Most interviews with games industry figures tend to be about our latest game or “hot new thing” we’re working on. But what about the people behind the games we play or books we read and, hopefully, love? Little is said, or explored, of the actual person’s tastes, or how they got into the hobby, etc.

Face The Music is a new column in which I aim to explore a side that is rarely explored – music tastes of the people behind the games we play. What do they listen to? Bands they love? Greatest gig? Do they use music whilst they work, or whilst they game?

Each week I’ll be chatting to someone in the games industry about their musical tastes. This week I’m joined by one of the industries legends – none other than Margaret Weis. Margaret has written dozens of fantasy novels, many with her long-time collaborating Tracy Hickman, since they developed the Dragonlance setting for TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons game back in the mid-80’s. Margaret has penned 21 Dragonlance novels – with her 22nd, “Dragons of Deceit”, releasing in August 2022. Margaret has also run her own game publishing companies, with both Sovereign Press (Sovereign Stone, Dragonlance d20) and Margaret Weis Productions who developed the award-winning Cortex rules and published a host of licensed RPGs such as Serenity, Supernatural, Marvel Heroic, Leverage and the Smallville games.

So, without further a do, here’s Margaret…

What are your favourite bands and genre?

I’ve always been a classic music fan. My mother raised me on Mozart and Beethoven. But I like rock, as well. My tastes have changed over the years. The bands I loved in the 60’s are the same as those I loved in the 70s and 80s. Everything from Bob Dylan to Fleetwood Mac to The Doors and The Beatles to Jefferson Airplane.

How many gigs have you been to? What was your favourite?

I saw Bob Dylan; Arlo Guthrie; She, Na, Na; Steppenwolf and Edgar Winter. Had to leave Steppenwolf early as it was hurting my ears. Arlo Guthrie was the best!

Do you listen to music whilst writing?

NO!! I need to hear the rythym of my words.

Do you listen to music whilst gaming?

No. need to hear the dice roll 🙂

What are your top five favourite albums?

The only albums I own are classical and operas.

If you were stranded on a ship hurtling through deep space, which ten tracks would you want to have with you?

Mozart (just Mozart)

And a non-music question – any plans/projects for the coming year that you’d like to talk about?

Tracy Hickman and I are releasing a new Dragonlance book in August 2022. Dragons of Deceit, published by Del Rey.

About Dragons of Deceit:

The first new Dragonlance novel from Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman in over a decade, and featuring fan-favorite characters from the iconic first two trilogies, Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends–books that brought a generation of readers into the fantasy fold.

Destina Rosethorn–as her name implies–believes herself to be very much a favored child of destiny. But when her father dis in the War of the Lance, her carefully-constructed world comes crashing down. Not only does she lost her beloved father, but the legacy he has left her: a wealthy fiance, and rule over the family lands and castle. With nothing left in the world to support her but wits and determination, she hatches a bold plan: to secure the Device of Time Journeying she read about in one of her father’s books and prevent her father’s death.

The last known holder of the Device was one of the Heroes of the Lance: the free-spirited kender, Tasselhoff Burrfoot. BUt when Destina arrives in Solace–home not only to Tas, but to fellow heroes Caramon and Tika Majere–she sets into motion a chain of events more deadly than she had ever anticipated: one that could change not only her personal history, but the fate of the entire world, allowing a previously-defeated evil to once again gain ascendancy.