Entropic State Report 29th June 2024

It’s time for us to decamp to the coast for our jollies again. Not Morecambe this time though, no. We’re headed to the far side of Morecambe Bay to Grange-over-Sands, a bonny place with an incredibly picturesque railways station, some nice boozers and (most importantly perhaps) a used book shop with a pretty cracking fantasy and scifi section.

Or at least it did have last time we were there.

We’ll pass through Carnforth so it may be inevitable that we end up in their incredible three floor book shop along the way, even though I’m yet to even scratch the surface of my last Carnforth haul. On that occasion, from memory, it was a mixture of M John Harrisons, John Brunners, and a 70s book about UFOs in Bedminster or somewhere.

In fact it was a brace of nice Brunner hardcovers that I picked up in Carnforth last time too. Scandalous then that I still haven’t read any of them (despite my doomed efforts to read The Sheep Look Up for a podcast with Joe Banks that never got off the launchpad thanks to the appalling typeface/set/quality of print of whatever you call it).

I’m excited to see what this trip has in store for us. Our most recent forays in this direction have yielded a lot… and I mean A LOT… of Dumarest books so I’m going to impose a moratorium on those for now as I haven’t got to any of those either.

I need to retire damn it.

As you’ll see from the pic above, we’ve already kicked off our week with a hearty and mildly boozy lunch (start as you mean to go on I say) and we’re having a siesta to catch up on some reading.

I’m travelling light on the book front with Phoenix in Obsidian, because we will do Part Two damn it, and a couple of other likely candidates for a follow-up of sorts to the Snowcastles episode with Clarky. We’ll call it Barbarian Bingo or something.

Naturally, this will all hinge on whether I get distracted by any pick-ups in Carnforth or Grange-over-Sands. Best laid plans and all that.

Meanwhile, Part Two of The Coming of the Terraphiles (thanks Miles) is in the can and I’ll get that out in a couple of weeks when we’re back home (there may/will definitely be a part three). We have a couple of other things pencilled in for July and August, including a new RPG-related episode in which I grill Steve Round and his players about their epic Stormbringer campaign, what their ‘dance’ and ‘balance’ stats are and how many two-man canoes they managed to hoard by the end. Steve has also prepped them ahead of time with knowledge so foul, so vaguely unsettling, so gnarly on the wallet… Yes… It will involve the D6 wandering beer table.

Prepare your demon-bound flagons of stupid beer tolerance!!!

Amazing really that we’re half way through the year already. 86 episodes down in fact, so it’s looking like our centenary might even neatly coincide with this year’s Birthday episode.

I have a plan for that. Just need to shape it up a bit…

More on that later though! Halloween first and we’re going to try for a three-fer again with William Hope Hodgson definitely on the cards with Allister, a bit of eco-horror with Graham and an all new poll for some kind of blood-curling book/film combo for the 31st October.

I’m still quite fond of the idea of doing Nick Sharman’s The Cats with the movie CATS. You must decide though.

Right. I’m off to eat a two pack of snack biscuits from our hotel tea tray before working up an appetite for a good dinner and some Barolo.

Take care pards…

The Land That Time Forgot

Allister Thompson returns to Derry and Toms as we hurtle back to 1918 and brave the cold waters of the Atlantic to take a look at The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs, subject of Michael Moorcock’s sole filmed movie script (along with James Cawthron of course).

Expect discussions about mysterious island tropes, personal propensities to cannibalism, dodgy theories of race and C Thomas Howell!

Allister’s latest release (at time of posting this at least) is Apocalypse Man by Khan Tengri and it includes a nice Moorcockian track too.

PS Here’s that Patrick Tilley designed cover I mentioned…

Entropic State Report 21st June 2024

Another quick-fire report from Blighty thanks to Jim Jupp and Ghost Box Records. Yesterday postie called by with another fantastic package from Jim –
Fellfoul by Mulgrave Audio featuring a score by Jim and Belbury Poly. If you’ve not come across it, Mulgrave Audio is making atmospheric audio dramas that catapult me back to the days when TV drama and public information films in the UK had an undercurrent of ephemeral threat and usually we’re accompanied by incredible music.

This 10″ vinyl includes a page of the accompanying Fellfoul comic strip with art by that absolute legend of UK comics John Ridgway!

“Fellfoul has all the feel of a lost episode of Dramarama or Play for Today, a curiously British affair that is imbued with a sense of teh bizarrely normal.” – Starburst Magazine

If you have any passion for those autumnal, slightly odd folklore driven TV dramas from the 80s and their dreamlike scores you need to get this.

You can order it via the Mulgrave Audio and Ghost Box shops.

In other news, I’m typing this before heading off an a four hour drive down to Stroud where I will be catching up with a Derry & Toms original… Tash is getting hitched!

Will there be another report with wedding photos tomorrow?

I dunno.

I’ll probably get langered though.

In podcast news, the next episode is just around the corner. I’m talking to returning guest Allister Thompson about The Land That Time Forgot… The book by ERB… The film scripted by Moorcock and Cawthorn… Its cinematic sequel and… The Asylum remake starring and directed by C Thomas Howell. And that my friends was a real challenge to get through.

But we did it for you.

Then we’ll reconvene with Miles to try and get past just banging on about all things Doctor Who to properly cover The Coming of the Terraphiles. Maybe.

As the last few months have been generally all over the place with real life events I’m reckoning on things settling a bit for the summer (with any luck) so I’ll be rebuilding the itinerary for the coming second half of 2024. It will soon be time to launch the Halloween poll too, which seems odd as we’ve only just passed the summer solstice.

HA!

Summer my arse. The weather here in the North of England has been fucking bollocks. But the sun has come out today for Tash, so that’s a good omen.

Anyway, I’d better get driving so take care out there. When I get back, the second John Ridgway page that includes a download code for Fellfoul will be headed out to a Patron Demon…

Until we meet again… On the Moonbeam roads.

Entropic State Report 16th June 2024

Greetings pards,

I hope you’re playing a good hand at the tables this fine day.

A few years ago when I recorded the episode on Letters From Hollywood with Dirk, we raised a glass to departed friends. One was my old mate Magic Paul who I’d lost contact with some time in the early 2000s. When I learned that he’d passed away I spread the word amongst all my old muckers and none of us had seen him for years. It’s such a shame we do this as we get older. Drifting apart, moving towns, changing interests etc.

Anyway.

This morning one of those muckers sent me a couple of pics he found whilst having a clear out. Back in those days a few of us shared a house down De la Pole Ave in Hull, scene of many a debauched evening and subject of many fondly recalled anecdotes about being a smashed 20-something year-old in the early 90s. Heady days.

Paul was a huge Trek fan, even having his own Wrath of Khan era starfleet uniform (which was a much rarer thing in those days as cosplay was way more niche than it is today). He spent an age trying to convince a few of us, including Loz, to play the FASA Star Trek RPG. When we finally did, I was so mashed I fell asleep an hour in and missed most of it but Loz and Neil (AKA Noel Clippingstalk) sat through it and later vowed never to play it, or allow Paul to GM for them, ever again. They weren’t Trek fans and the meticulous approach from our Games Master and adherence to Trek aesthetics was just too dry for them I suspect.

Paul was a character. He was a classic old school geek with a vast RPG collection (I still wonder what happened to all of his Morrow Project and Aftermath stuff when he passed away as his parents were both long since gone and he had no siblings), and a passion for wargaming, napoleonic history, folk music, Samson tobacco and Rich Tea biscuits. He also had a ridiculous collection of 60s and 70s SF and Fantasy paperbacks and I’m pretty sure, had he still been around today, his to-read pile would probably dwarf any of ours.

I first met him when he trained to be a psychiatric nurse in the same school as myself and Robbo (see Wheels of Terror Part One – Part Two WILL arrive some day). He never completed the training for one reason or another but we stayed friends for a number of years afterwards. He was an acquired taste for some, but to me he was kind, generous, quick to laugh and an all-round good bloke. If a bit nicotine stained round the edges. What’s more, had we still been in touch he would have been a marvellous presence in a podcast like this because his knowledge of all the gubbins we gas about was deep. And I like doing this podcast with old friends like Robbo, Loz and Tash as well as making new ones along the way.

I regret losing touch with him.

He wasn’t particularly into technology and had no social media presence that I was ever aware of so I dedicate this report, and this tiny section of the Internet, to him.

(The Coming of) The Coming of the Terraphiles

FINALLY!

After all this dancing around the subject of Michael Moorcock writing for the iconic Doctor Who IP and talking Alien and Quatermass and Blake’s 7, Miles joins me in the Cloister Room as we just about get to The Coming of the Terraphiles…

Just about…

But with our tendency to go off on tangents AND 61 years of Doctor Who to consider perhaps it was inevitable that this would be a multi-part deal. Anyway, join us as we talk about Timelords, edgy 90s Who novels, 12p swiss rolls and much more besides… even a bit of Moorcock here and there.

My publicity shot for my ‘The Next Doctor Who’ pitch – who needs question marks when you can simply look mysterious/confused

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