I don’t want to brag, but I knew Scott C. back before he was a big deal, the darling of the Internet. And what has that gotten me? Well, knowing a really nice guy, for one. But also this chance to chat about his new – excellent – hardcover collection of his work, Amazing Everything. And if you’ve spent any time on the Internet, you’ve probably seen his adorable watercolor creations, which lovingly embrace pop culture and weirdness – from a lumberjack holding hands with a log, to… Well, lumberjacks doing other stuff.

Scott and I chatted about all that, his connection to the gaming industry, and most importantly, what painting had him stumped:

MTV Geek: Okay Scott, let’s kick it off talking about Amazing Everything… How’d the book come about?

Scott Campbell: Amazing Everything is something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. I've never collected my paintings into a book before. It is nice to see everything in one place! And in a book that is sort of heavy that I can place on my table or tables. My friend Maurene Goo helped me lay it out and Insight Editions was gracious enough to offer to publish it. I've worked with the editor, Kevin Toyama, on other projects, so it was great working with him again. Actually having someone to help edit my writing was very satisfying. And Jack Black's foreword is like an awesome little poem. He acts as my bouncer for the book, I would say.

Geek: What’s it like seeing your art collected in a hardcover format like this?

SC: It feels splendid to see it all together! Like a family album. There are many memories in this book. Organizing all of the paintings was like laying all of your photos on the floor and trying to pick the best ones for your little album. And then you are proud to show your newly composed album to people whenever they come over for coffee. That is the feeling for me.

Geek: Actually, to take a step back – I’m pretty familiar with your history, but can you talk about your work with Double Fine, and how that’s grown into the career you have now?

SC: I've worked for Double Fine for about 10 years as Art Director and concept artist on games like Psychonauts and Brutal Legend and the soon to be released Once Upon A Monster with Sesame Street. I worked long hours on those games and enjoyed creating those worlds very much. Read more...

Tags Amazing Everything, Gallery 1988, Scott C.

Awakenings -- just released by Tor Books -- is an intriguing modern Noir from first-time novellist Edward Lazellari:

Cal MacDonnell is a happily married New York City cop with a loving family. Seth Raincrest is a washed-up photographer who has alienated even his closest friends. The two have nothing in common—except that they both suffer from retrograde amnesia. It’s as if they just appeared out of thin air thirteen years ago, and nothing has been able to restore their memories. Now their forgotten past has caught up to them with a vengeance.

Read more...

Tags Awakenings, Tor Books

Fans who waited over ten years to catch up with Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow in A Dance With Dragons are no strangers to cliffhangers, but as George R. R. Martin points out during our recent chat at Bubonicon, they're an essential tool in a writer's toolbox. They're even more important for Martin in writing the A Song of Ice and Fire series, where the viewpoint style of storytelling forces him to write eight or more endings for each book. Check out the clip below to hear Martin explain the challenges in his own words:

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Tags A Song Of Ice And Fire, Bubonicon, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, Interview

Imagine a book for which you can download exclusive supplementary content using an app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android. That's the idea behind Dark Eden, a ground-breaking new book series written by Patrick Carman for HarperCollins. Dark Eden the book (you can visit its Facebook page here) doesn't come out until November 1st, but you can download the first episode of the app for free in the Apple App Store and Android Market. Read more about Dark Eden below, and then check out the cool trailer for the book!

"Transmedia pioneer and bestselling author of the groundbreaking SKELETON CREEK, Patrick Carman leads the pack in marrying digital content with printed and electronic books. His new interactive digital book series is a chilling and provocative exploration of fear, betrayal, memory, and immortality.

Will Besting, along with six other teenagers, all suffer from crippling secrets and phobias. Together they are sent to Fort Eden, an old, eerie and mysterious place that holds the promise of a cure for each of them. Not knowing what to expect but eager to be cured, they take turns in mysterious fear chambers and confront their worst nightmares—with the help of the group facilitator, Rainsford, an enigmatic guide. When the patients emerge from the chamber, they feel emboldened by the previous night’sexperience, but each person soon discovers something strange and unexplainable has happened to them.

This compelling series is enhanced by a downloadable app that enriches all the elements of the traditional narrative. Compatible with the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and all Android enabled devices, DARK EDEN’s digital components are delivered through a mobile application that transmits new episodes sequentially as the story unfolds. The first segment, “Arrival,” was revealed in August as a free download and the remaining sections are scheduled for distribution through December for $0.99 each. Designed to engage wired readers, complete episodes include innovative story artifacts such as still images, audio recordings, video scans, and text entries and provide opportunities for fans to post comments.

Patrick Carman is the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed series as the Land of Elyon and Atherton and the teen superhero novel Thirteen Days to Midnight. A multimedia pioneer, Patrick authored The Black Circle, the fifth title in the 39 Clues series, and the groundbreaking Skeleton Creek and Tracker books. He lives in Walla Walla, Washington, with his family. You can visit him online at www.patrickcarman.com and on Twitter as @patrickcarman."

Dark Eden Book Trailer

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Tags book, Dark Eden, Patrick Carman

Want to go on a vampire cruise? Holland America is giving us the opportunity with an upcoming Vamps at Sea Cruise Adventure. Special guests, a vampire ball, disco parties and costume contests are just a few of the vampire centric events taking place as the Zuiderdam makes it’s way to Alaska and back next summer.

Along with the sights and sounds of destinations including Juneau, Glacier Bay, Skagway and Ketchikan, guests will be treated to a vampire movie festival hosted by vampire scholar John Edgar Browning. Also along for the bloodsucking ride is Dacre Stoker, a great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker and author of Dracula: The Un-Dead, a sequel to Bram Stoker’s original story. Read more...

Tags cruise, Holland America, travel, Vampires, Vamps at Sea

A new biographical comic based on the life of "The Hunger Games" book author Suzanne Collins has been announced by Bluewater Productions. Entitled "FAME: Suzanne Collins," the comic hits stands in November and covers the life of the author from her beginnings as a writer for the kid's show "Clarissa Explains It All" to the mega-selling writer of The Hunger Games franchise of books. Take a first look at the cover below, and then read on for more information!

Read more...

Tags Bluewater Productions, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could spend a weekend getaway in the Shire like Frodo and the other Hobbits? Thanks to Montana couple Steve and Christina Michaels our dream of visiting Hobbiton may soon become a reality.

The Michaels have built a life-size Hobbit house and a miniature Shire to match, but it won’t be the rustic stay most of us are expecting. The house is filled with modern amenities including HDTVs, satellite radio, WiFi and Blu-ray players. Read more...

Tags Books, Hobbit House of Montana, Lord of the Rings, Movies, The Hobbit

I was lucky enough at Comic-Con to meet Ernie Cline, the fantastic screenwriter of the hilarious movie Fanboys!! If you are as much a Star Wars fan as I am, you'll love every second of this movie and it has a cameo with Carrie Fisher!!! How can you go wrong? And now Ernie has his first novel coming out, Ready Player One. I just finished the book last week and I was hooked from the first page to the last, no joke. It is a suspenseful cyberspace roller coaster read perfect for geeks!! Check out the New York Times review of his book too!

Here's the book synopsis via Deadline:

A teenager named Wade Watts escapes his bleak surrounds by logging into Oasis, a globally networked virtual utopia where users lead idyllic alternate lives. When the game’s eccentric billionaire creator dies, he offers up his fortune as the prize in an elaborate treasure hunt. Watts is pitted against powerful corporate foes and ruthless competitors who’ll do anything, in the Oasis and real world, to reach the treasure first.

I interviewed Ernie about his new book, Star Wars, video games and his DeLorean!

LW: Ok first off, I LOVE the movie Fanboys! It is so damn funny! How were you able to get your script from your desk all the way to Hollywood?

EC: I originally intended for Fanboys to be an ultra-low-budget indie film that I planned to shoot here in Austin. I wrote a part in the script for Harry Knowles to play himself, then gave him the script to see if he'd agree to be in it. Harry really loved my script and posted a glowing review of it on his website, which is read by everyone who works in Hollywood. Harry's review got the attention of a young producer who tracked me down and optioned the script. It took several more years after that, but eventually the movie was bought and produced by the Weinstein Company. It was a long, strange journey.

Read more...

Tags Ernie Cline, Fanboys, george lucas, Ready Player One, Star Wars, Weinstein Company, William Shatner

Happy Monday Star Wars Fans! So I want to start you all off this week with a trailer for a new book coming out, ">Ready Player One. I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy which I tore right through. It's Ernie Cline's first novel, you may remember Mr. Cline from that fantastic film I love FANBOYS.

Check out the awesome trailer here:

And here's a synopsis of his book:

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.

A quest for the ultimate prize.

Are you ready?

Ready Player One hits book stores August 16th!

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Tags Ernie Cline, Fanboys, Ready Player One, Star Wars, Woodsy's World of Star Wars

Ten years after its debut, the arty, PS2-era action-adventure game gets a novel through VIZ's Haikasoru imprint in August.

Read more...

Tags Haikasoru, Ico, Ico: Castle In the Mist, Miyuki Miyabe, PS2, PS3, Team Ico, VIZ