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As something of an inevitable sequel to the immediately preceding post - e23 has now followed up GURPS Castle Falkenstein with my own GURPS Castle Falkenstein: The Ottoman Empire, which by the way is dual-statted for GURPS and the original Castle Falkenstein rules.

 

Like most Falkenstein game material, this book entangles a fair amount of authentic 19th century history with a lot of rather gonzo steampunk high fantasy. The difference is that I was working with the history of the last years of the Ottoman Empire, which got rather gonzo in its own right, by most rational standards, as well as being as depressing as a lot of history when you look closely. Ottoman Turkey really was an archetypal totally screwed-up ancient empire on the slide. That makes it an interesting place to visit, but you really wouldn't want to live there.

 

The book itself is almost interesting in its way, because it follows the original Castle Falkenstein standard presentation style of including a lot of first-person setting fiction. (That's not Steve Jackson Games' house style, but the book was originally written for R.Talsorian. The Designer's Notes explain.) Come to think of it, Ottoman Empire may represent the single largest work of fiction which I've ever had published, interwoven with the games stuff. Which is probably either cool or sad. Very possibly both.

I did have some fun deciding what to put into the "Cinema" section of the bibliography, I must admit.

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I nearly forgot to note ... I've just been away for a week (photos on Flickr and notes here to follow), and I got home shortly after Steve Jackson Games' e23 managed to surprise me very slightly by putting another of my old  books out in PDF form.

GURPS Castle Falkenstein was a little unexpected in this context because it's about a licensed third-party setting, and the company needs to renegotiate things with the IP owner to get those books re-released as PDFs. However, it may be less surprising that the company managed to negotiate an expansion to this license than would be the case with many; unlike, say, Conan (not one of mine, but one which recently made a similar, more surprising GURPS/e23 reappearance), Falkenstein was licensed from another games publisher, who'll have a realistic view of the possibilities, and who won't have many other uses in mind for the IP.

Anyway, it's a book in which I take a little pride, and it's a chunky volume with some nice art. (I should also point out that it was a collaborative effort - the one book I've done with the admirable Jim Cambias.) So I'm happy to see it out there once again.