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Sci-fi board game epic Twilight Imperium is being adapted into a book series

First novel to be The Fractured Void by Tim Pratt.

Sweeping space opera board game Twilight Imperium is being adapted into a new series of novels.

Created by Fantasy Flight Games founder Christian T. Petersen in 1997, Twilight Imperium is an epic sci-fi strategy board game that sees players lead different alien races to conquer the galaxy via diplomacy, trade and combat. Often proclaimed as one of the best board games ever made, Twilight Imperium has seen four major editions, the latest released in 2017.

Twilight Imperium will be adapted into a series of books by Aconyte, the division of board game behemoth Asmodee - which owns Fantasy Flight - that has previously turned game series including Pandemic, Android, Arkham Horror and Keyforge into novels.

Cover image for YouTube video

The first instalment in the upcoming board game book series will be The Fractured Void, a 400-page novel that follows the adventures of a starship crew drawn into the inter-planetary politics of the Twilight Imperium universe. Here’s the blurb in full:

Captain Felix Duval and the crew of the Temerarious quietly patrol a remote Mentak Coalition colony system where nothing ever happens. But when they answer a distress call from a moon under attack, that peaceful existence is torn apart. They rescue a scientist, Thales, who’s developing revolutionary technology to create new wormholes. He just needs a few things to make it fully operational… and now, ordered to aid the scientist, the Temerarious is targeted by two rival black-ops teams intent on reacquiring Thales. Can Felix trust Thales? Or is this a conspiracy to tip the balance of power in the galaxy forever?

The Fractured Void has been penned by Tim Pratt, the author of the Axiom series. The space opera series currently spans three books, the latest being last year’s The Forbidden Stars. Pratt has previously written tie-in fiction for Dungeons & Dragons setting Forgotten Realms and the world of fantasy tabletop RPG Pathfinder.

Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition strategy board game gameplay layout
Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition.

Pratt hinted at the potential for future books in the series, saying: “I can’t explore every faction in one novel, but I can dive deep into a few and touch on several more (and we can always visit more in future books).

“The world of Twilight Imperium is huge, and lends itself to all sorts of exciting stories, from space pirate adventure to political maneuvering to espionage to haunted-house-in-space tales.”

The Fractured Void is planned for release on November 3rd 2020, Details and release dates for future books in the Twilight Imperium series are yet to be announced.

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Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition

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Matt Jarvis

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After starting his career writing about music, films and video games for various places, Matt spent many years as a technology, PC and video game journalist before writing about tabletop games as the editor of Tabletop Gaming magazine. He joined Dicebreaker as editor-in-chief in 2019, and has been trying to convince the rest of the team to play Diplomacy since.

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