David John Morris (born 19 March 1957) is a British author of gamebooks, novels and comics and a designer of

computer games A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-deter ...

and role-playing games.

Education

Dave Morris graduated from

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

, where he read Physics from 1976 until 1979.

Writer

Morris began his writing career in 1984 by writing the fantasy adventure gamebook ''Crypt of the Vampire'', part of the ''Golden Dragon'' series published by

Grafton Books Grafton was a British paperback imprint established 1981 by Granada Publishing Ltd, a subsidiary of media company Granada Group Ltd. It was named after the publishing company's then address, 8 Grafton Street, in central London. Other paperback i ...

in the UK and

Berkley Books Berkley Books is an imprint of the Penguin Group. History Berkley Books began as an independent company in 1955. It was founded as "Chic News Company" by Charles Byrne and Frederick Klein, who had worked for Avon; they quickly renamed it Berk ...

in the US. The following year, Morris and Oliver Johnson created the '' Dragon Warriors'' role-playing game. ''Dragon Warriors'' was an attempt at releasing a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

in a series of paperback books. In a 1996 reader poll conducted by ''Arcane'' to determine the fifty most popular roleplaying games of all time, ''Dragon Warriors'' was ranked 48th. In 2008, the game was licensed by Morris to James Wallis of Magnum Opus Press, and Serpent King Games acquired the '' Dragon Warriors'' license afterwards. In 1987, Morris and Johnson created the '' Blood Sword'' series, five adventure gamebooks published by Knight Books. In 1990, Morris and Jamie Thomson wrote ''The Keep of the Lich-Lord'' for the popular ''

Fighting Fantasy ''Fighting Fantasy'' is a series of single-player role-playing gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volume in the series was published in paperback by Puffin in 1982. The series distinguished itself by mixing Choo ...

'' series of adventure gamebooks.

''Fabled Lands''

In 1995, Morris and Jamie Thomson wrote the first of several adventure gamebooks in the '' Fabled Lands'' series. It received positive reviews, including 20 years later. Although well-received, the books were published when, as Sylvio Konkol noted, "the golden age of adventure gamebooks was actually over." Morris and Thomson originally envisioned twelve books in the series, but various publishing problems, including underpricing the expensive books and a shrinking market, meant the series was curtailed after only six volumes. As Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) became popular in the early 2000s, Morris and Thomson hired the French firm Eidos to convert their books into an MMO. However, Eidos ran out of money before the project was completed. Twenty-five years after the ''Fabled Lands'' books were published, Morris and Thomson granted a license to Prime Games to develop a ''Fabled Lands'' computer role-playing game.

Other works

Morris also co-authored a number of other books, including '' Virtual Reality: Necklace of Skulls'' with Mark Smith (1993), '' Blood Sword: The Battlepits of Krarth'' with Oliver Johnson (1987), the ''Golden Dragon'' series, and a number of TV and movie novelisations. His original novels include '' Knightmare'' (a historical fantasy adventure series set in the early 13th century that ties in with the television series of that name), '' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' and the contemporary horror novel ''Lost Souls''. Another horror novel, ''Florien'', was published as an ebook in 2010. In 2008 his episodic comic strip ''Mirabilis'' began weekly publication in Random House's subscription-based magazine The DFC. Working with artist Leo Hartas, Morris founded electronic publisher Mirus Entertainment and published ''Mirabilis'' for the iPad in December 2010. In addition to his more than seventy published books, Morris is a leading developer of the '' Empire of the Petal Throne'' gaming system (created by MAR Barker and published by TSR), creating a playable rules system (''Tirikelu'') and editing a fanzine. Morris also co-authored a book on the computer gaming industry, having worked as a game designer for Eidos and Microsoft, and is a former mentor in the American Film Institute's Digital Content Lab. In April 2012, he published an interactive reworking of Frankenstein in which the reader is able to give advice to the

first-person narrator A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller, ...

of the story.

Bibliography

Dave Morris's published works include:

Blood Sword series

* ''The Battlepits of Krarth'' (1987,

Hodder & Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint (trade name), imprint of Hachette (publisher), Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs ...

, ) * ''The Kingdom of Wyrd'' (1987,

, ) * ''The Demon's Claw'' (1987,

, ) * ''Doomwalk'' (1988,

, ) * ''The Walls of Spyte'' (1988,

, )

Chronicles of the Magi

* ''The Sword of Life'' (1997, Hodder Headline, ) * ''The Kingdom of Dreams'' (1997, Hodder Headline, ) * ''The City of Stars'' (1997, Hodder Headline, )

Crystal Maze

* ''The Crystal Maze'' (with Jamie Thomson, 1991) * ''Crystal Maze Challenge!'' (with Jamie Thomson, 1992)

Dragon Warriors series

* ''Dragon Warriors'' (1985, Transworld, ) * ''The Way of Wizardry'' (1985, Transworld, ) * ''Out of the Shadows'' (1986, Transworld, ) * ''The Lands of Legend'' (1986, Transworld, ) * ''Dragon Warriors'' (revised edition 2008, Magnum Opus Press, ) * ''Sleeping Gods'' (2008, Magnum Opus Press, ) * ''Bestiary'' (2008, Magnum Opus Press, )

Fabled Lands series

* ''The War-Torn Kingdom'' (1995,

Macmillan MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to: People * McMillan (surname) * Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan * Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician * James MacMillan, Scottish composer * William Duncan MacMillan ...

, ) * ''Cities of Gold and Glory'' (1995,

, ) * ''Over the Blood-Dark Sea'' (1995,

, ) * ''The Plains of Howling Darkness'' (1996,

, ) * ''The Court of Hidden Faces'' (1996,

, ) * ''Lords of the Rising Sun'' (1996,

, )

Fighting Fantasy series

*''The Keep of the Lich-Lord'' (1990, Puffin Books, )

Golden Dragon series

*''Crypt of the Vampire'' (1984, Transworld, ) *''Temple of Flame'' (with Oliver Johnson) (1984, Transworld, ) *''The Eye of the Dragon'' (1985, Transworld, ) *''Castle of Lost Souls'' (with Yve Newnham) (1985, Transworld, )

Heroquest series

* ''The Tyrant's Tomb'' (1993, Corgi Books, ) * ''The Screaming Spectre'' (1993, Corgi Books, ) * ''The Fellowship of Four'' (1993, Corgi Books, )

Knightmare series

* ''Knightmare'' (1988, Transworld, ) * ''The Labyrinths of Fear'' (1989, Transworld, ) * ''Fortress of Assassins'' (1990, Transworld, ) * ''The Sorcerer's Isle'' (1991, Transworld, ) * ''The Forbidden Gate'' (1992, Transworld, ) * ''The Dragon's Lair'' (1993, Transworld, ) * ''Lord Fear's Domain'' (1994, Transworld, )

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series

* ''Buried Treasure'' (1990, Transworld, ) * ''Sixguns and Shurikens'' (1990, Transworld, ) * ''Sky High'' (1990, Transworld, ) * ''Red Herrings'' (1990, Transworld, ) * ''Dinosaur Farm'' (1991, Transworld, ) * ''Splinter to the Fore'' (1991, Transworld, )

Virtual Reality series

* ''Down Among the Dead Men'' (1993,

Reed Consumer Books Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...

, ) * ''Necklace of Skulls'' (1993,

, ) * ''Heart of Ice'' (1994,

, ) * ''Twist of Fate'' (1994,

, )

Other works

*''Game Architecture and Design'' (with Andrew Rollings, 2003,

Pearson Education Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, ...

, ) *''Game Guru: Role-Playing Games'' (with Leo Hartas, 2004,

ILEX Press ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

, ) *''Game Guru: Strategy Games'' (with Leo Hartas, 2004,

, ) *''Machinima : Making Animated Movies in 3D Virtual Environments'' (with Dave Lloyd and Matt Kelland, 2005,

, ) *''A Minotaur at the Savoy'' (2011, Mirus Entertainment, ) *''Mirabilis: Year of Wonders, Volume One'' (2011, Printmedia Productions, ) *''Frankenstein'' (2012, Profile Books, ) *''Can You Brexit? Without Breaking Britain'' (with Jamie Thomson, 2018)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Dave 1957 births Living people People educated at Royal Grammar School, Guildford Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford British comics writers British gamebook writers