennial Battle, Chicago disappeared in a blinding flash of light, taking the world’s most powerful deltas with it, along with Patriot’s wife.

Shotguns & Sorcery is a fantasy noir setting — think Lord of the Rings written by Raymond Chandler — I first developed as a roleplaying game setting back in 2001. It takes place in a massive city ruled over by a Dragon Emperor who protects the people from the ravenous hordes of undead monsters that mass against its walls. I’d originally licensed it to Mongoose Publishing and hoped to have it in stores in 2002.

And then my wife got pregnant with quadruplets.

That kicked Shotguns & Sorcery past the back burner, out the window, and into the backyard. Cut to ten years later. The kids are fine and healthy, and I’m ready now to dive back into that setting again — but this time as fiction.

I wrote the first Shotguns & Sorcery story last year for Robin D. Laws’s upcoming anthology The New Hero 2, from Stone Skin Press. I fell back in love with the world right away, and I returned to it for another story for Marc Tassin’s anthology Carnage & Consequences. Now I’m itching to write novels for it.

Today you die. Today you are reborn. Today you hunt the man who killed you.

It’s Lee Child vs. Altered Carbon in a high-tech blast of tough-as-nails future thrills. Matt Forbeck arrives as the new king of high-concept – with a blockbuster action movie in a book. In the near future, scientists solve the problem of mortality by learning how to backup and restore a persons memories into a vat-bred clone. When Secret Service agent Ronan “Methusaleh” Dooley is brutally murdered, he’s brought back from the dead yet again to hunt his killer, and in doing so uncover a terrible conspiracy.

Flames Rising is pleased to present a excerpt from this new novel by Matt Forbeck.

Today’s new monster in the Halloween Horror series is brought to us by author and game designer Matt Forbeck (Mutant Chronicles, Ghost Stories). Matt knows a thing or two about little “trick-or-treaters” and adds a twist to a common Halloween night activity. Artist Aaron Acevedo adds a bit of gruesome horror to this entry in his own style.

Just what kind of horror is under the cute little costume?

The Hollow Wee ’Un

Created By Matt Forbeck

“Trick or treat!”

“Oh! Don’t you just look incredible! What a wonderful costume!”

“Trick or treat!”

“Hold a moment, honey. I don’t see your parents. Aren’t you a little young to be wandering around out here on your own?”

“Trick or treat!”