Beyond the Wall is Smart Pop Books’ latest essay anthology. This book covers George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (from A Game of Thrones to A Dance with Dragons) and features a foreward by New York Times bestselling author R.A. Salvatore.

Editor, James Lowder is here with his take on the book, and putting together anthologies in general.

Sequart Research & Literacy Organization and Respect! Films are proud to announce that the SDCC panel for their Comics in Focus: The Image Revolution documentary will feature special guest panelist Marc Silvestri!

If you’re a fan of Image Comics and are going to be at the San Diego Comic Con on Thursday evening (July 12th), you won’t want to miss this panel! Moderated by F.J. DeSanto (co-producer of The Spirit), the panel will feature Image Revolution director Patrick Meaney (Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts), Sequart founder Julian Darius, and of course Marc Silvestri. The hour-long panel will feature over 10 minutes of exclusive footage from the documentary, behind-the-scenes info from Silvestri, and Q&A!

Whether you’re new to game mastering or have been running the same campaign since 1974, Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep will help you prepare for games faster, avoid common pitfalls, and have more fun in the process. To our knowledge, this is the first book entirely devoted to the process of prepping for tabletop RPGs.

Fabled Environments is proud to announce a PDF Charity Bundle to benefit the Michael Rohan Memorial Fund. 100% of the net proceeds from this bundle will go to The Michael Rohan Memorial Fund. The bundle will be available until August 1st.

Publishers currently included in the bundle are: Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Fat Goblin Games, Silver gryphon Games, ProFantasy, Reality Blurs, Misfit Studios and more!

The Michael Rohan Memorial Fund Charity RPG Bundle is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Avatar Press proudly announces the upcoming September 2012 launch of FASHION BEAST, an unearthed collaboration between legendary graphic novelist Alan Moore and punk rock pioneer Malcolm McLaren. Originally written as a screenplay, the ten-issue maxi-series is adapted to comics by longtime Moore partner Antony Johnston (The Courtyard, Daredevil) and beautifully illustrated by Facundo Percio (Anna Mercury). Set in a dystopian future dominated by a fashion house, FASHION BEAST reinvents the classic Beauty and the Beast fable in a society held together (quite literally) by a needle and a thread.

FASHION BEAST introduces young Doll Seguin, a spirited and sassy coat-checker working at a trendy nightclub. While the world outside fears an oncoming nuclear war, Doll escapes into the carefree lifestyle of music and decadence, a fantasy inspired by the fashion designs of the mysterious Celestine. Catching the deformed recluse’s eye, Doll is drawn helplessly into a sordid tale of tragic lies, false identities, fear, and violence.

With a feature film in the works at 20th Century Fox, a free interactive app on the Apple iPad, and now news that it has won a 2011 Book of the Year Award from ForeWord Reviews, things continue to look good for Royden Lepp’s graphic novel, Rust Vol. 1: Visitor in the Field, an all-ages book published by Archaia Entertainment about a mysterious boy with a jet pack. So it is with much excitement that Archaia is happy to announce that the next installment, Rust Vol. 2: Secrets of the Cell, is zooming into book stores and comic shops this Fall!

Rust transports readers to a struggling farm in an alternate history where the fatherless Taylor family comes to terms with the aftermath of a destructive war. When Jet Jones, a mysterious boy wearing a jet pack, crashes into their barn with a hulking, antique robot soldier from “Dad’s War” at his heels, life at the Taylor farm is forever changed. Jet eventually proves to be a reliable farmhand, working like a well-oiled machine while giving up very few answers about his mysterious origin.

“Then she did confesse that she gained her powers from a Devill which did come to her out of the baye on moonless nights. And upon examination, we did find the markes of evill upon her, for she bore scales like unto a fish about her bodie. And so was she hanged as a witche, and upon the scaffolde she did crie out “Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!” and those who did witnesse this were sore afraide, but her Devill answered her not, and she did die in that place.”

– Fear-the-Lord Grimshaw, Witch Finder, 1645

England has descended into civil war. The earth is tainted by alchemical magick. Giant clockwork war machines lumber across the land. In the remote countryside, witches terrorise entire villages, while in the hallowed halls of great universities, natural philosophers uncover the secrets of nature.

Clockwork & Cthulhu brings the horror of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to the 17th century alternate historical fantasy world of Clockwork & Chivalry.

In Nightglass, a young boy in the shadowy nation of Nidal is taken from his home and trained by the sadistic magical academy known as the Dusk Hall, transformed into a living weapon in the service of the dark god Zon-Kuthon. Many years later, now grown to manhood, Isiem is sent to Cheliax to help put down a rebellion by the winged, inhuman strix. Yet as he conducts his grisly work, Isiem begins to question his life under the shadow of the Midnight Lord, and wonder who the real monsters are…

Flames Rising is pleased to present an excerpt from this new Pathfinder novel.

Wizards of the Coast unleashed Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 on iPad for the first time, along with Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PC/Steam® and PlayStation® Network.* Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is the first major release from Magic: The Gathering this summer, kicking off the Magic 2013 campaign that entices players to “Face A Greater Challenge” against the ultimate evil mastermind of the Multiverse, dragon Planeswalker Nicol Bolas!

Beginning last week, Duels 2013 players will get the first look at approximately 100 cards that will be featured in the Magic 2013 Core Set launching July 13, 2012. In addition, with the purchase of Duels 2013, players receive a code to redeem an exclusive six-card booster pack – including a platform-specific promo card – at participating Wizards Play Network hobby stores.

It’s 1999 and the world is falling apart at the seams. The sky is afire, the oceans are rising—and mankind is to blame. While the spoils of the 20th Century dwindle, Jack Finnegan lives on the fringes in his decaying mansion, struggling to keep his life afloat and his loved ones safe while battling that most modern of diseases—AIDS.

As the New Millennium approaches, Jack’s former lover, a famous photographer reveling in the world’s decay, gifts him with a mysterious elixir called Fusax, a medicine rumored to cure the incurable AIDS. But soon, the “side effects” of Fusax become more apparent, and Jack gets mixed up with a bizarre entourage of rock stars, Japanese scientists, corporate executives, AIDS victims, and religious terrorists. While these larger players compete to control mankind’s fate in the 21st Century, Jack is forced to choose his own role in the World’s End, and how to live with it.

Originally published in 1997, Glimmering is a visionary mix of fantasy and science fiction about a world in which humanity struggles to cope with the ever-approaching “End of the End.” Flames Rising is pleased to present an excerpt from this new edition of Glimmering.

Our game design essay series continues here at Flames Rising with Dave Cook telling us about his new game Heebie Jeebies, which is in the middle of a Kickstarter run now.

I’ve been making games for Zipwhaa since 2000. People have asked me how I come up with ideas for games. Usually my reply confounds them because it hardly makes much sense to them, let alone me. The short answer is that they just sort of come to me and fall into place like putting the last piece of a puzzle down. The mental picture of the overall game clarifies in how it will play, what the rules should be and how the flow of the game should go. This is exactly what happened when I created Heebie Jeebies.

Anne Rice, the legendary author who has defined vampires for a generation of readers and writers, will be a Spotlight Guest at New York Comic Con (NYCC) in 2012. Show officials note that the announcement of Ms. Rice’s participation at NYCC is just the first of several announcements about author appearances, author programs and book publisher participation at the show that organizers will be making in the coming months. Providing literary distinction at a pop culture event replete with major guests and artists from every part of the pop culture universe, Ms. Rice, who became an international phenomenon in 1976 with the publication of Interview with the Vampire, is certain to attract widespread attention at New York Comic Con among her many fans. Show officials note that other leading celebrity guests from the worlds of comics, entertainment and film will also be announced in the very near future.

New printing of the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel will contain new extras, stories, and never-before-seen artwork

On the heels of the news that the second printing has sold out at the distributor level, Archaia Entertainment announced today its plans to publish the Return of the Dapper Men: Special Edition, a brand-new printing of the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel that will contain new extras, stories, and never-before-seen artwork.

Trust no one. The very nature of Aegis’ work means that the organization has to work in secret, away from public scrutiny and hidden from the keen surveillance of their enemies. The National Defense Directorate manipulates and schemes in secret bases around the country, plotting and moving pawns in a deadly chess game of deception. A conspiracy against another conspiracy.

Aegis’ secret agenda is the core of a conspiracy, but that conspiracy is built upon an altered and secret history – a conspiracy within a conspiracy. Lies within lies. A conspiracy against their own operatives. When faced with many conspirators, who can you trust?

The Conspiracies Sourcebook is a supplement for the Conspiracy X Roleplaying Game Second Edition.

Bedford and Lamrose. Two sides of the same river. Two sides of the same coin. One, an affluent metropolis teeming with industry and aspiration. The other, a cesspool of crime and vice. Both dirty, both begging for the match that will set this whole city on fire.

Bedford and Lamrose. Locals call this place Bedlam. It’s a fitting name.

Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption is equal parts neo-noir, pulp detective fiction, and a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence thrown into a cement mixer and poured on top a heap of nameless bodies no one will ever miss.

Streets of Bedlam is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop!

Night’s Black Agents is available as a pre-pre-order to early adopters and patrons from the Pelgrane store.

A new GUMSHOE Game from Kenneth Hite, author of Trail of Cthulhu.

The Cold War is over. Bush’s War is winding down.

You were a shadowy soldier in those fights, trained to move through the secret world: deniable and deadly.

Then you got out, or you got shut out, or you got burned out. You didn’t come in from the cold. Instead, you found your own entrances into Europe’s clandestine networks of power and crime. You did a few ops, and you asked even fewer questions. Who gave you that job in Prague? Who paid for your silence in that Swiss account? You told yourself it didn’t matter.

It turned out to matter a lot. Because it turned out you were working for vampires.

Find links to early Night’s Black Agents reviews, news and pre-order the game at PelgranePress.com!

There has always been a bit of controversy surrounding the ranger class in Dungeons & Dragons. The archetype of the “ranger” has a solid foundation in literature as an expert woodsman (or woods-woman) that is skilled with sword or bow, who knows the land better than anyone else and fights for an important cause. The Dungeons & Dragons’ ranger is all of these things but there is one feature which has nagged at gamers since AD&D; the ability to cast spells.

“Aragorn Didn’t Cast Spells”

Victorian Lost: A Maze of Smoke and Hedge is a historical setting for Changeling: The Lost. This book contains information on the late Victorian Era, including both actual history and fanciful imaginings of this time. You’ll find discussions of the occasionally violent tensions between the rich and the masses of the poor who worked in their factories and homes. This book also examines the competing visions of rural and urban life. Some saw the countryside as pure and cities as corrupt, while others viewed rural areas as ignorant and backwards, and cities as centers of progress and invention.

Victorian Lost: A Maze of Smoke and Hedge is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop!

To celebrate the upcoming release of R.A. Salvatore’s Charon’s Claw on August 7th, Wizards of the Coast is thrilled to announce that Salvatore, a 24-time New York Times-bestselling author, will head out on a multi-city book tour this summer to meet fans and autograph copies of his newest novel.

Additional details about Charon’s Claw and the D&D® suite of products can be found at DungeonsandDragons.com.

We have a new interview with actress and filmmaker Kat Sheridan today. Kat is here to tell us a little about her role in The Red House, an independent horror film.

Tell us a little about your background as an actress.

I’ve been acting since the age of six. For a long time I focused only on stage acting, classical theatre, Shakespeare, Checkov, that sort of thing, but after receiving my B.A. in Performance Arts I decided to try to branch out into the film and TV industry. My first professional acting gig was a promo for a Showtime reality series called “Lock N’ Load”. Since then I worked on a few student films, a short film, a music video, a couple low budget features still in post, and then had the good fortune of being cast in the Red House. I also have some other great projects on the horizon…