Jamie Thomson (born 14 November 1958, in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

) is a British writer, editor and game developer, and winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2012.

Biography

Jamie Thomson grew up in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

where he met one of his co-authors Mark Smith at school at

Brighton College Brighton College is an independent, co-educational boarding and day school for boys and girls aged 3 to 18 in Brighton, England. The school has three sites: Brighton College (the senior school, ages 11 to 18); Brighton College Preparatory Sc ...

. He graduated from the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

with a degree in politics and government. Jamie Thomson was an assistant editor on ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

'' magazine from 1981 to 1984 and wrote a regular column for ''

Warlock A warlock is a male practitioner of witchcraft. Etymology and terminology The most commonly accepted etymology derives ''warlock'' from the Old English '' wǣrloga'', which meant "breaker of oaths" or "deceiver" and was given special applicatio ...

''. While working at Games Workshop, he was one of the developers of the

computer game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

''The Tower of Despair''. From 1984 to 1996 he was a prolific and best-selling author, usually publishing at least two titles per year. One of his most successful series was ''The Way of the Tiger'', six linked adventures about a ninja hero, written with Mark Smith. The books have been published in Japan, France, USA, Italy and Sweden. He is the author of numerous novels and 'choose-your-own-adventure' type

gamebooks A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...

. His contributions to the genre include four major creator-owned series: ''Duel Master'', ''Falcon'', and ''

Way of the Tiger The Way of the Tiger is a series of adventure gamebooks by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson, originally published by Knight Books (an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton) from 1985. They are set on the fantasy world of Orb. The reader takes the part of ...

'' (all co-written with Mark Smith) and ''

Fabled Lands Fabled Lands is a series of fantasy gamebooks written by established gamebook authors Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson and published by Pan Books, a division of Macmillan in the mid 1990s. Cover art was by Kevin Jenkins with Russ Nicholson and Arun ...

'' (co-written with Dave Morris). He also co-wrote three books for the ''

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 Choos ...

'' series: ''

Talisman of Death ''Talisman of Death'' is a single-player role-playing gamebook written by Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith, illustrated by Bob Harvey and originally published in 1984 by Puffin Books. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2006. It forms part o ...

'' and '' Sword of the Samurai'', again with Mark Smith, and '' The Keep of the Lich Lord'' with Dave Morris. He also co-wrote an

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

, '' The Tower of Despair'' for

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake (gam ...

. Currently he has six novels for children published: ''Corvus'', by Boxer Books, the Dark Lord series (''Dark Lord: The Teenage Years'' and ''Dark Lord: A Friend in Need'') and the Wrong Side of the Galaxy series, published by Orchard books in the UK, and by various publishers abroad from the US to Turkey with most of Europe in between. A third in the series, ''Dark Lord: Eternal Detention'' came out in 2014, along with the first in a new series of comedy adventure in space: ''The Wrong Side of the Galaxy''. A second SF novel, ''A Galaxy Too Far'' was published in November 2015. In February, 2017, the fourth in the Dark Lord series, ''The Headmaster of Doom'', came out. After twelve years as an author, he moved full-time into videogame development at

Eidos Interactive Square Enix Limited (formerly Domark Limited and Eidos Interactive Limited) is a British subsidiary of the Japanese video game company Square Enix, acting as their European publishing arm. The company formerly owned ''Tomb Raider'', which was in ...

, publishers of ''

Tomb Raider ''Tomb Raider'', also known as ''Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'' from 2001 to 2008, is a media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series created by British gaming company Core Design. Formerly owned by Eidos Interactive, th ...

''. In 1999 he raised over £1 million to set up his own game development company, Black Cactus, developers of the game ''

Warrior Kings ''Warrior Kings'' is a real-time strategy video game, developed by Black Cactus and published by Microïds in 2002. It was published for the Mac OS X the following year by Feral Interactive. The game, set in a fantasy medieval world, focuses on t ...

'' and its follow-up '' Warrior Kings: Battles''. After cancellation of a further sequel to ''Warrior Kings'' by the publishers, Black Cactus was wound up. Thomson raised a quarter of a million dollars in 2007 for a new start-up, Fabled Lands LLP, an intellectual property development company specialising in its own titles to be launched as iPhone comics, novels and apps. The Dark Lord books are also available in Spain, Italy, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Portugal and the United States and have been optioned for TV. ''Dark Lord: The Teenage Years'' won the prestigious children's book award, the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2012. In 2020, Thomson joined the team behind VulcanVerse, an MMO decentralised 3D game building a blockchain called "Elysium" and running on Polygon and Ethereum.

Bibliography

Fighting Fantasy (Puffin Books)

* ''Talisman of Death'' (1984) * ''Sword of the Samurai'' (1986) * ''The Keep of the Lich Lord'' (1990)

Falcon (Sphere)

* ''The Renegade Lord'' (1985) * ''Mechanon'' (1985) * ''The Rack of Baal'' (1985) * ''Lost in Time'' (1985) * ''The Dying Sun'' (1986) * ''At the End of Time'' (1986)

Way of the Tiger (Hodder & Stoughton)

* ''Avenger!'' (1985) * ''Assassin!'' (1985) * ''Usurper!'' (1985) * ''Overlord!'' (1986) * ''Warbringer!'' (1986) * ''Inferno!'' (1987)

Duel Master (Armada)

* ''The Challenge of the Magi'' (1986) * ''Blood Valley'' (1986) * ''The Shattered Realm'' (1987) * ''The Arena of Death'' (1987)

The Crystal Maze (Mammoth Books / Chatsworth)

* ''The Crystal Maze'' (1991) * ''The Crystal Maze Activity Book'' (1992)

Eternal Champions (Puffin Books / Sega)

* ''The Cyber Warriors'' (1994) * ''The Citadel of Chaos'' (1994)

Fabled Lands (Pan Macmillan)

* ''The Wartorn Kingdom'' (1995) * ''Cities of Gold and Glory'' (1995) * ''Over the Blood-Dark Sea'' (1995) * ''The Plains of Howling Darkness'' (1995) * ''The Court of Hidden Faces'' (1996) * ''Lords of the Rising Sun'' (1996)

Puzzle Books (Icon / Wizard Books)

* ''How Big is Your Brain?'' (2007)

Corvus (Boxer)

* ''Oath of Vengeance'' (2010)

Dark Lord (Orchard Books)

* ''Dark Lord: The Teenage Years / The Early Years'' (2011) * ''Dark Lord: A Fiend in Need / School's Out'' (2012) * ''Dark Lord: Eternal Detention'' (2014) * ''Dark Lord: The Headmaster of Doom'' (2017)

Galaxy Series (Orchard Books)

* ''The Wrong Side of the Galaxy'' * ''A Galaxy Too Far''

Vulcanverse (Fabled Lands Publishing)

* ''The Houses of the Dead'' (2021) * ''The Wild Woods'' (2021)

Other works

* ''The Tower of Despair'' (1984), a text-only adventure computer game for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. * ''To Hell And Back'', a teletext adventure on UK Gold. * ''The Heart of Harkun'', a six-part fantasy adventure radio play, written with Peter Thomson, performed on BBC Radio 5 and Radio 7.

References

External links

http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com

http://www.jamiethomson.com

Author biography at Orchard Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Jamie 1958 births Living people 21st-century British male writers 21st-century British novelists British gamebook writers British male novelists Role-playing game writers Alumni of the University of Kent