We're joined once more by filmmakers Gregg Hale and Eduardo Sanchez, the brains behind The Blair Witch Project, V/H/S, Lovely Molly, and many more.

Gregg and Hale talk to us about their new podcast-based audio drama Black Velvet Fairies. It's a tour de force meta narrative that plays with the found footage medium that gave them their big break, but also features real-world interviews with paranormal experts, dissections of EVP phenomena, and a descent into family history that reveals dark creatures and ancient secrets waiting to be let into the light.

We also discuss where BVF sits in the wider dark fantasy universe they're creating, known as Emerald Anvil, set in the world of Hada. This is a multimedia beast, featuring novels, board games, podcasts, and online interactions. The world was born out of Gregg and Ed's passion for storytelling, but also their frustration at the Hollywood studio system, which is becoming more innovative in terms of visual effects, but also more risk-averse and conservative.

Lastly, we discuss the pair's plans for the 25th Anniversary of The Blair With Project, still one of the most innovative and disruptive horror films of all time, and which has spawned a lucrative franchise of its own.

You can listen to Black Velvet Fairies from all your favourite podcast provides, and if you want to support Ed and Gregg in the construction of their Emerald Anvil universe, you can do at https://emeraldanvil.com/

You might be forgiven for thinking that us saying we had two of the horror genre's most distinguished filmmakers on the show would be an April Fool's joke, but you should know by now we never, ever joke about our guests (except for RJ Barker, who will forever be known as the Goth King of Leeds). Today we're joined by Gregg Hale and Eduardo Sanchez, who burst onto the moviemaking scene in 1999 with one of the most audacious, innovative and greatest horror movies of all time, The Blair Witch Project.

Gregg and Ed have chosen to talk about one of their favourite movies, Jonathan Glazer's 2013 science-fiction horror sleeper Under The Skin. It stars Scarlett Johansson as a mysterious visitor to Earth who inhabits the body of a beautiful young woman, who then drives around Glasgow in a ratty old white van looking for young men to seduce and prey upon. The movie flopped upon release but quickly won a reputation for being one of the great arthouse science-fiction films of this century.

We discuss the difference between male and female predation (and the excessive/ monstrous versions of the male and female), chaos versus order, the strange similarities with Snow White, the black goo, and ask who exactly is the bloke on the motorcycle? Plus, Gregg and Ed give their admiration and opinions on how Glazer made such a great-looking film on a shoestring budget, something they know quite a bit about.

Elsewhere, Lieutenant Bungalow visits Earth to investigate ghosts. Or was it phantoms? Or was it John Jarrold? It's definitely something to do with spooky goings on in forests...

Join us next time for the second part to the interview, where we discuss Gregg and Ed's forthcoming epic multimedia fantasy project Emerald Anvil, consisting of a novel, an audio drama, a video game and even NFT artwork, and they'll be talking to us about their plans for the 25th Anniversary of The Blair Witch Project.

Find out more at https://emeraldanvil.com/

Christopher and Dan are joined by horror writer John Langan, whose great horror novel The Fisherman finally is out now in the UK, an inexplicable seven years after being first published in most other territories.

John talks to us about the health and wellbeing of Laird Barron, one of the other members of the modern horror brat pack, who suffered recent well-publicised ill-health.

We also talk about the methods and madness of writing short stories, touch upon a few of John's acclaimed short fiction, and the relationship between geography and horror.

Elsewhere Lieutenant Bungalow returns, enlightened, from a trip to Olympus Mons where he found the Salmon of Insight (insight, insight, insight). Captain Halfmikcarton, however, remains unconvinced.

Join us next month when we'll be joined by filmmakers Gregg Hale and Ed Sanchez, who'll be talking about Jonathan Glazer's masterful 2013 horror film Under The Skin, as well as their forthcoming project Black Velvet Fairies. They'll also be chatting to us about the 25th anniversary of one of the greatest and most original horror films of all time, The Blair Witch Project.

Image credit: Andyp89 of deviantart.

Ahoy ahoy! When the Beanstalker and I were drawing up our wish list for guests on the podcast, there was one name that @Phyrebrat was adamant that we try and get. That was the American author John Langan, who joins us for this episode. John is one of the masters of modern horror and whose seminal book The Fisherman, an exploration of guilt, diaspora history, and weird cosmic horror, won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award.

So we finally got hold of John and he joins us this month to celebrate the UK launch of The Fisherman (a full 7 years after its original publication!), and we talk all things horror. We discuss the book, of course, and the trends in horror, both modern and throughout the ages. We touch on Lovecraft, King, and some of the other heavyweights of the genre, but also the modern writers who form the "Brat Pack" of contemporary horror such as Paul Tremblay, Laird Barron, and our Chronscast friend Alison Littlewood.

John's a big-hearted bear of a man with a huge, barrelsome laugh, and he was great fun to talk with - we hope you enjoy the episode!

This episode features the first half of our talk with John, with the second half to follow in a couple of weeks.

Elsewhere, @The Judge casts her line far and wide and reels in a juicy talk about fish and fishing, and your perpetually inept hosts of Mars Radio 14 discover that the core essence of reality itself is magic. Or logic. Or a really big fish.

Index:

[0:00:00 - 1:05:51] - John Langan interview

[1:05:52 - 1:10:52] - Skit

[1:10:53 - 1:31:06] - The Judge's Corner

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Peat and Dan are joined by Anne Perry, publishing director at Jo Fletcher Books. Anne talks  with us about the state of the publishing market in 2023, and what authors ought to consider when positioning their book in the market. 

We talk about the rising prices of books, the price differential between different regions, subscription-based business models, printing-on-demand, and how the high street retail mode, has changed in the face of internet growth.

Elsewhere, Lieutenant returns from the Corridors of Time (time, time, time etc) and brings back disturbing news about the future of humanity. 

Thinking of setting up your own podcast? Use our special link https://zen.ai/7rS13A_Wf6fgo3aS8_WrKw to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.

We're back after the summer break, and are joined by Anne Perry, the publishing director at Jo Fletcher Books, to talk about Naomi Novik's 2015 fantasy bestseller, Uprooted. Based upon aspects of rural Polish folklore, Uprooted follows Agnieszka, a plain village girl who is shocked to learn that she is to be taken away to live with The Dragon, a powerful and distant wizard who lives in a tower at the edge of the valley, and protects them from a malevolent and expanding forest.   

Anne, Peat and Dan discuss the feminine voice and perspectives the book offers, from friendship to romance, and why this was unusual when it was initially sold in 2014. We talk about the malevolent Wood, its echoing of Mythago Wood, and how it spawned an era of new, female oriented fantasy. We also discuss the various aspects of the male characters, and how outward hostility can hide redemptive transformation, when the female enters into their domain in the correct way.

The Judge offers a brilliant talk on a topic very relevant to writers of all stripes, namely the issue of copyright of characters, showing cases as diverse as Sherlock Holmes, Only Fools And Horses, Discworld, and Spawn.

Lastly, Captain Halfmilkcarton insists that Lt Bungalow clean up his mess, without much success.

Join us next time when we'll continue our talk with Anne Perry, talking about the state of publishing in 2023, how this affects authors, booksellers, bookshops, and the pros and cons and indie and self-publishing.

Index

Anne Perry Interview [0:00:00 - 55:37]
Skit (55:45 - 58:37]
The Judge's Corner [58:38 - 1:14:36]
Credits and close [1:14:37 - 1:15:12]

So! After a few technical hitches and delays our bumper new episode is finally up. The Big Peat and I are joined by the award-winning fantasy author RJ Barker, whose novel The Bone Ships won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2020. Together we rabbit on about Richard Adams's 1978 classic piece of children's fantasy literature, Watership Down.

Watership Down follows a group of rabbits who, led by the reluctant but resourceful leader Hazel, leave the safety of their warren after Hazel's younger brother Fiver, has a Cassandra-like premonition of a catastrophe befalling their home. So, joined by the doughty enforcer Bigwig, who loves nothing more than a scrap, the storyteller Dandelion, the quick-witted Blackberry, and a ragtag bunch of others, they embark on an odyssey to find a new home. A few square miles of west Oxfordshire countryside becomes the canvas for an epic tale of adventure in which the rabbits encounter danger, despair, tragedy, unexpected friendships, tyranny, war, and peace.

With RJ we talk about the strange worldbuilding of the book, including rabbit language and mythology, the English countryside setting, and the various forms of social order presented by the different warrens found in the book. Elsewhere we talk about RJ's forthcoming book Gods of The Wyrdwood, his heavy metal roots, and his route into publishing. Along the way we discuss chimps, muppets, Goth make up, and how the film Excalibur saved RJ's life in Leeds.

The Judge gives us a follow-up to her talk on trial by combat with another, broader talk about early criminal trials, including trials by ordeal, and how this may be used in our writing and worldbuilding, and we hear the winning 75-word entry from April by emrosenagel.

Lastly, our roving reporters from Mars FM give us an interview with a chap who claims to have visited Venus and seen the most incredible creatures, who bear an uncanny similarity to something else encountered in this episode. Enjoy!

Next month

In July we'll be joined by Anne Perry, Director of Publishing at Quercus Books, a subsidiary of Hodder & Stoughton. Anne will be talking with us about Naomi Novik's beautiful and multi-award-winning 2015 novel Uprooted.

Index

[00:00 - 54:04] - RJ Barker Interview pt 1

[54:05 - 57:03] - skit 1

[57:04 - 1:17:04] - The Judge's Corner

[1:17:05 - 1:17:55] - Challenge winner

[1:17:57 - 1:21:53] - skit 2

[1:21:54 - 2:16:15] RJ Interview part 2

[2:16:16 - 2:17:54] credits and close

It's Coronation Day! Well, not quite. But in the UK we are steadily approaching the moment when the king, Charles III, formally takes the Oath and is crowned. 

This month we're tackling Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan, the first book in the seminal Gormenghast series. Titus follows the birth of the titular character and the first eighteen months of his life, which culminates in a very strange, ersatz coronation of its own. Joining Pete and me as we clamber across the rooftops and sneak through the dungeons of Gormenghast is the author Toby Frost, best known for his the Space Captain Smith novels, Dark Renaissance fantasy series, and Straken from the Warhammer 40K universe.

We consider the sprawling castle-state of Gormenghast and it means when the old and new clash head-on, and specifically what it means when the ossified state, for so long indulged in its own wilful blindness and ritualised behaviour, comes into contact with the shock of the new, especially when the "new" - in this case, the kitchen boy Steerpike) is violent, psychopathic, and ruthless. We consider the utterly bizarre and grotesque cast of characters, from the wilfully blind, Prospero-like Earl Sepulchrave, who ostensibly rules the castle, to the ensemble of witless, violent, and occasionally noble people who live beneath his crumbling sovereignty. And we consider Titus himself, a marginalised titular character if ever there was one, who only appears as a baby, and yet whose coronation the book slowly builds to.

Elsewhere, The Judge considers the coronation as a way of revivifying the state, just as we mentioned when discussing Excalibur last month). She considers the Crown Jewels, the Coronation Oath, and how the relationship between the Crown and its subjects has changed over the centuries. To see how a real monarchy like the House of Windsor can stop itself from becoming a fossilised version of itself a la Gormenghast, The Judge shows how the coronation is a living, shifting thing, where rituals, symbols and laws either change or stay the same to maintain a crucial balance between antiquity and modernity.

Though Bean is away this month he's still here in spirit as he won the 75 word challenge this March with his entry The Death Of Ageing, and The Martian Space Force find unexpected kindred spirits in the crazy, smelly, stupid inhabitants of Gormenghast.

Next month

Next month we'll be joined by the winner of the British Fantasy Award and one of the brightest lights of modern fantasy, the author RJ Barker, who will be talking with us about one of his greatest loves, Richard Adams's Watership Down.

Index

[0:00:00 - 56:42] Interview Part 1

[0:56:43 - 0:59:59] Skit

[1:00:00 - 1:15:05] The Judge's Corner

[1:15:06 - 1:16:21] Challenge Winner

[1:16:22 - 1:55:25] Interview Part 2

[1:55:26 - 2:00:40] Credits and close