The Follycast

In this month’s episode…

…..after reading the first seven novels and still recovering from the climax of Lies Sleeping, we take a sidestep to look at the recently published short story collection, Tales From The Folly.

Whilst we don’t usually enjoy short stories, we do enjoy these tales. A short story collection can be like a box of Quality Street chocolates – a bit hit and miss. So which are the caramel swirls and which are the green triangles?

Along the way we get into a discussion about the birds and the bees of how rivers procreate and suggest some other Rivers characters that could feature in future short stories or novellas. We also reveal the results of our poll of listeners’ favourite stories from the book, which contains some surprises.

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for Uncertain Smile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

Moment 4: Christmas Moment

Our theme tune and the rest of Cutwater’s excellent album are on Spotify!

In this month’s episode…

…..we review Lies Sleeping, book seven in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. The book brings to a conclusion the Faceless Man and Mr Punch plotlines (or does it?) in a story that somehow ties together magical bells, oubliettes, The Silmarillion, Merlin, King Arthur, goat sacrifices, foxes, cheese puffs, St Pauls, Glastonbury, Roman London and Covent Garden Tesco Metro.

In our next episode we will be reviewing the recently released book of short stories ‘Tales From the Folly’

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for Uncertain Smile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

During the episode we discussed the following:

The Silmarillion by Tolkein

Tales From The Folly

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Doctor Who: Battlefield by Ben Aaronovitch

Genius Loci by Ben Aaronovitch

In this month’s episode…

… after a magical midsummer sojourn with unicorns and fairies, we are firmly back in London and the hunt for the Faceless Man takes centre stage. Peter and Guleed investigate a drug-related death at a socialite party and along the way encounter shady US agents, Lady Ty floods part of central London and we discover the history of magic from a female perspective.

And yes, Lesley is back and Harrods electrical department is trashed in the process.

We tackle such issues as the collective noun for rich girls, at what point in the book Richard’s head nearly exploded, why Rivers Of London books are easier to read on a Kindle and what any of this has to do with the history of women’s football and the Number 14 bus route.

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for Uncertain Smile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

During the episode we discussed the following:

In this month’s episode…

…after a summer break we discuss, appropriately enough, Foxglove Summer – book five in the bestselling Peter Grant series of novels by Ben Aaronovitch.

It’s a story that ties together changelings, unicorns, dogging, forests, steam traction engines, bees, fairy queens and Roman Roads, but if we are entirely honest, did we entirely understand the plot? Is it a much needed break from London and the Folly, or frustrating after the explosive conclusion of the book before it, Broken Homes? After a re-read is it still Margaret’s favourite book? Why does Jennie think it ends like an opera? Why does Richard hang around in a den of geeks and will Jan be able to visit Herefordshire any more?

All this will be revealed in the next 42 minutes.

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for Uncertain Smile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

During the episode we discussed the following:

In this month’s episode…

…we discuss ‘Whispers Underground’, the fourth novel in the Rivers Of London series by Ben Aaronovitch.

In Broken Homes, Peter finds a whole new set of senior officers to annoy as bodies pile up across the home counties and South London. All roads lead to Skygarden tower, a fictional, but strangely familiar, tower block in Elephant & Castle. Peter and Lesley move in together, but not in the way many of us would have been hoping for back when we were reading book one. We experience a trippy Spring Court on the South Bank, Nightingale manages to lay waste to a farmhouse and the book ends with a huge revelation, much to the relief of hosts Margaret and Richard who have been carefully policing potential spoilers in the first three podcasts.

As BBC continuity announcers are fond of saying, “Things will never be the same after this episode of the Follycast.”

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for UncertainSmile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

During the episode we discussed the following:

In this month’s episode…

…we discuss ‘Whispers Underground’, the third novel in the Rivers Of London series by Ben Aaronovitch.

We review a tale of pigs, potteries, FBI agents, sewers, art installations, Underground raves, earthbenders and time travel hallucination.  The Grant and May partnership is back, but how well is Lesley coping and how has her relationship with Peter evolved? Are the noticeably lower level of horror and the smaller body count good things? If Zach had been more co-operative would that have made for a much shorter book? Does the London Underground feature as much as we were hoping? Eight years on from ‘Whispers Underground’ will Crossrail ever be finished?

Meanwhile, as Peter settles down to watch the 2012 Doctor Who Christmas special at the end of his first year at the Folly (yes, everything so far really did all happen in the same year) we close the episode with a Rivers Of London quiz covering the first three books. Play along at home!

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for UncertainSmile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

During the episode we discussed the following:

In this month’s episode…

…we discuss ‘Moon Over Soho’, the second novel in the Rivers Of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. We all loved the first book, so how does this live up to expectations as a sequel?

We welcome important new characters to the series and witness the appearance of a major new foe. We debate some of Peter’s questionable choices, Richard shares his childhood nightmares and we wonder at exactly what point in the future Peter Grant decides to get this all down on paper.  All whilst listening to multiple versions of ‘Body and Soul’

We introduce our first listener feedback section, but there’s no spoiler zone this episode (although the spoiler klaxon does make its debut for the first time).

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for UncertainSmile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

During the episode we discussed the following:

Kate Mosse

JK Rowling 

Andrew Cartmel’s  Vinyl Detective series

Neal Stephenson’ Baroque Trilogy

Doctor Who: Survival

‘If’ by Lindsay Anderson

Four versions of ‘Body and Soul’ are featured during the podcast. In order they are:

Coleman Hawkins & His Orchestra

John Coltrane

Ella Fitzgerald

Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson

In this month’s episode…

…we start our look at the Rivers Of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch with – logically enough – Rivers Of London itself, the first book in the series.

Will new readers Jennie and Jan share hosts Margaret and Richard’s enthusiasm for the world of the Folly?  In the nail biting finale to the show we find out whether our control sample want to stick with the podcast for the next book or whether we will need a new pair of ‘test subjects’ upon whom to inflict our enthusiasm next time.

Before that dramatic reveal we speculate about the influences on the book, London as a character in the novel and the significance of the ‘Molly Folly Bite Time Machine’. We wonder how on earth it could be made into a TV show and, in his desperate attempts to not mention Doctor Who, Richard talks about Sons Of Anarchy for no obvious reason. Richard and Margaret then retire to a spoiler zone to discuss how the book works effectively as a ‘Season Premiere’.

Each show will contain plot points for that particular book but, to not spoil the series for new readers, how the book fits into the series as a whole will be left to the end of each podcast (from 37:20 in this episode), so new readers can skip and come back at a later date.

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with guests Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for UncertainSmile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk.You can hear the track in full at the end of the pod from 47:35

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify and all good pod catchers, so don’t forget to subscribe.

   Subscribe to our RSS feed for further updates

During the episode we discussed the following:

Guardian Podcast with Ben Aaronovitch (very mild spoilers)

Rivers Of London – the TV series?

Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd

London’s Lost Rivers by Paul Talling

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Neal Stephenson’ Baroque Trilogy

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Sons Of Anarchy

Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk

The Bone Clocks

Welcome to the Follycast, a Rivers of London bookclub podcast, in which we discuss each book in the PC Grant series of fantasy detective novels by Ben Aaronovitch.  Each podcast will contain plot points for that particular book but, to not spoil the series for new readers, how the book fits into the series as a whole will be left to the end of each podcast, so new readers can skip.

Hosted by Margaret Holborn and Richard Marks, with guests Jan Trott and Jennie Beck

Produced by Richard Marks for UncertainSmile productions

Theme tune: ‘London Is Inspired’ by Cutwater: www.cutwaterband.co.uk

Cover image: Mack Chater (@MackChater)

Email [email protected] with your feedback on this and upcoming books. We particularly like short (max 2 mins) audio feedback via mp3 or the audio format of your choice!

Follow us on Twitter @thefollycast

We are available via iTunes, Soundcloud and Spotify, so don’t forget to subscribe.