Category: News

So many things have been happening the last month or so. Peacemaker has been released, and I’ve been on blog tour and doing a bunch of podcast which will be online in the coming weeks. Last weekend I was in Charters Towers, Townsville, and Cairns delivering workshops on Blogs and Branding for the Queensland Writers Centre. I had a fantastic trip, met some great regional writers and managed to get lost driving around Townsville! I also had the opportunity to speak to local high school students and distance edication students as part of the iWrite programme for the Townsville Writers Centre. This a was a heap of fun. I shared the process I use to write stories with them, and they had lots of questions at the end.

I’m also talking with my site designer, Austin Designworks, about an upgrade for this website. So, I’m excited about that!! And there’s the PEACEMAKER game announcement. You can read the full press release here. Finally, I’d like to finish up with a shout out to the Cairns Writers who invited me to their Mother’s Day get together. Cheers ladies!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Peacemaker Makes a Novel Game:

West Australian creative entrepreneurs combine forces

Bestselling Australian science fiction author Marianne de Pierres announced today that Stirfire Studios has optioned her PEACEMAKER series for adaptation as an interactive game.  The novels are published by Angry Robot books.

De Pierres’ books include the award-winning Sentients of Orion, Parrish Plessis, and Night Creatures series. ‘I’m thrilled to be working with Stirfire Studios on this project. They combine creative flair with technical excellence and a passion for what they do. Their most recent game, Freedom Fall, has been a spectacular success.’

Stirfire Studios, created in 2010, has elevated the status of indie-game development in Western Australia. The Studio won the first ever Western Australian Screen Award and was shortlisted in the Australian Game Development Awards with their title Freedom Fall. Stirfire creates visually beautiful games with lush gameplay and exciting new twists on familiar elements.

Stirfire Studios director, Garth Pendergrast, says that the company has a strong vision for the Peacemaker game. ‘We want to create an interactive novel focusing on story and character, imagined with our trademark rich artwork but with no trade-off in the game play. While we are inspired by recent games in the genre, we are designing a new engine to help the player tell their own story.’

Publicity enquiries: re*******@*************om.au and Stirfire Studios

‘Welcome to the New Age …’ Such a magnificent music anthem!

There are a few versions of Radioactive floating around YouTube, but my favourite is definitely Imagine Dragons Live at the Joint. It’s a song that swells under the power of a live gig, complete with big drum sound and crowd energy: one of the best early ‘drops’ in a song, that I can remember.

The official video clip is interesting. Featuring a simple story of empowerment acted by a bunch of puppets, it’s probably the most improbable scenario you could come with for a video clip to accompany this kind of song.

The band are rescued from prison by a pink teddy bear, who defeats an evil puppet and puppetmaster (Lou Diamond Phillips) to save them. Alexandra Daddario plays the mysterious accomplice of the pink teddy bear. I can see the attraction to the concept but, given a choice, ‘Live at the Joint’ would be my preferred version.

Have a look and see what you think.

The song’s also been popular as a promotion tool for film and games. Wiki says: “Radioactive” was used heavily in promotion for the video game Assassin’s Creed III and the 2013 film The Host, and is included in the soundtrack for the video game MLB 13: The Show and NBA 2K14.

Official Clip

Live at the Joint

Live on SNL

and just because I think this song has rocking lyrics … Demons