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Breakfast in the Ruins: Daily Summaries Delivered
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Friends old and new join me in Derry and Toms roof gardens to discuss the work and influence of prolific British fantasist Michael Moorcock, as well as other bits of 60s and 70s genre fiction that came to me via my Grandad in the 80s and informed my world view. Books, music, role-playing games, wrestling in Featherstone Library and many other digressions await.
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- 2 days ago1h 42m
The Prisoner - Part One
John returns to Derry & Toms as, following a drunken afternoon in Rochdale, we decided to take a look at Thomas M Disch's The Prisoner, the first of three Ace tie-in novels commissioned in 1969. Disch was a New Worlds ace and a perfect fit for Patrick McGoohan’s world of surveillance, sinister bureaucracy, paranoia, slippery identities, and aggressive leisure. So what happens when one of science fiction’s sharpest minds takes a holiday in television’s most oppressive seaside resort? Straighten your blazer, slap on your most unconvincing smile and join us to find out. Be seeing you.
- 3 weeks ago1h 50m
The Distant Suns
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 sub-par 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 Millennium Sailing 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 Novel from John Davey’s Jayde Design. We really should do a full episode on these at some point in the future. *Jerry In Name Only
- Aug 21, 20262h 4m
The Space Guardians
Mateo Latosa returns to Derry & Toms to follow up on our episode on The Powysverse of Space 1999 by digging into one of the original 1970s novelisations, The Space Guardians by prolific British SF author (and early New Worlds contributor) Brian Ball. We take a look at the episodes it adapted, and the work Mateo and his colleagues undertook alongside Brian to revise it and bring it into line with their rationalised Space 1999 continuity. Existential horror! Moral conundrums!! Alan's hairy chest!!! LOVEJOY!!!! If you fancy testing your wrist power, you can still grab a copy of the Space 1999 Year One omnibus here.
- Aug 5, 20261h 24m
EVERDOOM (MM & RPGs Part XI)
When I’m exposed to a new game like EVERDOOM, whose author, Tremor Pings, states that it is written by Moorcock Fans for Moorcock Fans... then I have to investigate further, because we're always in pursuit of that core question... what makes a game Moorcockian, and it turns out that Tremor has a great angle on it. And a great game, to boot. Check out the Gamefound page for EVERDOOM and find Tremor's other games on his itch.io page.
- Jul 31, 20262h 11m
The Silver Key & The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Allister is back in Derry & Toms to take a look at some Lovecraft. My choice, The Silver Key, and his... The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The latter appears in Michael Moorcock and James Cawthorn's Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, and may be the fifth on that hefty list that we've managed to cover in the past 143 episodes of Breakfast in the Ruins. We might have to pick up the pace. Allister's latest release as The Gateless Gate is the album Once Beautiful. Grab it now.
- Jul 22, 20261h 44m
AGENT OF CHAOS
Phil is back in Derry & Toms, and we're looking at another IP Spin-off. On this occasion, though, the Moorcock content is significant. Critical, in fact! We're talking about Kami Garcia's The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos. But why is Moorcock so integral to an X-Files prequel novel about 17-year-old Fox Mulder and his small gang of crime-busting friends? LISTEN TO FIND OUT. We also touch on David Barnett's Scratch Moss, the wonders of Oranjeboom and more.
- Jul 13, 20261h 51m
Rolling in the Ruins Part Two - Last Rollers Standing
In June 2026 we hosted a couple of Moorcock-flavoured RPG days a fortnight apart here in Bradford. For more on how that came about, see part one. A lot of our fellow rollers made a weekend of it and stuck around on the Sunday mornings, allowing, for the first time, a more community-based podcast experience. So join me and Phil at The Ginger Goose as we tackle a lazily assembled quiz, trapped mugs, breakfast stout and a couple of balmy, hungover Sunday mornings with the help of the Last Rollers standing...
- Jun 27, 20261h 34m
Rolling in the Ruins - Part One (Build it and they will come?)
After thinking about it for six years, we finally did it. We hosted a couple of days of Moorcock-flavoured gaming here in the heart of Bradford. And it is done. Stick a fork in it. But Phil and I had lots of thoughts about it that we wanted to record and share. Thoughts that would have been locked in a vault, probably, had this all gone down like a shit balloon... Fortunately, though, it went down a treat! So, join us as we mull it all over and talk about RPGs and other stuff for a while. We'll be back in a few days with Part Two - Breakfast(s) with the Rollers
About Breakfast in the Ruins
Friends old and new join me in Derry and Toms roof gardens to discuss the work and influence of prolific British fantasist Michael Moorcock, as well as other bits of 60s and 70s genre fiction that came to me via my Grandad in the 80s and informed my world view. Books, music, role-playing games, wrestling in Featherstone Library and many other digressions await.
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