Rock, Paper, Swords! - the Historical Action and Adventure Podcast

Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, is a hot topic at the moment. Perhaps the HOTTEST topic. It is cropping up in the news every day and there are predictions that it will take our jobs away or even take over the world! It probably isn’t quite as dire as those predictions would have us believe, but there is no doubt that AI generated text and images are here to stay, not to mention many other uses that we haven’t even foreseen yet. There will be impacts on our daily lives and creatives are especially worried about their livelihoods as computers become more and more adept at doing what only humans could do till now.

We’re not experts on the subject and it is a HUGE subject, but we thought we’d have a quick chat about what AI can do now, what it might be able to do in the future and some of the complex issues arising as a result of this new technology.

Cover image was created by AI from directions Matthew gave it. It's supposed to be Beobrand from his Bernicia Chronicles lmao!

Ben Kane will need little introduction to many of our listeners, but here goes anyway. Ben is a historical fiction novelist, best known for his books set in the ancient world, particularly the Roman empire. His series include The Forgotten Legion, Spartacus, and the Hannibal series of books. 

In 2013, Ben along with fellow novelists Anthony Riches and Russell Whitfield - walked the entire length of Hadrian's Wall for charity, wearing full Roman military kit. Then in 2014, they walked again in, but this time in Italy, raising over £26,500. A film was made of their walk, entitled The Road to Rome with Sir Ian McKellen providing the voiceover.

More recently, Ben has diversified into the medieval period with a trilogy of novels about Richard the Lionheart. His new book, published on 25th May 2023 is, Napoleon’s Spy and marks a further time shift into the early 19th century.

Welcome to Rock, Paper, Swords, Ben!

Peter Gibbons is an author based in Kildare, Ireland. He completed a Law Degree in Liverpool University before embarking on a career in the Insurance Industry.

After many years working in the UK & Ireland he decided to follow his dreams and wrote his debut novel, Viking Blood and Blade.

After smashing into the independently published historical fiction scene in 2021, he had his second series picked up by a publisher and went on to win the prestigious Kindle Storyteller Award in 2022.

Welcome to Rock, Paper, Swords, Peter!

Please support us on Patreon!

Incredibly, we managed to get an interview with the legendary Tull frontman (Steven's favourite band in case you didn't hear him mention it on every previous episode...)!

Ian talked with us about the brand new, rocking Jethro Tull albumRökFlöte,Norse mythology,Vladimir Putin appearing at a Tull meet-and-greet, the time journalists demanded details ofhis upcoming gender reassignment surgery, Broadsword 40th Anniversary boxset details,Under Wraps getting REAL drums, how he's a"bit of a fan" of Motörhead despite the umlauts, bands likeMötley Crüe using backing tapes on stage instead of playing completely live, how performing helps his asthma (not COPD!),how work is going on the NEXT album and its planned release date, and how he's a cranky old guy like Morrissey these days!

We were told we'd get, at most, 45 minutes with Ian but we ended up chatting for over 80 minutes and it was just brilliant. We think you'll enjoy this episode. Give it a listen and check out RökFlöte, it's superb!

On today’s episode we’re going to talk about the first thing that most readers see before they’ve read a single word of a book. The old adage goes that one should never judge a book by its cover, but we all know that the majority of people do just that.

A great cover can get a prospective reader to take a chance on a new author, and a bad cover can put people off, even though the story might be amazing.

We’ll take a look at some of the things that make covers work and also talk about our own journey with the covers to our books and the decisions we’ve taken.

NOTES

Steven’s cover designers, More Visual - https://bookartwork.com/historical/

The first cover for The Abbey of Death - https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1757691654257875&set=a.146569898703400

Blog post about creating the axe for Wolf of Wessex - https://bernicia-chronicles.blogspot.com/2019/06/art-imitating-art-birth-of-axe.html

Original The Serpent Sword cover - https://bernicia-chronicles.blogspot.com/2015/02/potential-cover-reveal-serpent-sword.html

Lots of great quotes/tips in this article: https://nybookeditors.com/2016/10/create-standout-book-cover-beginners/

Tools:

https://www.canva.com/create/book-covers/

https://www.fotor.com/design/book-cover

https://www.visme.co/book-cover-maker/

https://www.adobe.com/express/create/cover/book

David Gilman has worked as a firefighter, professional photographer, he was a soldier in the Parachute Regiment’s Reconnaissance Platoon and a Marketing Manager for an international publishing company in South Africa. From 2000 until 2009 he was principal writer on the TV series A Touch Of Frost. 

His MASTER OF WAR series follows the fortunes of Thomas Blackstone, a village stonemason in England sent to fight with King Edward’s army as an archer against the French in the 14th century in the 100 years war.

David is also the author of two standalone novels for adults, The Last Horseman, set during the Boer War and Night Flight to Paris, a WW2 novel that pits a reluctant hero against the Nazi forces in Paris in 1943.

The Englishman is a new thriller series introducing Dan Raglan, a contemporary knight errant who served in the French Foreign Legion. The second book in the series, Betrayal, published in 2022, was followed by Resurrection, in 2023.

His DANGER ZONE YA adventure series, featuring plucky hero Max Gordon. THE DEVIL’S BREATH won the prestigious French award, Le Prix Polar Jeunesse, was shortlisted for the Manchester Book Award and the Spellbinding Award, nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and picked for the UK government’s recommended reading list for boys. It was also shortlisted for the 2010-2011 Isinglass Teen Read Award in New Hampshire, USA.

Welcome to Rock, Paper, Swords, David!

It's a first for us here at RPS - an album review! Well, ROCK, paper, swords, right? There's two very good reasons for us doing this review (even putting aside the fact Steven is Tull's biggest fan):

1 - We were sent advance copies of the album, so it's only fair we did our best to listen to it and get an honest review out before the album is released. So here it is!

2 - Ian Anderson is hopefully going to be a guest on this very podcast, to chat about his career and RökFlöte in particular. It's an album based on Norse/Viking mythology/religion so it is absolutely perfect for us to review and discuss, given both Matthew and Steven are writing/have written books about the Vikings. Truly a match made in Valhalla!

We hope you enjoy this bonus episode and check out the album when it's released on the 21st of April. It's FANTASTIC as you'll hear in our review. You can pre-order it here:

https://jethrotullband.lnk.to/RokFlote

Huge thanks to Inside Out Records, Ian Anderson, and The Publicity Connection for the review copies of the album!

Stay tuned for our regular episode this Friday, as historical novelist and screenwriter David Gilman is our guest. You don't want to miss it...

We've both just started work on our new books. Join us to hear about the process. Research, challenges, pressures, deadlines, and, of course, fun! You probably already know that Steven's writing about Alfred the Great and the Vikings, but listen to find out what new historical period Matthew is venturing into...

The King Alfred coin -

We are delighted to have another musician on today’s episode. Gregory Spawton is the founder of progressive rock band, Big Big Train.

Big Big Train have released 14 studio albums and several live performances too.

Big Big Train have been named Prog magazine’s Band of the Year on numerous occasions as well as winning Prog’s Album Of The Year awards several times. Their most recent album, Welcome To The Planet, was released on 28 January 2022.

Gregory is also now a publisher. Formed in 2019, Kingmaker is a book publisher dedicated to the rock music sector. It is run by Gregory and Prog magazine journalist/Big Big Train manager Nick Shilton.

Welcome to Rock, Paper, Swords, Gregory!

https://www.bigbigtrain.com/

IAN ROSS is the author of the “Twilight of Empire” series, six historical novels set in the early 4th century AD, the era of the Roman emperor Constantine.

The first of the series, “War at the Edge of the World”, was published in the UK in 2015, and the sixth, “Triumph in Dust", in 2019. His books have subsequently been published in the USA, Australia, Spain and Italy.

His forthcoming novel, “Battle Song”, the first of a trilogy set in medieval England, will be published by Hodder & Stoughton on March 30th 2023.

Welcome to Rock, Paper, Swords, Ian Ross!