How? 

How is it 2023?

The year of…? Um. At this point I wanted to list some science fiction film or book from my youth set in an (at the time) impossibly far off future. I came up blank. I had seen a tweet last week that suggested Zardoz was set in 2023 but it was bollocks. I even did a wiki search but it came up with little of interest.

I did find a crappy clickbait article though (from whence I nicked the above image) that reckons deceased Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga predicted devastating solar storms and massive bioweapons disasters for this year so I dunno. I suppose I’d best keep a week ahead in supplies of dodgy porters in case of catastrophic supply chain failures. I might also watch the director’s cut of The Divide this afternoon for survival tips.

Anyway! 

Last year flew by and that old adage that time passes more quickly as you age seems to be fully checking out. 

The festive period here at Derry & Toms was quiet and drama free, a little boring frankly, but that’s all done and dusted. I will share a few bits and bobs we picked up along the way though.

First, I stopped by Les Edwards’s webstore and picked up a glorious limited signed print of his cover for The Devils of D-Day:

And he threw in a Conan freebie too:

Thanks to Phil for the assists there! Les’s website is a fantastic. I think I must have spent a couple of hours poring over his work. Check it out. As is my wont, I’ve now become a bit obsessed with his imagery and have partially disappeared down another rabbit hole.

Next, I picked up the special printing of The Citadel of Forgotten Myths from the fine folk over at The Broken Binding:

You can still grab a copy via their web store and it has reduced in price a bit in their January sale so go and have a look (I just grabbed a copy of their edition of Alan Moore’s Illuminations for a tenner). Top marks for them on their wrapping skills too.

In other news, on a particularly boring morning here at D&Ts I created a spreadsheet to track the podcast’s output and, with my extremely limited Excel skillz, I created a table to show progress to date in terms of what we’ve covered so far at our half-century. 

Stuff to note:

• For Moorcock characters Elric leads in terms of episodes worth of coverage, with Hawkmoon one step behind. If we consider just how much Elric material is out there that seems fine for now, but because the sheer weight of MM’s content in that department is comparatively vast we should probably up the rate of output in that corner of the multiverse
• I need to get back to Corum again – we’ve covered half of The History of the Runestaff already, but we’re only one instalment in with the Prince in the Scarlet Robe
• I REALLY need to pull my finger out and get to Warlord of the Air and Warhound and the World’s Pain
• There is a nice spread of other stuff going on with ventures into Moorcock-related discussions around music, comics and RPGs
• Approximately 20% of our output to date covers other authors entirely thanks to Halloween and Birthday Specials as well as other examinations (hashtag FUCKINGDANNUS).

Another area we are yet to explore in any detail, but touched upon in our conversation with Andrew Nette in our Dangerous Visions and New Worlds episode, is the contents of New Worlds anthologies and books championed by Moorcock in his editing days. In terms of the latter I’m definitely thinking of Norman Spinrad’s Bug Jack Barron but there are many others.

We also still owe a couple of you Nine Princes in Amber. Natasha bought  a copy in preparation. She’s moved down south damn her eyes, but we are determined to get a virtual date in ASAP.

On the more immediate itinerary though, we have:

• A follow-up to our Halloween episode on The Fog looking at the progression of James Herbert (via the lens of The Dark) in concert with other musings on the ‘Uncosy Catastrophes’ of Herbert and other British authors of the time
• Fortress of the Pearl Book Two with Loz
• A first look at the history of legendary publishers of genre fiction New English Library, starting with some gritty bikersploitation, with Andrew Nette
• The War of the Worlds with Allister Thompson
• The Sword of the Dawn Book One with Dave (AKA SÖNUS)
• The Final Programme Phase Four (The Last Days of Man on Earth) with Hussein

So that would appear to be enough to be going on with. There may also be a Part VI to the RPG musings at some point in the first half of the year but more on that later.

I’ll also be beavering away on vol III of the Journal with the intention of getting that out in the Spring.

But for now, take it easy pards! Ease yourself into this new year and I’ll see you out there… on the moonbeam roads.