Another year, another Birthday Special… our sixth!
It’s Mike’s birthday… it’s Phil’s birthday… it’s the podcast’s official state birthday… so what better than a silly, hastily assembled drunken quiz?
A chance for Loz to close the gap on Phil’s epic quiz streak as well as to introduce a wild card in the shape of a third contestant!
OK, fine. This wasn’t the actual intent, but best laid plans and all that. Also, Simon Perrins drops in to elaborate on his frankly incontestable assertion regarding a British cultural icon and their place in the Multiverse.
Simon is also responsible for the magnificent art for this episode, which is a pretty big clue if you’re British and over a certain age.
MOOOOR COCK-COCK-COCK refrain is from The Dewey Decibel System by BlöödHag
BEHOLD… The Carousel of Doom… or joy (luck dependent)
Miles is back in Derry & Toms as we tackle another 60s Moorcock classic… The Ice Schooner. Lots to talk about here, and some pearls to clutch too, as we visit one of Mike’s sweatiest rime-encrusted tales that, one way or another, remind us of our hometowns.
And we talk about Doctor Who and Star Trek a bit too.
As voted for by our dear patrons, the subject for this year’s Halloween Special is SLUGS!
Shaun Hutson’s breakthrough best seller has been on the poll list for three or four years, but 2025 was its year. So, join Graham, Phil and me as we evaluate Shaun Hutson’s entry into that classic and most pulpy of British horror traditions, the Killer Critter novel. Also, we mull over whether four clefts are just too many, and get disappointed by our initially impressive socialist hero’s basic levels of competence.
Author and game designer Tone Milazzo joins me in Derry & Toms as we look at another work by the late, great Robert Sheckley, his first novel Immortality Inc.
Last time we talked about Sheckley with Derek, I had the distinct sense that we would be going back for more… and this turned out to be an apt choice, with this podcast being released during October, because it’s a Halloween episode by stealth!
Tone’s website is tonemilazzo.com and you can find out more there about his novels, Picking Up the Ghost and The Faith Machine, and his RPG The King in Giallo.
Bryan Talbot returns to Derry and Toms to talk to about Alice in Sunderland, Grandville and his upcoming release, The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor – and we get a special guest appearance from Dr Mary Talbot too!
Also, James Robertson calls in to talk about his two decades and more working on Bryan’s website, being green in an increasingly grey world and all sorts of other stuff along the way.
My co-host for this ep was Tom Murphy, and thank goodness for Tom as all of my technology had half a foot in Earth 749.
Simon is back to finish our look at the final instalment in the first Corum trilogy… The King of the Swords… and, as it runs ramraid style into the conclusion of The Vanishing Tower, we roped in Miles too, because he’d only recently read it!
This is another pivotal book in Moorcock’s oeuvre, and for this podcast, because it means that the second sequence of eternal champeen books we’ve managed to complete in the last six years. Yes… This pod has been going for six years.
Simon, as well as being behind lots of the visual stylings of Breakfast in the Ruins, is also the co-host of Can I Pod With Madness… and they have a Patreon Page!
THIS EPISODE: I’m joined in Derry & Toms by Powys Media’s Mateo Latosa and, via ringer (Phil), Patricia Sokol, to talk about Space 1999 and the 20-plus-year efforts of Powys Media to keep the show alive via novelisations and original stories.
I was very lucky to receive a copy of the incredible (and impressively girthed) Space 1999 Year One Omnibus c/o Mateo. A handful are still available, and you can grab a copy here.
JOIN US!!!
From the Powys website:
SPACE:1999 YEAR ONE is the long-awaited, licensed omnibus of the novelizations of all the episodes of the series’ first season episodes. Originally published as six separate volumes by authors E.C. Tubb, John Rankine and Brian Ball, this omnibus contains all the episodes that appeared in those original books but also contains a new novelization of the episode Earthbound (formerly not included in the individual novelizations), written by Patricia Sokol. There are also new novelizations of the episodes Force of Life and End of Eternity written by William Latham. Finally, a previously unpublished twenty-fifth episode, called Operation Deliverance, written by Rupert Booth, has been added.
All the episode novelizations have been revised for continuity with each other and with the rest of the “Powysverse” novels and short stories. The idea, from the beginning, has been to create an interconnected, internally consistent, literary epic tale of the Alphans’ odyssey.
The editing team spent, literally, years working on this omnibus and are proud to finally publish it as the definitive chronicle of Moonbase Alpha for the enjoyment of the series’ fans.
This omnibus, the companion to Powys Media’s earlier work, SPACE:1999 YEAR TWO by Michael Butterworth, is bound in a black vinyl cover with embossed gold lettering. It features forewords by all three of the original novelizations’ authors, a publishing history, and a detailed note from editors about the thoughts and methodology behind the editing process.
John is back in Derry & Toms to talk about another novelisation, but we’re taking a break from Blakes 7 to focus on another early 80s obsession of ours…
Well. Two. They just happen to combine to glorious effect in the classic slice of Daily Mail wet dreamery that is Who Dares Wins. Therefore, we get to watch it again for the 8,000th time and discuss it alongside its novelisation, The Tiptoe Boys, by James Follett.
Uuuuuurgh….
Some other bits that pop up along the way include:
Listeners may remember that, a couple of years ago, I was extremely lucky to be able to chat with the son of the late and legendary artist Bob Haberfield. Ben was a great guest and it was slightly surreal for me to have the opportunity to talk to someone so close to the man whose imagery, quite frankly, blew my fucking mind as a kid.
There are plenty of book and album covers that I pored over as a lad, but a handful of paperbacks published by Mayflower in the late 60s and early 70s struck such a chord with me that I can visualise them in almost their entire detail 40 plus years later. That may be bollocks of course, as I was only yesterday admiring my framed print of the cover art to The Knight of the Swords that hangs on our kitchen and I spotted yet new details that I’d never observed before.
Nevertheless, they are imprinted upon my psyche in the way that very few other pieces of art are.
Imagine my delight then, when a package arrived this week care of John Davey at Jayde Design – a most wonderful delivery. The marvellous two-book slipcase set of Bob Haberfield: The Man and His Art. It only seems yesterday when Dave and I talked to Ben and he trailed this upcoming project – a celebration of Bob’s life, legacy and incredible, unforgettable work.
Here is the press blurb:
“There were few endeavours – as readers will discover in these volumes – to which Bob Haberfield could not turn his creative hand.
An extremely accomplished musician and singer, he rejected the lure of a career on stage in favour of more solitary pursuits as an artist. He went on to make a reasonable living in that field, and remains best known for his often astonishing book-cover artworks, particularly those painted for titles by fantasy and science fiction author Michael Moorcock.
In time, however, he would struggle to reconcile his limitless artistic ambitions with the constraints of work-for-hire, no matter how extraordinary and wide-ranging the results. Other demons, too, would affect both his output and his relationship to it, added to which his strongly held Buddhist beliefs felt at odds with a monetary wealth that he neither sought nor wanted.
So there are two discrete elements to Bob Haberfield: the man, and his art. Even that separation is by no means clear-cut, but it does allow for a logical distinction between these two complementary volumes.
To quote Ben Haberfield, Bob’s son, Volume I: The Man focuses almost exclusively on “a catalogue of his drawings and paintings … These images are an expression of who he truly was. This is his legacy. The catalogue he made is his own selection of those images and this book is that selection”.
Volume II: His Art features painstakingly curated — deemed the best — examples of Bob Haberfield’s many book & magazine covers and record sleeves, as well as other artworks created across a staggering range of subjects and media.
Each volume also includes a number of essays by family, friends, peers and admirers of Bob Haberfield… both the man and his art. “
I’m extraordinarily grateful to John for sending this over, because it really is a beauty. You may have come across Jayde Design’s James Cawthorn books in the past (and if you haven’t, get them), and this is another great example of John’s dedication not only to his subject matter, but to ensuring it is presented in the best way possible. Fortunately, as we heard from Ben, most of the original pieces are in his possession so the scans and the heavy gloss paper stock (is that even the right terminology? I HAVE NO IDEA) make sure that these glorious pieces can be fully appreciated in the two outsized paperbacks.
It’s not just the art that is remarkable here though, it’s also the glimpse of Bob as a bloke, a person for whom talent was no protection from self-doubt and personal demons. Mike’s contribution in volume two is revealing in terms of how Bob was an enigma in many ways to even the people whose work he would elevate and propel forth from book shelves into the hands of a hypnotised and often bewildered readership. I was one of those readers, although in my case the vivid, psychedelic art was projecting itself into my cortex from Pops’s coffee table initially, then much later from the packed shelves of Crystal Books on Spring Bank and still, to this day, second hand book shops up and down the country.
For all fans of Bob, and any fan of genre paperbacks and the people behind them, this is essential. Not only a gorgeous pair of coffee table tomes, but an insight into the life of one of the greatest to ever do it. A wider look at the bewildering scope and range of his massively prodigious output, an examination of the melancholia of choices and change, and a reflection on how we all negotiate pathways, faith, illusion and reconciliation.
For more on Bob follow @bobhaberfield.art on Instagram.
The art included was compiled by Ben, with additions by John Davey and John Guy Collick, and it will be available to buy from 28th July via the Bob Haberfield Web Shop.
Pre-orders are available direct from Jayde Design at jaydedesign.com
Mid-July has been and gone and we’re headed to the latter part of the summer already. Where does it all go?
The last pod was Phil’s Choice, a wee diversion once again from the Moorcock, but we’ve had some really nice feedback, particularly from Glenn, Steve and Clarky.
Glenn reminded us of the value of conversation and comradely diversion when things are tough…
Steve picked up some spooky inspiration for his gaming output…
And Clarky prompted us to get on and watch William Girdler’s Day of the Animals, the film he directed in between Grizzly and The Manitou… and it is simply an incredible piece of 70s eco-horror/disaster fiction that happens to include a shirtless, raving Leslie Nielson going full-foaming psychotic Alpha and wrestling a bear. Because of the ozone layer!
Incredible.
Thanks chaps.
I had a wee side conversation with Steve too, about talking Corum and Hawkmoon from a gaming persepctive. After all, it has been a while since our last RPG-centric episode. A couple of days later, I was reading 80s Stormbringer adventure The Octagon of Chaos on the bog and I instantly had opinions. It occcured to me that there is a lot of MM-themed gaming output out there that we could cover in a similar way to how we do our re-read podcasts. Simply delve into a specific publication and yak about it. I threw that idea out on the Discord and a couple of folks said that would be of interest. Jim pointed out that some of them are quite hard to get now, so hearing more about them via the pod would be appealing.
So I think we’ll do just that. I have just about all (if not all) of the Chaosium products, including the D20 version, plus the Mongoose releases and the aforementioned supplement by Theatre of the Mind Enterprises, so that should provide plenty of fodder. I will, of course, be looking for co-hosts for some of these – folks that have the publications in question to hand. Steve will be one, our old mucker Dave Dempster is running Moorcockian games currently, as is his wont, so I’ll see if he’s interested in a comeback. There will be others over time and as the Moonbeam Roads converge.
More on that soon.
As we’ll be in August in a couple of months, the Halloween poll will be landing too, so look out for that.
Otherwise, it’s been a strange week.
After only being in the pub with him for my birthday just a couple of weeks ago, STIMBOTCLASSIC is up against the forces of entropy once more. As a result, we’ve had to bump our recording of Phoenix in Obsidian back a week, but we will get there. There may be a wee delay in the next pod upload as a result though. We’d got pretty close recently to one release per fortnight for a sustained period, but that may slip slightly for a while. We’ll see how things progress.
I’m typing this out on a Sunday morning before we leave our hotel. An old favourite. It’s a 7 out of 10 at best but there’s always been something about it I’ve liked, tired as it is. It’s the impression it gives of once having been some kind of old 1960s or 70s institute out of a Christopher Priest novel. It has a vibe.
Breakfast in the Ruins Podcast 