Breakfast in the Ruins

Andy Darby shakes off the Monkey for an evening and drops by D and Ts to take a look at one of Moorcock's 60s SF tales, The Fireclown (later retitled The Winds of Limbo but I'm sticking with the original title for vaguely defined reasons related to being old and finnicky).

Strap in for a political thriller laced with astute observations on the natures of media and personality politics, the odd sprinkling of futurism and some oddly ...

Graham returns to Derry and Toms to pick up the chat regarding another Uncosy Catastrophe, on this occasion recommended by listener Paul Miles... 1985's The Fungus by Harry Adam Knight, a book that somehow passed us by despite being firmly in our wheelhouse.

Exploding landlords, extremely poor mission personnel choices, sweaty liaisons and deeply unfortunate children await in this tale of an England overwhelmed by scientifically bo...

Miles of the Casual Trek Podcast returns to Derry & Toms as we turn flagellant and cast our eyes over the first in John Norman's GOR series (and the Cannon movie adaptation as a Brucey Bonus).

Publishers disdain it, booksellers sneer at it and the literary establishment would rather just not talk about it. But the GOR series still has a habit of popping up in the second-hand bookshops we frequent, because there are still millions o...

For our latest exploration of multiversal gaming, friends of the show Dave and Steve bring games mastering knowledge and expertise to Derry and Toms (as well as a couple of afternoon libations of course). Whilst we consider whether Stormbringer is the Moorcockian RPG to rule them all, we also yak about the lineage of the Stormbringer RPG (see terribly boring powerpoint slide below), gaming as shit-kickers, when games get too met...

Goran Gligović stopped by Derry and Toms to discuss his art and influences, as well as his work on the recently kickstarted Black Sword Hack: Ultimate Chaos Edition, a Moorcock-influenced roleplaying game from The Merry Mushmen 

We rove around the joint and, for possibly the first time, Excalibur gets a mention on Breakfast in the Ruins... how it took so long I honestly can't say. We also do a prize draw for some lucky Patron Demon...

Simon returns to D&Ts to look at the first part of the second volume of the adventures of Corum, Prince in the Scarlet Robe and tell us all about his new(ish) podcast Can I Pod With Madness (available wherever you consume your pods).

Beer mistakes and dodgy audio can't dampen our enthusiasm for some fantastic world-building and the first true appearance of everyone's (well ours anyway) favourite companion/hat/cat combination.

JOIN ...

Loz returns to Derry & Toms to brave the final gate (and the depredations of the beer slate) as we conclude our re-read of Michael Moorcock's 1989 Elric novel The Fortress of the Pearl.

Expect revisionism (both textual and personal), rose-tinted reflections on the dole, a beer challenge best described as cyclopean and some RPG-focused grumbling as we complete our re-evaluation of a novel we haven't read in over 30 years and fail to...

We're back in Derry and Toms in the company of Joe Banks to take a look at Robert Fuest's 1973 film take on Moorcock's The Final Programme (AKA The Last Days of Man on Earth).

As is traditional we roam around, but mostly we evaluate The Final Programme as both an adaptation and as a work that stands (or falls) on its own merits, and Joe has a startling take on that ending that I'd never considered. And we talk about some other stuf...

Andrew Nette returns to Derry & Toms to look at the legendary UK publisher of horror, science fiction and alarmingly violent but sociologically savvy pulps -New English Library. NEL looms large on my shelves but I've never delved into their bikersploitation output... UNTIL NOW!

Rum content ahead as we talk about the publisher, the key players behind some of their more exploitative output, and two similar yet very different biker no...

Graham and Miles join me in Derry & Toms to delve into more James Herbert disaster action and muse over the glut of uncosy catastrophes coming out of the 70s paperback boom to answer Aldiss's dismissal of the British sci-fi apocalypse novels of the 60s.

We talk about The Dark and touch upon some other examples we've been picking up.

As trailed in the show you can find The Casual Trek Podcast on all good podcatchers and you can stil...

Oliver Brackenbury drops by Derry & Toms to give us the low down on New Edge Sword & Sorcery, his new anthology magazine heading to Kickstarter around about the time this show goes out.

We talk about the magazine as well as numerous things including the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy at Toronto Public Library, Oliver's related podcast Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection, his path to writing and edit...

Loz returns to Derry & Toms to pick up our coverage of The Fortress of the Pearl, muse on Elric's 'nice guy' characterisation, grumble at Jack Three-Beaks, coo over weird sky descriptions and suffer the depredations of the returning D6 wandering beer table.

In other news I was delighted to be a guest of Jeff and Hoi on the Appendix N Book Club. Be sure to check out their interview with Mr Moorcock himself too.

Also, check out the e...

After falling foul of birthday libations first time around, we're back to finish our exploration of Graham Masterton's The Devils of D-Day.   The Seven Tests return, Dan McCook still isn't owning his fundamental rookie error, the Official Secrets Act counts for sweet FA and it turns out Eloise is the MVP of this whole story.   We also watch a movie! Surely there has to be a better Graham Masterton protagonist out there right? ...

Simon is back in Derry & Toms to carry on our chinwagging and this time we're joined by Guy Lawley, author of Saga of the Man Elf. This 1989 five issue Trident comics run is my most highly treasured Moorcock-related comic and Guy tells us how it came to be, how Mike gave it his blessing, and how he worked and moved through UK comics and fanzines.

We also discuss the artists involved in the conception of the Man Elf character and st...

Another year has flown by and we return to Derry and Toms for our fourth annual Phil and MM birthday special and celebrate another year on the planet. This time by reading some patron-selected festive horror!

Tanks, demons, onion soup, calvados and freezing weather all combine to create a truly seasonal challenge for a horny cartographer.

This is a little bit late for reasons explained in the show (birthday boozing) but Happy Birth...

Simon Perrins joins me in Derry and Toms to discuss Moorcock, art, comics, Tolkien, TV adaptations, role-playing games, tortured poet musicians we adored in our youths and generally go totally fugazi.

Simon is the man behind our banner art, logo, Gerard Arthur Connelly portraits and pretty much our entire visual identity.  Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.

Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.

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