Ever had one of those moments when you look back and realise how quickly the year has passed by?

I had one of those moments yesterday when I checked the blog entries and discovered that I haven't posted here since February! I suppose in part it's because I've been too busy doing things to actually sit down and write about what I'm doing or even reflect upon them.
Time then, here and now, on a Sunday, with a cup of tea, to sit down and give you an update.Court Case Against Fantastic Books PublishingFirst up, the white elephant in the room that's been an ongoing dispute since the start of February 2015 when I received my first royalty statement and started to suspect I wasn't being paid the correct amount according to my contract for Elite: Lave Revolution. I've intentionally kept this topic away from the blog and away from most of my online updates about anything really, because it resulted in me having to go to court to make my former publisher honour the agreement he drafted and got me to sign.
The last time I posted on this blog, we were in the middle of recess and due to return to continue the court hearing on the 29th of February 2016. That didn't happen because the Judge was also booked on a training course, so we reconvened on the 9th of June.
I'm not going to go into huge amounts of detail here, but I won the court case. The detailed account of the circumstances appears on the Elite: Lave Revolution Kickstarter here and here. 
To update you to the current situation, I received a letter yesterday confirming the judgement amount and rejecting Mr. Grubb's attempt to claim double credit for the royalties he did pay me against what he owes and also rejecting Mr. Grubb's attempt to deduct further 'expenses' from the judgement which were not raised at the hearing.
Hopefully, once Mr. Grubb has paid what he owes me, this will conclude the matter and we can all move on with things. 
Certainly, the experience of the whole process was something unique and taught me a great deal about my rights with regards to contracts. I'm glad I went through with it, because it validated my suspicions and fundamentally demonstrated the point of principle I'd like to think I live my life by. I try to be honest to a fault about things and when I'm found to be wrong, admit it and apologise as loudly as I claimed my previous stance. 
As individuals, we demonstrate who we are by how we act, how we honour what we commit to and how we acknowledge fault, face up to failure and accept being wrong. I've wasted many hours trying to rationalise the behaviour of people involved in this issue. Most of it is beyond understanding, but thankfully, we're almost at the end.BA (Hons) Creative Writing for PublicationThe first year of our new creative writing course is complete! Well done to my nine first year students, Rory, Ben, Laura, Tracey, Suzanne, Norny, Sam, Tom and Sophie!
We celebrated the end of the year with a trip to the Hay Festival, which was an excellent way to round off everything. A whole new group of first years will join us next year and I'm looking forward to teaching them and my brand new second year cohort!
Teaching creative writing again after a gap of a few years, where I taught scriptwriting has been an absolute joy. I've learned all sorts alongside my students.The British Fantasy Society My first publication as editor of the British Fantasy Society Journal  came out in March (BFS Journal 15).
Being editor for the journal has been a fascinating experience. Its a very different situation being the person collating the content for such a publication and making suggestions in relation to the articles.

The separation of the non fiction and fiction content in the publications (between Horizons and the Journal) has really helped me in focusing the critical content. Seeing through the whole process from word document submissions to master copy in Adobe Indesign and final printing was also an experience. Much as I've been involved in different parts of that process with my own work and with my Dad's books, seeing how other people manage these things and contribute is invaluable.
I'm currently working on BFS Journal 16, scheduled to come out at the end of the Summer, hopefully before Fantasycon By The Sea. There's some excellent articles in it from a wide array of contributors. If you'd like to read it, you can join the BFS here.Chaos Reborn So much has happened on this project! Aside from Snapshot Games releasing regular updates to the game, Dreams of Chaos, the first book of The Death of Gods, my official fiction trilogy that tells how our world came to be The Fractured Realms of Chaos Reborn was published in May (ebook) and paperback (June). 
You can read a review of Dreams of Chaos here.
I also published The Loremaster's Guide. This is available as a free PDF for anyone interested in the background of the game. It contains a selection of short stories and articles that describe the different lives of wizards and mortals who live in Limbo and the Fractured Realms. 
A full colour physical copy of it is available here. Its a wonderful piece, packed full of illustrations.
It's been wonderful working with Snapshot Games on this project. Developing the mythology behind the game has been a great opportunity and the people I've had the chance to work with have been incredibly generous with their time and support. Particular thanks go to Julian Gollop for all the Skype conversations, Borislav (Bobby) Bogdanov for his patience with my drafting at times and suggestions on including my work and Svetoslav Petrov, for his amazing artwork that has now become the covers of my books!
My final research trip visit to Bulgaria was at the end of July. During this, I was able to learn more about the city of Sofia, which will feature in the second book in the trilogy, The War of Orders. We also discussed some of the initial concepts for Snapshot's new game, Phoenix Point.Phoenix Point Kolin Ford and I have begun development and design work with Julian and the Snapshot Games team on this entirely new game. Set in a near future dystopia, Phoenix Point has a very clear set of game design principles. There's a lot of darkness and mystery to the story and background behind it, which we're very very excited to be working on.
Design and development discussions in April and July have involved talking about the major factions in the near future world in which the game is set. I've started writing some fiction on them and am pulling together a collection of news articles to support the game premise. Crises and Conflicts At Lavecon 2015, Ian Whates and Newcon Press attended with a trade stand. Ian was very supportive of our event and asked me to introduce him to the Elite: Dangerous fiction writers in attendance. He let me know Newcon Press was going to be ten years old in 2016 and that he would be producing a short story anthology of military science fiction to celebrate. 
Fast forward a year and Crises and Conflicts is released along with a heap of other awesome Newcon Press books at a tenth birthday party celebration in London. My short story, The Last Tank Commander is the first one in the anthology and sits alongside The 10 Second War by Michael Brookes and The Beauty of Our Weapons by Gavin Smith, both fellow Elite: Dangerous authors. There's also excellent contributions from Adam Roberts, Jo Zebedee, Tim C. Taylor and Janet Edwards.

Gavin has written about the anthology here.
Away Team The alpha version of my board game, Away Team debuted at Lavecon 2015. Two test boxes were available to play at Lavecon 2016 and my plan is to launch the Alpha Tour this summer, an opportunity for boardgame enthusiasts to play the game and provide feedback before we look to crowdfund the game. 
I have some small additions to make to the draft rulebook and then the Alpha Tour will begin.

If you'd like to sign up, you can find the Facebook group, here.Make Believe Games In June, I started working with Mark Rein-Hagen's new company, Make Believe Games. Mark is well known for being the man behind White Wolf's Word of Darkness roleplaying games such as Vampire: The Masquerade , Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension .
The project I'm working on with Make Believe Games is in its early stages at the moment and I'm catching up on the work that's already been done.Other ProjectsI'm continuing to write stories and review books. I have a big queue to read for SFBook, Concatenation, and the British Fantasy Society. I regularly receive emails from Independent writers and small presses to review their books and I wish I had time to read them all! 
However, that isn't me suggesting you don't send your books to me, please do. Every writer needs a helping had with a review that helps promote their work and I've been very fortunate to meet some excellent up and coming writers by reviewing their work. Both Jo Zebedee and Amy DuBoff were writers who approached me for reviews on SFBook and were now all in the Crises and Conflicts anthology together.
I'm also continuing work on my Ph. D. The creative work is now completed and hopefully I'll be finishing the critical exegesis this Summer.

If anyone's wondering why one topic is missing from all this, my next post will be about Lavecon 2016, I promise.