We’re into September and ten days from the autumn equinox, so technically it’s still summer. You wouldn’t believe it from the thermometer though. It’s a balmy eight degrees C this morning in the hills of Bradford. Brrrrrr.
So we need activity to keep us warm and as you may have seen, we fired out a quick follow-up to our Conan episode with a chat with Clarky about some Conan knock-offs from the 1960s.
Our choices were largely driven by what we had kicking about. In fact, I’ve had some of these kicking around for decades, too many Howard and ERB patches to count. I did struggle with Thongor though and I’ve got loads of them and other Lin Carters too like the whole Jandar of Callisto line (but they do have amazing Pennington covers so there is that).
We will get to Sword and Planet again at some point. We’ve done Gor and Dannus, so it’s high time we actually looked at some GOOD planetary romance fiction. We came close to covering the first of Moorcock’s Kane of Old Mars books probably three years ago, but I had two separate copies of the first one fall to bits on me, so it went on the back burner. I also had a show scheduled with Anthony Perconti and Matthew X Gomez, a couple of the authors/editors of anthology mag Broadswords and Blasters, but scheduling issues (all mine) got in the way. Hopefully we’ll get that back in diaries soon.
Now that Brak and Thongor are struck off the list, I have a couple of spares that will be winging their way to Patron Demons too. HUZZAH!
Coming up next, Graham will be back as we head into the spooky season with some sort of tonally all over the place eco-horror thriller fantasy mash-up that may have sent us down a new author rabbit-hole too. That will be coming up around the end of the month.
And then, speaking of scary-time, the Halloween Poll indicated a clear winner (58% of the vote) for our traditional Halloween Special. And it’s Guy N Smith again, but no crabs on this occasion… oh no… this time it’s the first of his ex-SAS killer turned priest quadrilogy. We’ll be covering SABAT: The Graveyard Vultures.
We’ll get back to some Moorcock soon too, with plans for Corum, Hawkmoon and Elric catch-ups in prep… and Saga Press release the all-new Von Bek volume in a month or three so watch that space…
In other news, Jim Jupp’s Ghostbox Records is about to release the new cut from ethereal dark-folk electronica geniuses Beautify Junkyards – NOVA. Jim sent me a copy of the CD for an advanced listen and I’ve already pre-ordered the vinyl. As we would have said back in the day, it’s mint.
That’s about it for today’s update. Phil and I are headed on our jollies in the next few days where we will combine a trip to the coast with a sojourn across the North Sea to attend the 80th Commemoration of the Battle of Arnhem with my old fella. Dad isn’t an Arnhem vet of course, but he has been a member of the Parachute Regimental Association for over 50 years and this will be the first time he’s attended without my dear old mam, so it will be a beer-soaked and emotional occasion, but also pretty fucking cool. Expect holiday snaps in the next report.
Take care folks and see you out there… on the moonbeam roads.
Dad (middle) and chums Pete (left) and Brian (right – RIP) somewhere in West Germany in the late 60s.
Breakfast in the Ruins Podcast 