Both Keith DeCandido and I are getting our Spider-Man novels reprinted as part of a new omnibus coming next year. Marvel Classic Novels – Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours Omnibus will include Jim Butcher’s The Darkest Hours, Keith’s Down These Mean Streets, and my Drowned in Thunder, apparently in that order (which is their in-story chronological order, though Keith's was published first). These three are a natural fit, since by chance we all chose to set them in the same narrow part of the comics timeline between Mary Jane Watson taking up stage acting and Spidey joining the Avengers. More info at my blog: https://christopherlbennett.wordpre...rowned-in-thunder-is-being-reprinted-at-last/
Awesome, I've been wanting to read all three of those, but I never got a chance to when they originally came out. That whole bunch of Pocket Marvel novels seemed to go out of print pretty quickly. If they do a Fantastic Four book with Jeffrey Lang and @Greg Cox's novels, then I will be very happy.
I'm hoping they'll do an omnibus with my other Marvel novel, X-Men: Watchers on the Walls. It looks like Pocket Star did two other X-Men novels, Marjorie M. Liu's Dark Mirror and Chris Roberson's The Return, so it's viable.
If it’s not too personal a question @Christopher, will you be making any money from this reprint? Or will it just be the pleasure of seeing your work in print again.
For me, and I assume for the other Pocket Star writers, the Marvel novels were strictly a flat-fee contract, no royalties. So I don't get any more money from reprints. But I'm proud of Drowned in Thunder and I regret that it underperformed on first release, so I'm glad when more people get a chance to experience the story, first as an audiobook and now this.
Watchers on the Wall and David Mack's Wolverine novel Road of Bones were the only Pocket Marvel books I read. I really enjoyed both of them, and have been wanting read more of the Trek writers Pocket/Marvel books ever since.
Yeah, that particular line of Marvel novels were flat fee, no royalty, so we don't get any extra money from this. But it's still nice to see it reach a wider audience, especially since that whole line badly underperformed sales-wise.....
In case you are into gaming tie-ins: There's a Humble Bundle with gaming tie-ins (mostly comics) offered right now.
I've got a new tie-in on the way, co-written with Josh Reynolds, based on the upcoming Watch Dogs: Legion videogame: Day Zero, out next month. Details here: https://jswallow.com/watch-dogs-legion-day-zero/
Yeah, what Steve said. Dark Clouds was a digital-only prequel to the first Watch Dogs game, Day Zero is a prequel to Watch Dogs: Legion, the third game in the series. There's also an "Art Of" book for the first game and a lore book for Legion called Resistance Report. And there are some Watch Dogs comics too, I believe...
Oh, I missed all of those apparently. I haven't played the games yet, but they are on my list, and I always try to keep an eye for tie-ins for anything I'm interested in.
I've read Dark Clouds, which I vaguely remember finding not bad (I've read several of John Shirley's books, but this wasn't one of the most memorable), and Return to Rocinha, a graphic novel that, as a change of pace, is set in a Brazilian favela. I liked it. I'm stuck partway through the second Watch Dogs game but I'll get back to it. And I expect I'll buy the new game and the new novel.
Titan is going to be releasing Spider-Man: Mile Morales: Wings of Fur by Brittney Morris, a prequel to the upcoming Playstation game. I'm really looking forward to the game, so this is definitely on my radar.
Can't resist pointing out that MUSINGS ON MONSTERS: Observations on the World of Classic Horror went on sale Friday, just in time for Halloween. It's a collection of essays on classic monster movies and related topics: Frankenstein, Dracula, Dark Shadows, etc. My contribution is an essay comparing Boris Karloff to Bela Lugosi, via the movies they co-starred in together. http://sequart.org/books/58/musings-on-monsters-observations-on-the-world-of-classic-horror/
While checking the online bookstores for their Arachne’s Crime listings, I stumbled upon another discovery. Dreamscape Media, which now holds the Marvel Comics audiobook license and reprinted GraphicAudio’s full-cast adaptation of Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder a while back, will soon release a more conventional audiobook version of my 2006 novel X-Men: Watchers on the Walls, read by Frankie Corzo. It’s due January 26, 2021, and can be preordered here: Order from Amazon Order from Barnes & Noble The audiobook cover isn’t out yet, so here’s the original cover art for now. Here’s the original book description, though I don’t know if Dreamscape will use the same text. For years, many have believed that the rise of superpowered mutants represents a threat to the survival of ordinary humans. The uncanny X-Men have dedicated their lives to proving that peaceful coexistence is possible. When a refugee spacecraft crashes on Earth, hounded by a warship bent on its destruction, the X-Men race to the rescue — only to learn that it carries beings of an entirely different order whose very existence may jeopardize life as we know it. Now, facing a direct threat to all life on Earth, the X-Men grapple with an impossible moral dilemma — to defend the aliens whose only crime is being born different . . . or to embrace the methods of those who have long condemned mutantkind, joining forces with their own greatest persecutors to go hunt down their common enemy and end the evolutionary menace, once and for all. Anyway, the audiobook version has apparently had the title tweaked a little; if the listings are correct, it’s now The X-Men: Watchers on the Walls. So it’s more definite now, I guess. Whatever the title, I’m glad it’s finally getting an audio adaptation and a new lease on life. It only took 15 years!
I'm really glad you posted that, @Christopher, because I discovered that the same thing happened to one of my 2000s Marvel books! Spider-Man: Down These Mean Streets will be released in audio this month! Here's the Amazon link for the Audible edition, and there's also an audio CD that will be available. It'll be read by Tara Sands. (And that same book will be released along with two other Spidey books, Christopher's Drowned in Thunder and Jim Butcher's Darkest Hours, in an omnibus by Titan in the spring of 2021.)
Does anybody on here know if Titan is going to be releasing any of the other Pocket Star Marvel books? I know about the KRAD/CLB/Jim Butcher Spidey book, and the Wolverine book with David Mack's Road of Bones and two others, and I was wondering if there are going to be more after that. I've been thinking about getting some of the the ones I haven't read second hand on Amazon, but if I can get e-books of the new omnibuses, I'd much rather go that direction.