Clarky the Cruel returns to Derry and Toms to revive the One-Shit Book format (books that could potentially be read on one visit to the throne) as we look at SNOWCASTLES by Duncan McGeary.
We consider wizard contracting standards, when barbarians aren’t barbarians and just what the hell is under Greylock’s fur…? We don’t read the sequel but we do wonder why those people look like they’re out of a 1970s public information film for children.
Check out Clarky’s blog for updates on his various gaming and reading activities, as well as an end-of-year review and his plans for 2024. Visit the Duncan McGeary webpage for details of his more recent novels and short stories and his author’s blog.
In this Birthday Special double-bill of salutations, Joe Monti (editorial Director at SAGA Press) drops by D&Ts to engage in day-drinking, Moorcock talk and chew the fat about editing amazing fantasy and various other bits n’ bobs. Also, Joe gets Crabs.
Then Phil and Loz join me for a serious* roundtable. Whilst we drink mucky booze and engage in a hastily and lazily bashed together but closely contested Moorcock-related quiz, Phil disses my gourd, Loz dumps on steampunk and a particularly challenging beer punches us in the temple (thanks Ash).
Simon Perrins (artist, graphic designer and co-host of Can I Pod With Madness) returns to D&Ts so we can finally conclude our re-read of the second Corum adventure, The Queen of the Swords.
Between wading gods, crackles from beyond the veil and other interventions from the old gods of chaos, we managed to get through books two and three of this adventure intact. So join us for small talk about Moorcock, fighting fantasy books, Loz’s Lovecraft formula and our favourite close-harmony choir of chaos oddballs…
The artist whose name we couldn’t remember, responsible for the Berkley edition covers as above, is David McCall Johnston.
Simon is, of course, the geezer behind the visual identity of BITR too. Find him on Instagram and check out his store.
Also, have a look at Karmanal of Zert by Blaze Atoms – Here’s some info from their bandcamp page (sadly I can’t find any evidence of their “Swords & Space Wizards” demo – if you know of it… LET ME KNOW):
“This is an instrumental, almost completely mixed preview of the version of “Karmanal of Zert” that will appear on the upcoming “Swords & Space Wizards” demo in early May 2016. This recording is completely unadvertised and uploaded solely so Michael Moorcock himself can hear it. So if you found it, good job. 🙂
lyrics
all music conceived, composed and arranged by Aaron DiDonato
all guitar, bass, and drums performed and recorded by Aaron DiDonato
lyrics (when vocals are added) adapted from the chapter “The Frozen Army” in the book “The Queen of the Swords” by Michael Moorcock (1971)
Looming in the distance Over the valley now, come the hopping things Bouncing, several-legged creatures Multiversal nomads, indestructible beings
Knowing not of mortality Pledging no allegiance to Law or Chaos Knowing not true existence Having no souls
The Karmanal of Zert are coming The Karmanal of Zert, yeah, are coming for you The Karmanal of Zert are coming
Here they come – look up and see
They lope down the slopes of the hills Seeking the Champion Eternal they’ve been sent to kill – to kill Altering the fates of untold civilizations On untold planes of existence – parallel dimensions of the Earth
Massive fangs clash, huge eyes roll Many tentacles lash, fighting for Cosmic control Doing the bidding of the Chaos Lords While in another time and plane they are fighting for Law
Fighting for no purpose, no sought-after end Fighting indifferent to consequence
The Karmanal of Zert always sing before they feast – always The Karmanal of Zert always sing before they feast – hear them sing
Maim Slay Feast
The Queen of the Chaos Swords’ laughter fills the sky
Maim Slay Feast
The Queen of the Chaos Swords’ laughter fills the sky As the Eternal Champion prepares to die
Prepare to die
Hear the Karmanal of Zert sing Hear them, hear them (repeat)
Holy moly, November is almost out of time and we still have so much to do this year!
Unfortunately, we won’t get it all done, but I do want to pass my thanks to two chaps who have been incredibly patient and understanding with delays and rescheduling. First, Simon Perrins. You’ll all know Simon from our episodes talking about comics and art and Queen of the Swords Part One. And he’s behind the visual identity of the podcast, the Gerard Arthur Connelly portraits that grace the Journal and he’s co-host of Can I Pod With Madness too. If you haven’t checked that out do so. It’s a hoot and a blast from the past for metal fans. We’ve had to reschedule QOTS 2 no less than five times in the past couple of months or more, but we have a new date and we will get it done.
And my thanks to Liam Jones for his patience around the scheduling SNAFUs related to our discussion about Before Armageddon, the Moorcock-edited volume of Victorian and Edwardian disaster/invasion stories. Hopefully, we’ll get that pencilled in for the new year. In a Birthday/Xmas episode update, Loz hopped over last weekend so we drank some terrible beers (and one or two nice ones) and we tackled a very lazy but amusing – to us at least – concept I half-baked last week. It’s a follow-up of sorts to the patron-exclusive episode we did a while back – Breakfast in the Ruins Gets Pissed at Derry & Toms Gentleman’s Club on Ladies Night (between 5 and 7 every seventh Saturday) – if you’re not a patron and you’re reading this you can only imagine the depths we can plumb to create content when we haven’t done our homework.
Keen listeners might remember that ahead of that Loz and I had selected a couple of short stories from the White Wolf Eternal Champion omnibus. In all honesty, the stories we randomly selected turned out to be a bit unremarkable and therefore hard to talk about. We may revisit that, and the companion Elric volume Tales of the White Wolf, at some point down the line. But given that we have a sizeable catalogue of New Worlds stories to delve into… maybe not.
ONLY TIME WILL TELL!
In other news, the November issue of Jim Kirkland’s excellent Pursuit of the Pale Prince newsletter landed in my inbox with a variety of updates on stuff of interest to Moorcock fans. If you’re not receiving it already, subscribe by dropping Jim a line at dcbooks@aol.com. One of the releases mentioned in there is Cirith Ungol’s latest release, Dark Parade. My copy arrived last week and, as I went for the special release, it’s a gorgeous affair that includes the gatefold double LP, a booklet, two posters, a Michael Whelan art print, a slip case and… a Cirith Ungol tote bag! I never knew how much I needed a Cirith Ungol tote bag until now…
To the best of my knowledge, the current Cirith Ungol tour may be their last (at least as far as Europe is concerned) so if you want to see them live, now may be your final chance. At some point, I must remember to drag out my Frost and Fire 40th Anniversary Box Set for a spin. And get the Michael Whelan Stormbringer poster framed too.
Maybe I should see if I can get them to drop by Derry & Toms too…
Also mentioned in Jim’s newsletter is the imminent release of issues one and two of New Edge Sword & Sorcery and we talked about that with Oliver Brackenbury a while back. Looking forward to that and the new MM Elric tale included in issue one. If you haven’t got on board with that follow them and check out their webpage although it doesn’t make it entirely apparent how to get a hold of it. That said, issue zero is still available via Amazon so I assume they will be too eventually. If you want to check New Edge out, you can grab a PDF of Issue Zero for free.
Power up your voxcaster, recite a litany of protection and light a lho stick as beer lover, wargamer and death metal LEGEND Karl Willetts braves the Immaterium to warp over to Derry and Toms and discuss Memoriam, becoming the vocalist in Bolt Thrower, Warhammer and his three rules of beer…
Memoriam’s latest release is Rise to Power and it and their back catalogue is available at all good stockists.
I also wistfully recall my first exposure to Bolt Thrower with the epic and massive game changer for British metal… Realm of Chaos
These past few days we took in our just about annual Thought Bubble weekend so we’ve been in Harrogate spending far too much money on comics, art, games and zines. It was a good time to do it too as it was a perfect distraction from the news.
There have been a number of times over the years when I’ve taken to shutting myself off from the news and social media for various reasons, but this past weekend was a perfect example of the insidious madness surrounding us at the moment. Twitter was a conflagration of flame wars consisting of competing videos of red-faced nazi dick heads in Victoria station harassing people of colour vs videos of women in McDonalds shouting ‘death to all Jews’. Meanwhile, a still of a right-wing counter-protest showed Israel flags being held high amongst ranks of bald pillocks throwing nazi salutes. When irony is this dead surely it’s the end times on fast forward.
I’d have gone and bought some napalm, but it was Sunday.
All the shops were shut.
In these circumstances, we could only power on and drink Black Tower spritzers (a proper end-of-world beverage if I’ve ever found one).
Fast forward a bit, it’s now Wednesday, we’ve just about recovered from our extended Black Tower Bender (although other beverages were consumed) and the news cycle has moved on. I won’t bang on about the current state of the UK’s zombie government other than to say it has now begun to eat its own tail in desperation. Truly we are living in a Realm of Chaos.
AND ON THAT LAZY SEGWAY…
I’ll be getting on to editing the latest show tonight, which will be out over the next day or two, and this was a fairly short notice affair consisting of a quick back and forth over the voxcaster with none other than Karl Willets, beer lover and legendary vocalist and front man of Bolt Thrower and Memoriam. This was pretty groovy for me as Bolt Thrower and their more short-lived contemporaries Sabbat were, to my ears, the saviours of British metal at the time they broke out. The Immaterium did present some comms challenges but I’ll be working through those this evening.
The rest of the itinerary remains semi-stable for the moment but of course, we’re heading into that busiest time of year in people’s calendars. Nevertheless, we have Corum, politics, Hawklords, Black Swords, very British Armageddons, birthdays and more to come.
Miles and Phil brave nuclear Armageddon, mutant rats, zoom meltdowns and horrific rabies treatment to join me in Derry & Toms and check out our patron-selected Halloween double-bill of James Herbert’s Domain and Bruno Mattei’s Rats: Night of Terror.
So paint your windows white, lock the dogs and cats outside, get safely ensconced in your inner sanctum and JOIN US!
In this, the second blow of that one-two punch of GNS brain matter, Graham and I welcome Tara Paulsson to Derry and Toms to talk about her Dad and his work.
Tara will be at Tamworth Castle’s Tales From the Darkside Week on Saturday 28th October and you can find details about ‘An Ode to Guy Newman Smith’s, 1970’s Pulp Fiction Horror’ and how to book at www.tamworthcastle.co.uk/darkside
Graham and Phil return to Derry & Toms to tackle our third adventure in the company of the mighty Professor Cliff Davenport in the first of a one-two punch of GNS-related early Halloween action.
Disturbing violence, saucy language and copious amounts of pus await the unwary traveller.
Breakfast in the Ruins 