Andy Darby is back in Derry and Toms to talk about his all-new novel, The Blade in the Angel's Shadow!

Enochian madness, brutal sieges, swordplay and the machinations of the Elizabethan court all combine to give our heroine a hard time, some gnarly powers and a profound ethical dilemma.

It's available from all good stockists now...

Andrew Nette returns to Derry and Toms as we continue to muse over some formative telly, novelisations and other stuff but on this occasion to talk about Nigel Kneale's enduring and iconic character Professor Bernard Quatermass (and a load of other digressions, naturally, including brief musings on a favourite mercenary war flick). We roam around the original Hammer films, the impact of Quatermass on the zeitgeist and, most specifically, the 1979 serial and its novelisation by Nigel Kneale himself.

HUFFITY-PUFFITY PUFF!!!

Check out Quatermass III on Bandcamp

In our continued deliberations about tackling Michael Moorcock's Doctor Who novel The Coming of the Terraphiles, several questions about the pitfalls of writing for established IPs have arisen, and a pressing one is:

What happens when Trumpton and British politics intrude upon the Alien universe?

We investigated so you don't have to, so join Miles Reid-Lobatto (writer and co-host of the Casual Trek Podcast) and SF Starship artist and designer Ian Stead AKA Biomassart as we look at what makes the Alien IP tick and how some recent books have tackled it. Mainly Alien: Colony War. But also Alien: The Cold Forge. Which we probably should have talked about more, because it's great.

You can read my 2012 feature on Alien 3 here (just don't start any more flame wars you Colonial Marines fans you).