Miles beams back into Derry & Toms from the Casual Trek transporter room so we can talk about Mike and James Cawthorn’s (under pseudonym Philip James) 1969 JINO* tale, The Distant Suns.
First serialised in The Illustrated Weekly of India in 1969 and later published by Unicorn SF and NEL in the 70s, it’s a rollicking space adventure tale, so, obviously, we talk about The Black Hole, Psycho, the villainous filmic appearances of The Master actor Anthony Ainley, the perils of The Warp, if Udo Kier had starred in Possession, and more.
Interesting factoid… according to John Davey’s excellent Moorcography.org , the first US edition was in 2010 and states that it is ‘an Eternal Champion Novel.’
We’re not convinced by that, but eh… whatever sells it, I suppose. I didn’t get round to checking later publications in collections, for example, the MillenniumSailing To Utopia omnibus (which was also badged as an Eternal Champion volume, to be fair) in 1993. Did Mike change anything to make that more explicit, I wonder? I don’t think he did, but I could be wrong.
Answers on a postcard.
You can find more Miles on the Casual Trek Podcast.
The David Britton 1979 interview of James Cawthorn is here, and you can grab James Cawthorn: The Man And His Art and Stormbringer Sessions: Sketches For A Graphic Novelfrom John Davey’s Jayde Design. We really should do a full episode on these at some point in the future.
*Jerry in Name Only
Breakfast in the Ruins Podcast 