Odile joins me once again to continue our discussion on the John Christopher Tripod series. This time around we chat on the City of Gold and Lead, branching off onto a few soapboxes on the way. As this series went on it got more complex and opened up into a wider world. This book is not perfect but it’s a great read.

This week, Dave Probert steps back in to discuss a more modern TV Series favourite of mine, “Misfits”. We discuss Season 1 only but having seen season 2, like arnie “I’ll be back”.

My daughter Raven survived the operating table especially to bring you all the second part of Captain Kremmen, now that’s dedication. This week we answer the question of who will win between Kremmen and Gort. Now we all know who will in but try convincing a teenager. Sheesh!

Recently Odile Thomas from “Sending a Wave” podcast sent me a link to stories she was working on for her writers group. I read them, gave some feedback and one in particular caught my eye. I like this story for two reasons, one the russian tones that come through (both in names and way the characters act) but also the way it takes a very european mythological view of death being a transformative process. Ok maybe that’s a little highbrow (oh oh word nerd alert) but I think you will enjoy this version, read by Odile herself.

Sometimes a conversation heads in a direction other than where you intend and you just go with the flow. This was one of those times. Rick joined me for a podcast we planned some time ago as a follow up from “Death from the Skies”. However some way into the podcast the central topic (man meets aliens on planet other than earth) became a discussion on God, Religion and Science Fiction. Go Figure. So on the spot I decided to go with that topic, the result was a very interesting discussion on how science fiction has approached god with examples including CS Lewis, Arthur C Clarke, Star Trek New Generation (Q) and Deep Space 9. It was a fun discussion without drawing any conclusions other than despite the protests of some religions, Science Fiction has every right to explore the subject and so far, Science Fiction has done a good job of adding to the discussions.

It may be news to everyone but we don’t just do audio. We do in fact have our very own web comic with artwork by sarah, creator of the character designs for TMAH and our various other productions last year. Revisiting the characters from the Vena Cava story we did last year Sarah has completed one story (the origin of Divale) called “Vanished Childhood” and another has started called “Open Door”. The Web comic is a much more mature, adult oriented story than the podcast and the first story will make you think about how we deal with exceptional people. You can read the webcomic at http://andersenrae.com

Despite being short on words, War of the Worlds the Musical has become “The Definitive” version of the HG Wells Story. Gareth joined me once again as we took the chance to explore the music of Jeff Wayne.

This week a look at the first half of the 1970’s one man SciFi Radio Play by Kenny Everett. I first was introduced to this story through the Cosgrove and Hall animated version that appeared in the Kenny Everett video show and loved it but totally missed the jokes. With that in mind my daughter Raven joined me on the podcast as she discovered it about the same age as I did and we thought it would be fun to compare notes.

This week Odile Thomas joined me to discuss the book “The White Mountains” by John Christopher (Samuel Youd). I read this book as a child, Odile read it only recently, I’m an Aussie, Odile is french so we had very different perspectives but a shared love of the book. We also discussed the TV Series based on the book “The Tripods”.

This week Al Kessel from Tales from the Mouse House and my Daughter Phoenix join me to discuss the book Eragon. Yes we are stretching the definitions here of Sci-Fi but I am allowing it as there have been comparisons made between Eragon and Star Wars and to be honest there are enough Star Wars podcasts and products already. It was a great discussion on the book and as I haven’t read it, I learned a lot as I hope you will. Certainly by the end I wanted to read the book so Phoenix and Al did their job well. Even if we did freeze outside.