Sling spells and crack the case in a city full of bootleggers, corrupt cops, and vampires. Can you save your partner before a wizard dooms Seattle? Wizard Confidential is a 210,000-word interactive urban fantasy noir novel by Anthony Eichenlaub; I sat down with Anthony to walk about his upcoming game and the rest of his oeuvre.

Wizard Confidential releases this Thursday, May 14th. You can try the first three chapters today for free and also wishlist it on Steam—even if you don’t plan to purchase it there, it really helps!

Wizard Confidential is your first game with us, and it really fits into what I think of as your brand of fiction: a blend of noir and fantasy. Tell our readers about your other novels and what attracted you to this genre.

Noir has always fascinated me, both in books and movies, so I do tend to pull from it in my stories, whether it’s overt or not. I just finished a reread of Dashiell Hammett’s novels, and I’m still finding that the way subtle aspects of the stories weave together in the end are truly masterful. I love how it’s never a simple good versus evil, but instead a messy struggle of order versus chaos where order doesn’t always win and even when it does chaos is right around the corner.

My previous novel series started with The Man Who Walked in the Dark, and it’s a sci-fi noir about a man who literally walks in the dark because the station’s automated lights don’t respond to him. Don’t worry, he’s figuratively walking in the shadows, too. It’s a story that wraps in an art heist, bitter power struggles between crime lords, and a corrupt church into one big tangled mess of a story. Before that I wrote a series called Grandfather Anonymous about an elderly hacker thrown back into action because he needs to keep his family safe. It leans more into crime and mystery than straight noir, but the ambiguity of the characters lends itself to the noir vibe.

What gaming experiences drew you to taking on the challenge of writing interactive fiction?

I’ve been gaming since the beginning of time, both tabletop and on screen. My first experience with interactive storytelling was probably DMing 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons as a teen. I’d build wildly elaborate worlds populated with interesting, nuanced characters only for my players to stomp all over everything and murder the wrong NPCs. What I loved most about it was transforming that mess into a compelling story no matter what they did, and more times than not I think I succeeded. It wasn’t until 4th Edition that I started getting material published in Kobold Quarterly, which is really what got me into writing.

On the video game side, I think the flexible storytelling of games like Fallout inspire a lot of what I do, but I also draw from things like Grim Fandango and Dishonored. It wasn’t until I read The Bread Must Rise that I really understood how amazing Choice of Games titles could be, and I knew right then that I had to write one.

Instead of a traditional novelistic protagonist, writing a PC so that the players’ experience is customizable is sometimes a challenge. I notice our authors often have extremely vibrant NPCs as a result. Did you find you had a favorite one, in the writing of the game?

One of the things I love about noir is that the romance can often be more bittersweet than it is happily ever after. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade has very real feelings for Brigid O’Shaughnessy, but he (spoilers) gives her up to the police so she can account for her crimes. That hard choice is at the center of the story and it’s critical to the character of Sam Spade. Would I have made that same choice if this were interactive fiction? I honestly don’t know. That’s what makes that story so compelling.

I’m not sure I can pick a favorite, but I think Kai Mason was the potential love interest I enjoyed writing the most. There’s so much variability in how things can go, and their story ties directly into the interaction between the union and the budding airplane industry. Every time I wrote a section with Mason, I got to delve into real-life union history, enjoy creating the variable alternate histories, and spend time with a character that I genuinely enjoyed spending time with.

Folks from the wider fandom and literary world may know you as being part of SFWA leadership and from seeing you at sci-fi centered cons—tell me a little about that.

I’m currently Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and I’ve been a volunteer with the organization for many years. I’m a big fan of how SFWA helps authors at all levels of their careers and I’m a huge advocate for its work in the game writing space. Anyone looking at getting into writing would do well to check out their Constellation series of virtual weekend mini-conventions or their big virtual conference, the Quasars, which is held in the fall. Also, the Nebulas Conference is fully hybrid and has a huge virtual offering, so it’s definitely worth a look even if you can’t get to Chicago in June.

I go to several cons each year. The writer-focused ones I typically go to are The Nebula Conference and 4th Street Fantasy, which is in Minnesota where I live. I also sometimes panel at the Gencon Writers Symposium, but I’m missing this year. I’ll be at World Fantasy Con for the first time this year and ConFusion early next year. I’m a huge fan of panels and have had all kinds of good conversations with other authors. If you ever see me at a conference, please do not hesitate to give me a high five. If I have time to stop and chat, I definitely will.

What are you working on next?

I’m currently writing short stories while I brainstorm some ideas for the next interactive fiction. Short stories let me experiment with different styles, settings, and characters. My short stories range from sword and sorcery to cyberpunk to cli-fi. It’s nice having a breather to write whatever I want when I wake up in the morning.

I had a blast writing Wizard Confidential and definitely want to dive into another big project, but also writing one of these things is a huge commitment. I need to make sure I have an idea that’s going to keep me interested for the next year at least. Fortunately, I don’t have a problem coming up with such ideas. The problem right now is picking which one to write next.