If you happened to be around in the days when microcomputers were king, you may be aware of Firebird Sofware.
The British publisher was established in 1984 as a publishing arm of Telecomsoft and was responsible for releasing a bunch of classic games like Booty, Thrust, Elite, and The Sentinel. It distributed its titles primarily for platforms like the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST, and built a pretty strong reputation for itself, becoming a key part of many people's childhood collections. Then, in 1989, the American company Microprose acquired the label, eventually discontinuing it not long after and giving it a bit of a tragic ending.
If you're the type of person who counts themselves among the publisher's fans, however, there is some good news to accompany the heavily abridged retelling that we've given above, as it now appears that the story of Firebird is set to be immortalized in a new book called "Memories of Firebird: The Unofficial and Unauthorised History". This is being put together by the writer Richard C. Hewison, who previously freelanced for Retro Gamer and worked at both Telecomsoft and Microprose, according to their LinkedIn Profile.
In a recent announcement on LinkedIn, Hewison described the book with the following statement:
"It is a fully illustrated hardback book which gives a comprehensive history of Firebird Software, including lots of information revealed for the first time. The book is the result of over 20 years of research, and is the culmination of a number of side projects of mine down the years including a few Retro Gamer articles on the subject and my retired website 'The Bird Sanctuary'. It gives a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the games, the developers and the people who worked there. It's a massively nostalgic look back at that golden era, and is the realisation of a long standing ambition of mine to have a book published."
Memories of Firebird: The Unofficial and Unauthorised History is available to pre-order now from the publisher Telos's website and is currently available for a discounted price of £34.99. It is scheduled to be published in Spring 2024.