Straight from the Wolf's mouth

(I'll post this under, 'the books and the world'; at least some of the information here concerns the books.)

Joe Dever was in Paris this weekend for the 'Monde du Jeu' trade fair. I did a fair amount of interpreting work for him, helping him with interviews and signings and question/answer sessions any time there was a language barrier. For a Lone Wolf fanboy, it was sort of a dream assignment - doubly so, since Joe was very pleasant, and an absolute professional in every sense.

Find below, in no particular order, some of the Lone Wolf information that came out this weekend. A lot of this was discussed in various interviews. Also, Joe mentioned a few of the points in passing, and I thought they deserved repeating.

• The first UK publication of LW 29 will be in March 2010. The target thereafter is to release a book every three months until the New Order series finishes with book 32.
  
• LW 29 takes place 18 years after LW 28. Its introduction includes a long 'the story so far' section to explain the events of that intervening time.
  
• LW 32 will definitely include Grey Star – it will, in fact, include every major character from the LW series. Joe says that book 32 'ties up a lot of loose ends'.
  
• LW 31 and 32 will be about 500 sections long each. The events in these books will have long-term consequences for the whole of Magnamund. 'There are some twists coming'.
  
• Joe is working on a comprehensive map of Magnamund with an Italian artist (Francesco Mattioli).
  
• The Helghasts of the computer game Killzone are the same as those found on Magnamund – though projected about 200,000 years along their timeline.
  
• Once the Killzone game was well into the development stage, Joe received a letter from Sony demanding why, even though he'd assured them that the game's content was all his own original creation, he'd copied the Helghasts from a fantasy gamebook series that some guy had written in the 1980s...
  
• Joe originally envisaged Sommerlund as a cross between England and Norway. He originally envisaged Durenor as a cross between France and Germany. Only as the gamebook series evolved did he feel that they took on distinct identites of their own.
  
• Joe has, for three years, been working on a completely new gamebook series. It will be a fantasy (not science-fiction) series, but will not take place on Magnamund, or even in the universe of Aon. He does have a title for the series, but so far he isn't telling. My impression is that the level of detail going into the series is on a par with the level of information he created to develop the world of Magnamund.
  
• Joe was playing a selfish, mercenary-thief character when he won the final round of the world Advanced Dungeons and Dragons championship in 1982. He finished the adventure by locking the other players in the dungeon and escaping with all the treasure. To paraphrase Joe: 'I've never seen so much hate as there was in the eyes of the players around that table at the end of that game'.
  
• The great chasms on Magnamund – Maakengorge, Kraknalorg, Gorgoroth – are very literal manifestations of Naar's attacks against the planet. They are, if you like, the 'wounds' Naar inflicted on the world. Maakengorge and Kraknalorg remain invested with the after-effects of Naar's evil power. The Elder Magi have managed to 'heal' the chasm of Gorgoroth, negating all such evil energies; the chasm of Gorgoroth is, now, just a big hole in the ground.
  
• Joe is co-scripting the Lone Wolf film (it is currently about 80% finished). It will cover the events of the first half of the expanded version of Flight from the Dark – from the attack on the Kai Monastery to the Battle of Alema Bridge. A stronger female presence being somewhat necessary in the film, Princess Madelon will play a greater part in the film than she does in the books.
  
• The film currently has no director attached. Nor have any actors yet been cast – though it is likely to feature young, little-known actors.
  
• The projected release date of the Lone Wolf film and computer game is around Christmas 2010.
  
• Though it's not yet definite, the movie may be filmed in Norway.
  
• Joe created the basic phonemes of the Giak language by trying to speak with toothpicks in his mouth, and experimenting with what sounds he could still make.
  
• In the first chamber of the Graveyard of the Ancients Lone Wolf senses a 'powerful and timeless entity'. This is, in fact, the tomb of a corrupted Shianti wizard. The dark energies in his body have transformed his remains into a sort of Shadow Gate.
  

Zorkraan was there too, and managed to get some time with Joe. The detail with which those two guys can discuss the intricacies of Magnamund's geography and history is astounding, and I wish I could remember a quarter of what they discussed. So, Zorkraan may be a better source of info than me in those areas.

It's been a fun weekend, all in all.