Is This Just Fantasy?

The fellas are back in top form with their first episode of 2025. Starting off the third year of the podcast with a book Geordie's been meaning to read for a long time, its the first part in the Witcher saga: The Last Wish.

Its right up Duncan and Geordie's alley: a collection of pulpy dark fantasy short stories, with a suspiciously strong similarity to Elric. Not that they don't have their criticisms. Tune in to hear them discuss the strength of the translation, misogyny, and how it compares to its several adaptations. Plus, the fellas try their best Geralt impressions, and get some help from a special guest.

What a year, and what a closer. The fellas gather together to celebrate the year that has been and look forward to the one coming. As with every year, they're examining the highs and lows of all the books they've covered in 2024, and awarding books the following categories:

The Biggest Surprise, the Biggest Disappointment, their Favourite, the Worst, and the greatest reward of all: the Best book of 2024.

Join in on the celebration and see if you can guess who will come out on top!

In their final episode of 2024, the fellas tackle their third, and perhaps final, tangentially-related Christmas book with Miye Lee's Dallergut Dream Department store. And despite the winter weather, things are heating up. With Duncan praising the book's easy, fluffy tone, and Geordie savaging the book's prose and glacial pacing. Who will triumph in the debate?

The long awaited and long delayed episode on Priory of the Orange Tree. Duncan and Geordie come together to discuss this modern fantasy classic by Samantha Shannon. But Duncan has a secret to share. This time he has fallen short on finishing this novel and Geordie is left to take him through the ending and give his opinions and insight. As Duncan is left to makes wild and inaccurate predictions on how things ended.

And so, as the year's end approaches, Duncan and Geordie put the wrap on Joe Abercrombie's second trilogy within his First Law series with Red Country. Its the fellas' first encounter with the Fantasy0-Western subgenre, But there are no wizards with sombreros here. Its a little Fist Full of Dollars, a little Deadwood, a lot of True Grit and The Searchers, but with some brooding, evil Northmen and the triumphant return of Nicomo Cosca.

No surprise, they love it, and this episode's a good one.

Lost in a Dublin archive for 150 years, the fellas are excited to be among the first to read, rate and review it. Geordie recounts the amazing story of its discovery, as well as some of its.... slightly overenthusiastic scholarly appraisal. Duncan gives a slightly scathing takedown of both Gibbet Hill and Dracula, whilst Geordie tries to comprehend some truly archaic xenophobia.

At long last, it's time for Duncan and Geordie to visit the book series from one of their favourite episodes, the sequel to The Worm and His Kings: Even the Worm Will Turn. Things gets quantum-ey and timey-wimeyesque as the fellas follow on from a book Geordie was astounded to discover has a sequel. It's certainly the most audacious sequel to any book they've read so far. Will it stick the landing?

The fellas discuss the story's amazing dual-narrative, the what-ifs of life, take a digression to talk about which episodes of Doctor Who scared them as a kid, and wrap up the episode by trying to figure out how this book ends exactly? Find out as they wrap up October with another booooook-tacular episode.

Following tradition, its time to kick off spooky season with our annual Berserk episode. Following on from The Conviction Arc the fellas head into the first part of The Millenium Falcon Arc: Holy Evil War Chapter, (vol. 22-27).

Geordie introduces Duncan to new characters in what is probably the biggest change to the status quo of Berserk outside of the Eclipse, Schierke, high fantasy magic, the berserker armour and the introduction of new friends for both Guts and Griffith. They cover the hightlights. Duncan defends Farnese and Isidro but bemoans Chestnut Puck. Geordie triumphs by successfully pronouncing Schierke but completely fails with Slan. And most exciting of all, Duncan begins to put together the pieces behind the Skull Knight's backstory. Also they talk about Naruto for some reason.

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Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie was one of the fellas' all time favourite novels for the pod. Can its sequel, The Heroes, live up to its successes?

Well to no one's surprise, it did. They discuss how much of the book can be enjoyed even with Geordie's limited knowledge of the series and characters. Geordie tries to deduce who exactly "The Bloody Nine" is from context clues, whilst Duncan gives Geordie a crash-course on the series up to this point, and they dive into the amazing characters and themes which make up this book. It's one hell of a departure from The Last Unicorn. That's for sure.

By the advice of our lawyers and other sensible people, we do not endorse the "Is This Just Fantasy Last Unicorn Drinking Game," wherein players take a shot every time Duncan and Geordie describe this novel as "beautiful." You have been warned.

Yes, in this episode the fellas visit a classic of American fantasy, Peter S. Beagle's the Last Unicorn. A spell-binding fairy tale full of heart and humour. In addition to covering the story, they also cover Beagle's role in Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings, which other stories compare to it, and Geordie baffles Duncan by explaining that a Tom Clancy ghost rider is responsible for the assassination of an Italian Prime Minister.