Breakfast in the Ruins

For this almost-delve into Moorcock's dark and inspired quest fantasy The Warhound and the World's Pain, I'm joined by author, playwright and Games Master David Griffiths. Inevitably, we ended up going down various routes in a wide-ranging conversation including Target Books (again), Moorcock and other inspirations, roleplaying games and, eventually, The Warhound and the World's Pain, which is getting a fresh coat of paint thanks to Joe Monti and Saga Press and their brand-new hardcover Von Bek collection (releasing in December). We will follow up on this in the next few weeks with a deeper delve.

We also discuss Dave's latest play, inspired by the events that led an under-sexed weirdo to produce the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer and Helena.

This is the latest of Dave's plays to be staged by Arts Groupie, a Liverpool-based Community Interest Company. Check out their website for more details, including Dave's take on the Dickens classic ghost story, The Signalman.

The patrons spoke and this year's full-bore Halloween Special is Sabat - The Graveyard Vultures (and more) by Guy N Smith...

It's fair to say that this one was challenging, and not just because our hero is a massive wanker. There's more... much more...

Content warning for sexual violence and exasperated hosts.

In this, our third (?) Halloween episode for 2024, we tackle the book Loz describes as, "crass, bluff and gittish"!

It's SLIMER... our second experience of Harry Adam Knight action on Breakfast in the Ruins and it certainly was a book. Interesting developments on the 'base under siege by weird monster' are brought low by some of the unfortunate tropes of the genre at the time. Still, fortunately, the D6 Wandering Beer Table made a welcome return and generally we rolled rather well!

Content warning for sexual violence (in the book, not between me and Loz) and really shitty characters.

Our last look at Harry Adam Knight was our 2023 Uncosy Catastrophe read of The Fungus

We are firmly in our Halloween groove. The eco-horror of Pisces Rising may have given us a light step into the season, but now we're up to our necks in it and our choices for this year not only include the winner and one of the runners-up from this year's patron poll, but we're also taking a look at one that has featured on past polls but never reached the top...

William Hope Hodgson's classic of weird fiction and cosmic dread... The House on the Borderland.

Author, editor and musician Allister Thompson is back for this one - check out his musical retrospective and his debut novel The Music of the Spheres. We also touch on Lovecraft and some musical interpretations, including one by Nostalgia and Borderlands by Tactile, an extract of which can be heard at the end of the show.

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In this bonus fix-up episode, I meet up with our pen-pal Robert MacMillan in a coffee shop in Bradford to set the scene for our journey into the worlds of Bastable… this wasn't our initial plan. Still, life intervenes in strange ways sometimes and we follow the moonbeam roads as we must.

As well as Moorcock, we talk about 1980s coach holidays to Palamos, VHS tracking, Bond, Who conventions, Pontins Prestatyn, the literary merits of Lawrence Durrell and all sorts of other things.

It's October already so it's time for Graham to return for our traditional Halloween period of exploring killer critter features and, from time to time, discovering new author rabbit holes to tumble down. This time, it's PISCES RISING by NEL stalwart Peter Cave and his one-time collaborator Margaret Wredden.

Fantastic creation myths combine with brutal deaths, drinking bitter in a pub in Lowestoft, and a sadly underfeatured octopus called Bluey.

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From the North he came, to seek knowledge and fortune. Cast out by his tribe for offending Ulfr, God of the Wastes, he is driven by mirth, restrained by melancholy.  One day he will return to make offerings to the Bear Druids, particularly Mewler the Claw. She thinks he’s an idiot but owes him a debt.

Memories of Krangg, The Iron Bear

Clarky is back in Derry and Toms to talk Conan knock-offs, and pool our thoughts on an all-Barbarian game and how to resolve the inevitable "Pah! My hand-tailored sandals are more northern than you, you weakling southlander habadasher!" type conflicts.

We get into Thongor and Brak mainly, but also a touch of Kothar and a mild dusting of some other characters whose names I've forgotten.

One of them had a halberd though.

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"Dishonesty hollows a man, like the bog bug hollows out a tree. Don’t be that tree. It’s dry, useless and dusty, although it does burn ok."

Krangg, 134th of Ogbok's Moon, 13423

New traveller Liam Jones drops by Derry & Toms to discuss one of his favourite things... Victorian Invasion literature... as we tackle the Moorcock-edited anthology Before Armageddon, a collection of Victorian and Edwardian imaginative fiction.

Liam also teaches me about the Parisian dandy criminals, the Apaches! (Who I must now write into my next game...)

Very cool!

At some point we'll take a look at volume II - England Invaded

Dave is back in Derry & Toms to talk about some stories that were as formative for him as they were for me back in our teens... The Robert E Howard Conan stories, The Phoenix on the Sword and The Scarlet Citadel.

Dave also gives us an update on the latest SÖNUS news and we delve into some of the murkier aspects of the pulp of the time. But mostly we enjoy the head smashing and the surprisingly textured and erudite version of the Cimmerian in those first two stories.

Although this is our first Conan focused episode, Phil and I did look at The Tower of the Elephant way back in the early days in our first Happy Birthday Michael Moorcock episode back in December 2019.

How time flies...

Pig-bombs, priests in daisy dukes, dressing down the Theocrat of Pan Tang and getting torn apart by dogs are just some of the highlights as I’m joined in D&Ts once again by Steve Round to talk Stormbringer gaming and this time he’s brought the whole damn party.

The wandering beer table returns and, as a reward to the gang, we debut an all-new lazily assembled table of rubbish demon-bound quest goodies.

So join Steve, Chloe, Sara, Roddy, Jay, Richie and Ceirun as we board the Merciful Servant and reflect on what it takes to save the Young Kingdoms from the overbearing and stagnant forces of Law!

Content warning: The Void campaign is Moorcockian and therefore spicy. And Steve tries a smoked beer. Horrific!

You can find the full write-ups of The Void campaign and more on Steve’s blog – Cruising For a Musin