Greg Buchanan (author)

Greg Buchanan (born 1989) is a Scottish novelist and video game writer. He is the author of Sixteen Horses, a literary thriller published in 2021. His video game work includes the BAFTA longlisted American Election and Paper Brexit, and his writing credits include No Man's Sky and Metro Exodus.[1]

Greg Buchanan
Born1989
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
University of East Anglia
King's College London
Occupation(s)Novelist, Video game writer
Websitehttps://www.gregbuchanan.co.uk

Early life and education

Buchanan was born in 1989 and lives in the Scottish Borders.[2] He graduated with a BA in English from the University of Cambridge, an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, and completed a Ph.D. at King's College London in identification and ethics.[3][2] In 2014, he published a paper on experimental novelist B.S. Johnson.[4]

Career

Buchanan joined the video games industry in 2016 after participating in a game jam with the team at the video game studio Lionhead right before the company shut down. He broke into the industry by creating his own independent political game Paper Brexit.[5][6] He later worked at Supermassive Games,[6] the creators of Until Dawn.[7] In 2017, Buchanan was hired to work on No Man's Sky with its Pathfinder update, and worked on the 30-hour story update Atlas Rises and beyond.[8][1]

In 2020, Buchanan released American Election, an interactive fiction game starring Abigail Thoreau, a campaign assistant working to elect her candidate in a parallel world version of 2016.[1]  It was longlisted for the 2020 BAFTA Games award for ‘Game Beyond Entertainment’ as well as being an honorable mention for Excellence in Narrative at the Independent Games Festival 2020.[9][10]

Buchanan's debut novel Sixteen Horses was released in 2021 in the UK and US. Publishers Weekly reviewed it as "a dark, ambitious, and highly intelligent thriller"[11] and soon after Gaumont U.K. announced they had acquired the rights to develop a drama adaptation.[12] The Guardian described it as "utterly gripping, exquisitely written and existentially depressing as only a drizzly afternoon in a dying English seaside town can be."[13] Robert Purchese of Eurogamer writes "what Sixteen Horses also reminds me is how powerfully text can be wielded in the right hands."[14] It was also picked as one of the literary titles to be covered in BBC Two's next series of Between the Covers.[12]

Honours and awards

References
  1. Coles, Jason. "Practical game writing insight from No Man's Sky: Atlas Rises' Greg Buchanan". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  2. "Greg Buchanan". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-05-05.
  3. "Greg Buchanan named in Forbes Magazine's '30 Under 30' list". newwriting.net. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  4. Buchanan, Greg (2014), Jordan, Julia; Ryle, Martin (eds.), "'Like loose leaves in the wind': Effacement and Characterisation in B.S. Johnson's The Unfortunates and Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1", B. S. Johnson and Post-War Literature: Possibilities of the Avant-Garde, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 54–70, doi:10.1057/9781137349552_4, ISBN 978-1-137-34955-2, retrieved 2021-04-28
  5. "From PhD to Novel | English". King's College London. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  6. "Meet the 100 rising stars of the UK games industry". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
  7. "30 Under 30 Europe 2019: Sports & Games". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  8. "No Man Sky scores biggest Twitch numbers since launch". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  9. "American Election". IFDB. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  10. "2020". Independent Games Festival (IGF). 2021-03-19. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
  11. "Sixteen Horses". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  12. Ramachandran, Naman (2021-04-22). "Literary Thriller 'Sixteen Horses' Scores TV Adaptation From Gaumont U.K. (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  13. Wilson, Laura (May 21, 2021). "The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  14. Purchese, Robert (May 4, 2021). "Interactive book-teaser Sixteen Horses is a reminder of the power of text". Eurogamer. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
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