fictoplasm

This Halloween episode covers Clive Barker’s first novel that followed on from his Books Of Blood. The Damnation Game is a story about Faustian bargains but more importantly the first of a series of Barker’s novels featuring magicians, a foretaste of books like The Great And Secret Show and Imajica that connects the splatterpunk with…Read more The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

A short episode about the horror in 2 different versions of small-town America: A Cosmology Of Monsters by Shaun Hamill, and Universal Harvester by John Darnielle. Also mentioned in the podcast are Monsterhearts and its Small Towns supplement. Music in this podcast is by Chris Zabriskie used under CC-BY-4.0. Also look for Chris Zabriskie on…Read more Short: A Cosmology Of Monsters and Universal Harvester

This long episode covers Dan Simmons’ The Terror, his 2007 fictionalisation of the disastrous 1845 Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage, in which the icebound sailors find themselves stalked by a terrible apparition. Call of Cthulhu, art and magic, morale, the hollow earth and arctic mysticism, and more. Book 00:26 // Synopsis 02:36 (in…Read more The Terror by Dan Simmons

This is the sixth and last episode in a short series about The Prisoner. This one’s about Andrew Pixley’s book /The Prisoner: A Complete Production Guide/ which was bundled into the 2007 remastered (and definitive?) version of the series by Network. Rather than an overview or episode guide it’s a contemporary production log and includes…Read more Prisoner 6: Andrew Pixley’s Production Guide

This is the fifth in a short series about The Prisoner, and this time it’s about Six of One and Max Hora’s contribution to the Prisoner shop in Portmeirion, and the two books (plus the map): The Prisoner Of Portmeirion and Village World. Music by Chris Zabriskie, used under Creative Commons Attribution License. Follow the…Read more Prisoner 5: Max Hora

Continuing the series of short episode on The Prisoner I’m going to draw your attention to Steven Paul Davies’ The Prisoner Handbook, an “Unauthorised Companion”. Music by Chris Zabriskie, used under Creative Commons Attribution License. Follow the link for more music on various platforms.

In the third episode I talk about GURPS: The Prisoner by David Ladyman, from 1990. Music by Chris Zabriskie, used under Creative Commons Attribution License. Follow the link for more music on various platforms.

Continuing the short series of Prisoner-related episodes, let’s discuss the 1988 DC comics series Shattered Visage. Music by Chris Zabriskie, used under Creative Commons Attribution License. Follow the link for more music on various platforms.

This is the first of a few short episodes on the ephemera surrounding The Prisoner. I’m pretty much starting at the end, with the 2009 6-episode miniseries that “reimagined” the Prisoner, with Jim Caviezel as 6, Sir Ian McKellen as 2, and also starring Ruth Wilson and Hayley Atwell (both of whom get a bad…Read more Prisoner 1: 2009 miniseries

This episode I cover Anna Kavan’s Ice, her last novel from 1967. A work of “slipstream fiction” with an unreliable narrator who pursues a woman over an hallucinatory landscape. I discuss the conventional and storygame opportunities, avatar-based gaming (via Dramasystem and Amazing Engine), and a nod to Wim Wenders’ Until The End Of The World.…Read more Ice by Anna Kavan