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New Rock New Role with Richard Sparks
64 Plays4 days ago
Following our last episode with Richard Sparks on The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, in which we must have mentioned The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy at least, ooh, I don't know, at least three times, and after which we lost radio contact with Brian Sexton after he was devoured by the Black Sinkhole of Sligo, we decided to plough on with the second half of the interview.
So, on a tight schedule (Richard had tickets for the opera, meladdo) we delved into his debut novel, New Rock, New Role, an epic fantasy derived from Richard's own love of gaming, It's a funny and touching tale of finding purpose, friendship and adventure later in life, when all the signs tell that life may have finished dishing out adventures.
This was pertinent to Richard as he wrote this novel, his first, in his seventies. So we talk about the convetions of gaming, the friendships you make, the conventions of fantasy and the comfort and community it brings.
Elsewhere, Captain Halfmilkcarton gets the shock of his life when he's joined by an unexpected but remarkably familiar guest...
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:14
Speaker
Hi folks, welcome back to Crohn's Cast, the fantasy science fiction and horror podcast. I'm joined once again by Richard Sparks, the comedy writer a writer who's a latterly turning to the fantasy fiction author. ah We were talking about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and all of the ah the the corn copier and the smorgasbord of ideas that were walking around in 1970s comedy scene in Britain in particular and all of the different things that emerged from that.
From TV Writing to Fantasy Fiction
00:00:42
Speaker
Richard's career went towards TV writing and editing scripts for various production houses in in the UK and in the USA.
00:00:50
Speaker
But in the last few years, he's turned made a bit of and another bit of a left field turn into fantasy fiction. And that's culminated in the publication of his debut novel, which is New Rock, New Role. And that's role spelled R-O-L-E for a very specific reason, which we'll come on to. And just ah remind me, who's the publisher of the book, Richard? KZIC, which is spelled C-A-E-Z-I-K-Z-I-K, ah which is an imprint of Arc Manor.
00:01:19
Speaker
a publisher out of Maryland in America, it's an American book, so you'll find American spellings in it, even though the voice of the narrator is very English, and it's set in a sort of quasi old Britain magical sort of sort of classic secondary medieval fantasy. Yeah, exactly. What I love working with the small press Well,
Collaborative Editing Process
00:01:42
Speaker
they are brilliant. First of all, they got me a great editor, Leslie Robin, who's an Australian lady, and she's absolutely sensational. I've done, as you know, a lot of script editing and editing myself, so I've been both sides of the table, and I love the process. Once you get the hang of the fact that you're all on the same side, editing is where you get the gold. Leslie's been
00:02:03
Speaker
ah just brilliant encouraging me you know this is a this you've got a real relationship between this character and this object more make more of it you know go further rather than just you know cutting stuff down and being efficient uh well that's that's one of the great things about working with a small press isn't it yeah yeah that richness of a relationship but with them there is and also it's important that kesec uh is the owner Shahid Mahmood is a businessman.
Publisher's Business Approach
00:02:29
Speaker
He's ex Wall Street guy. He used to run the city of San Diego's investment fund, $6 billion fund. Quit that to do what he loves, which is publishing. And he's very good at it. But he's, you know, a lot of small presses have trouble because they're run by enthusiasts and writers and, you know, people, literary people who are not particularly good businessmen. So it's a trade off in whoever you're with.
00:02:55
Speaker
I'm thrilled to be with them. ah They're very much backing the books, and the second one comes out in November. and It's just been an absolute blast. The idea fell out of the sky and hit me on the head almost five years ago when I started writing that day.
Gaming Influence on the Novel
00:03:10
Speaker
and haven't stopped yet because the the the book came about through through your love of MMORPGs. So massive multiplayer online role-playing games and that's where the R-O-L-E spelling becomes particularly pertinent for this book, isn't it? so so Well, tell us about your gaming first. So what games did you play? Because gaming is absolutely at the heart and soul of New Rock New Roll. And as a gamer myself, I loved the way that the world was structured and built and how the storyline was put together because it just hit all the right beats. But anyway, you tell me about your gaming background and where did that lead into New Rock New Roll?
00:03:51
Speaker
Oh, it's great to hear that you ah that you liked it, especially as a fellow gamer. um Well, I've played all sorts of games out of space. here think Do you remember that Mass Effect? Mass Effect 2 and 3 were brilliant and they ruined it with a terrible ending, but people do that with projects. um I particularly like the Sword and Sword 3 worlds, you know all the ones with initials like yeah ESO and w World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons. and um particularly the Elder Scrolls franchise. Elder Scrolls, yeah. Dragon Age and all of this. Loved. And but also played ones that you stuck in Yakuza, Japan, you know, things like that. And the thing about role playing games is when you discovered them, and by the way, Douglas was into gaming long before I was, um you're not just watching an actor representing you on a screen, you are the hero of your own story. As you know, you design your avatar to represent you to be how you want to be. And it may just be
00:04:48
Speaker
temporary, you you might want to be one character for a bit, but most of us have a main, we call them a main avatar. And I was just playing with people in my earphones, we were yeah they're doing a raid on another faction in a player versus player um battle zone. And I just suddenly, what would it really be like to be that guy, to be this heroic young battle mage with his magic staff and his skills?
00:05:14
Speaker
and his flowing blonde hair and his and is whatever he was writing. And I just thought, well, there's only one way to find out and that's to write it. Now, the the book is not, as you know, set in a game, but it's just inspired by my love of gaming and the setup is that three people win the game. Then they're off in the world. you know Yeah, it's it's not set in a particular gaming world. But the setup is very particular. And without we won't go we go into spoilers when we talk about our sort of text of the week, you know, like hitchhikers or whatever. But we don't give away spoilers to our guests work because obviously, right. So we won't talk about what happens further on. But the setup is is very much based in ah an avatar or a proxy of real world
Character and Narrative Exploration
00:06:04
Speaker
gaming. So the the the
00:06:06
Speaker
the narrator will call him Dax because the majority of the time we do see him as Dax. That's his avatar's name. Yes, that's his avatar's name, not his his real life name, his IRL name. We see the first chapter and the first chapter is very, very good. The first chapter I was I'm i'm listening to it on the audio book. And the first chapter I thought was great. I was grinning as I was listening to it because it it plunges the reader straight into that gaming world where
00:06:42
Speaker
We are listening to, ah well, we're reading about the three characters who are Dax, who's a battle mage, like you said, and he's ah he's got his magic staff called Shift. We'll meet a little bit later on. Krysta, who's a double sword wielding swords maiden. And we've got Grell, who's a big ugly orc who wields a war hammer.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, well, girls in Australia increased as an Asian American girl. So that's it. Yeah. And and DAX is ah what we what we think is ah ah British guy. He's a retired English schoolmaster. Retired teacher, that's right. And if you know Skyrim Granny on YouTube, she's got 1.3 million followers. She's 86, Shirley Curry, and people watch her play Skyrim. You said there are a lot of older gamers around because you can have adventures in your own sitting room when maybe you can't don't have the knees for adventures in real life anymore.
00:07:41
Speaker
So I thought it takes removing to have that as your main character. And I i mean, it's it's very it's kind of cliche to say so. But from my perspective, I thought, oh, I wonder how autobiographical semi autobiographical this character is as somebody who's taken this sort of like I said it before, it's like a left field turn, a new adventure at a later stage of life. And I felt i found it kind of moving actually, because it's ah it's it's kind of Abrahamic, you know, the call to adventure, even when you're late in life, and you don't particularly need to go off and have an adventure. The call is still strong, and the vocational element of it. Which you could do in games.
00:08:23
Speaker
You could do that in games. You could go off and have adventures from the comfort of your own living room. And I actually quote in the book right at the end, you may have noticed the quote was from a line from Tennyson's poem Ulysses, I am a part of all that I have met. And so this book is a part of all that I have seen and experienced, inspired by the world of computer games, but definitely there's a sense of, you know, someone being, when he discovers that he's young again, not just, he's in the world being chased by wolves and everything's getting terrible and he's got no clue how to wield a sword because he's never picked one up in real life. And everything, as you know, obviously just gets worse until it starts getting better. But he's young and fit again.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's that i thought i mean I thought that was quite symbolically powerful. You know, that it reminded me a little bit of Captain America. And Captain America is chosen because in originally in the comics he's weak and puny, but he's got a pure heart and that's why he's chosen. And it reminded
Game-Inspired Narrative Structure
00:09:24
Speaker
me a little bit of that because of the the the the purity of the character in in wanting to have that adventure and wanting to go out and bust some heads in the world. and you should slay the dragon and take the croc of gold. and It had that sort of purity about the character. Did that make sense? that Yes, but it's instantly, it's be careful what you wish for.
00:09:46
Speaker
I mean, they go from... yeah Yeah, absolutely. They win the world championship of sword and sorcery with 20, 30 million people watching worldwide. And the next thing he knows, he's standing on the hillside with crappy sword and shield, and he can hear wolves. how i did yeah You would, of course, be useless. and And of course, he immediately gets arrested. Gets captured, dragged off. And dragged off and sold as a slave.
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, and so I'm sort of following the pattern of gaming. What I love about any new game is the beginning, when you start out. And in any new game, what do you do? The first thing is you learn the controls, you learn where you are in the world. The second thing is training. So when he's sold into the army as as as a slave, as a recruit not as a slave, but as an indentured recruit. He doesn't have a choice about it. gang then he get Then he's trained up by the fearsome Sergeant sergeant Jack Plunt, known to one and all as Sergeant-at-Arms bastard, who's a wonderful character, I love him, who's just deadly with any weapon you can mention. and
00:10:47
Speaker
and so you say you spend a a chapter essentially grinding out levels training training training getting good and when they get good well then what's the next stage combat so they get marked off to what you know a first one he finds Grell again but where's k Christa she doesn't he doesn't know where she is obviously she turns up later but um you've got to keep your characters apart you can't have them all running around in a clump you know in book two they will go off in five different directions and then come back to complete the quest. so what you've always Were you always using ah video games so that the various games that we've spoken about we mentioned earlier are you always using the grammar and the the syntax of those games as a touchpoint for developing the story or is it just
00:11:33
Speaker
the initial framework, the initial structure, and then you thought, actually, I don't need this anymore. Once I've got them trained up enough to have their adventure, then it's open world time and I can just do what ah do what the hell I want. Exactly. Okay, yeah. you You don't need to be keep being reminded of the fact that it came out of a game. No, once they're off having adventures,
00:11:55
Speaker
that's it. you know you right You don't go back. ah we we the producer who I've written this film screenplay and the producer had someone else look at it, another ah writer for Second Opinion, and the writer said, well I think you should keep reminding people in the film that that they're in a game. And I said, you couldn't have read it more wrong. They're not, you don't go back, you don't wanna jerk people out of the film. So I don't, in the storytelling, I just want people, they just want, the story wants them to go on and have adventures. and yeah And so they do, you don't look back. There's very little looking back, but there is, as you've seen, an explanation why it all happened and the explanation continues and the in the following books and expands. um So it's not gratuitous.
00:12:37
Speaker
Well, that's what I thought. It's not like so when you when you say, oh, OK, I've got my novel and it's kind of based on video gaming, the instant comparison is already player one, but it's not that story. Yeah. Well, they're different because you are constantly whipped out of the meta world, the metaverse, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. But so there is that that conflict between IRL and the secondary universe.
00:13:04
Speaker
how but you look like that And that's almost the antagonist. The universe itself is the antagonist, whereas that's not the case here. The universe in New Rock Me Roll is the the thing that's calling out to Dax. It's the thing that's calling to him and saying, look, you're not done yet. You're not finished yet. You can still go off and change things about yourself and learn things about yourself.
00:13:24
Speaker
and as's we went he He's a tired, kind of weary kind of guy um when we when he's when we're exposed to his more inner thoughts about himself and where he is in his life. He's a widower.
00:13:39
Speaker
ah remind me do you have a dog or have I made that but he had a dog but the dog died it doesn't go around so yeah he's perfectly happy playing video he's discovered a great joy and he's very good at it he and his yes two best friends who he's never met in real life which is very similar to um Ready Player One because they'd never met in real life. That's true. And Ready Player One was really well constructed. That book was very well put together. I don't know if you've listened to it read by Will Wheaton, but I thoroughly read it. I've not listened to it. I've read the book and I've listened to it. I listened to it a number of times just to get hints for my own audiobook reading.
00:14:16
Speaker
um yeah will Will reads beautifully. but yeah so they He's young again. He's free. He gets a second life. And what you discover at the end is that, oh, there's another there' another map over there to its core. There's another map.
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah, which is that's that kind of the end of Ready Player One, isn't it? But it's flipped. The problem with Ready Player One's ending is it's perfect. There's no plus there's no possible sequel to it. Everything is achieved. So ah they made him write a sequel to it. but you know one ah it's i Well, I don't want to criticise a fellow writer, that's not fair, but I think it's um It doesn't live up to... Anyway, that's ah something else, but I will i will give happily give a lot of credit to Ready Player One itself. And what I've luckily got is and an open-ended situation. Oh, now there's another map to go to. They hear about this other country.
00:15:12
Speaker
and Oh, and then then there's another one. If you go to my website, richardsparks dot.com, you can see the world and the four, actually five countries of the four books that I've written so far sort of laid out right in in map form. So if you're playing a game like fans we love a I'll definitely put the link into the the notes. You have to have a map. For the first thing, one of my friends who's a lawyer said, it was who loves his Game of Thrones nut, and he said, we've got to have a map. And I said, oh, we've got a map. ah And if you play a game like Elder Scrolls Online, you know you you open up a map as you go through it. ah then And there's that there's a great moment in that in New Rock New Roll where, we're sorry to interrupt, but it just it just reminded me of where
00:15:59
Speaker
the three characters, and I think Ola, who's the thief they meet on on the run as well. Oh, sorry, they meet them in in in the army. um They're are on the run with Esmeralda, the beautiful princess, and at some point she unrolls a map.
00:16:15
Speaker
And then they she starts pointing at the different bits on the map and say, well, that's where you go and loot treasure in the caves. And that's where the monsters are. And that's giant country. thought ah that's that's that That's such a gay and gaming device. you You see the world in its entirety or that particular part of the world in its entirety. A new part of the map has been uncovered and it felt very done in endone in a nice natural way.
00:16:42
Speaker
Well, thank you. But but the um the nice thing about that is the character, the lead character, the narrator. It's done in first person. I see. Oh, I think I started about there. um but It's all beginning to make sense. We were heading yeah there, but now we're going there. And so you fill in the bits of the puzzle as you go along. Every book has got a puzzle in it. There's ah there's a little poem at the beginning. You go, what does that mean? Well, that's the whole book right there in seven lines of poetry.
00:17:10
Speaker
um And it's the same in all the other books. Things turn up, you're looking at the thing. And he said, well, the answer is obviously here, but I can't, you know, I took ah can't see what I'm looking at, which is part of the fun of gaming. um So I was youre very much aware of the whole gaming, ah love the conventions of it, but I'm not, I'm not following it. That's just inspired a starting point. That's a starting point. Yeah. So what was the, the journey of, or the process of writing the book here itself? I mean, it's,
00:17:40
Speaker
And i'm I'm thinking in comparison to to the career that you've had up to this point. So you've had a lot of experience writing scripts, editing scripts. You've got experience writing nonfiction books and and also for the opera as well, librettes and librettos and as such.
Scriptwriting to Novel Writing Transition
00:18:00
Speaker
And I wonder how different is it to write prose fiction?
00:18:07
Speaker
and start and start that journey again from scratch, but also what are you taking from these other other parts of the arts? but It's all enjoys all practice. First of all, if you have are lucky enough to work in television and in scripts and so on, you learn story structure, which is the hardest thing for any writer to to master.
00:18:27
Speaker
um And we all have to get to grips with it because all story is two things, set up and pay off. And the nice thing for me about you getting the four books written before the first was published is that I'm able to go back into book one before it's out there and lay pipe for books two, three and four, set up breadcrumb trails, plant seeds that you can pick up. they they Maybe, for example, they find a piece of loot somewhere and it rings a bell.
00:18:53
Speaker
in And a later story he goes, oh, that reminds me of something we've, I wonder if we've still got it kind of thing. I haven't actually done it quite as boldly as that, but you're able to do the setup and the payoff and you learn that when you're doing script writing. It's all about structure. So that was a very important part of helping me understand the natural flow of narrative. um And also equally as important in some ways are all the books that I wrote that weren't published because they weren't good enough.
00:19:23
Speaker
because I tried before to write various pieces of ah fiction. And I really just wrote the sort of books I didn't want to read and read the sort of books I didn't want to write, which is utterly silly. And the scales fell from my eyes at last. And I just got off to the races with this. I couldn't believe it. It was a two month burst of 160, 170,000 words. come ah But as I said, a lot of rewriting yeah and editing. And then straight onto the sequel,
00:19:52
Speaker
because I sent it off to my agent and thought, oh, I better, I think this is good. Let's see if anyone else does. Meanwhile, I better get on with, I'm not going to stop now. I want to see what happens next, my people, my characters. And she called up two months, and it always takes agents a while to read. I had to pull over. I was driving. It was the best phone call of my life. This is exactly what people want. It's escapism. It's fun. It's entertainment, blah, blah, blah.
00:20:19
Speaker
And I said, oh, well, I'm already you know well into the sequel. She said, oh, great, free book deal. I said, OK, it's three now, is it? I said, look, I just want to keep writing this until I drop. So why didn't it hold off? Let's get this as good as we can. See if I can create a series because one book's no good to a publisher. They they they they don't publish writers. They publish. They don't publish books. They publish authors. And if you're not an author, which I wasn't, I'm unknown in the world of book writing.
00:20:45
Speaker
you have to establish yourself. and Once you've got a name, have you got a book? Shall I get completely confused and overwhelmed? I think, oh, yeah, Mick Herron, I read his, he's great, let's buy another one. But if you don't know, you see, who's that with that? And that's why word of mouth is so helpful when someone says, oh, this is a really good one. And you go, great, thank you. ah So, yeah, so when she called up and said,
00:21:09
Speaker
ah you know, we' you've really got something here. I just haven't stopped since. That's great. So and and you're on book five, is that right? I bought book five. yeah It's basically, I said to one of my test readers, who's a Emmy winning producer here in Los Angeles, I said, I think the series is kind of finished in book four. Is that right? You know, he said, I love it when a series finishes. You've got that completion.
00:21:35
Speaker
And one of the people who interviewed me recently said, Oh, great. We don't have to wait 10 years for the sequel. And all that sort of stuff. I wonder who he's talking about. Yeah. Well, I think some of the writers are dead and we're never going to think we're Robert Jordan. Oh, well, yeah. He's the, he's the poster boy for that sort of thing.
00:21:53
Speaker
I was thinking of the writing partner of one of your writing partners, actually, Mr Martin. A step writing partner. Well, first of all, George RR Martin. Well, he he is extremely good writer. Oh, he surely is.
00:22:08
Speaker
Jeez, I was actually playing in the World Series of Poker, ah which is a whole other part of my backstory. And I asked my daughter, I said, what should I read on my days off? This was before the show was on the air. And she said, buy a Game of Thrones. And she's always right, so I did. I bought the whole box set. And on my days off, because it's a very long tournament, it takes 10 days. And if you survive one day, you get a rest. Sometimes two days rest. So I just started devouring um Game of Thrones. so It turns out that my writing partner is the composer Lee Holdridge. but What's he done that you'd know? Well, various movies like Splash and Old Gringo. Oh, okay. Symphony's and ah he's won five of them, I think, or seven. And he did the ah music for Beauty and the Beast, the TV show in the eighties, which is incidentally Leslie Robin, my editor. It's her favorite TV show. she She fell off her chair when I said Lee Holdridge.
00:23:05
Speaker
um and That show was the first network show that was ever through, composed, every second had music. And Lee did it all until there were too many episodes and and they brought on another writer, David. But martin Martin was, was he the script editor for Beauty and the Beast? And I said to Lee, you know, recently we had worked on something, I said, well wow, what was it like working on the Beauty and the Beast? And he said, the great thing about it was every week you get an amazing script by Ron Coslow or George Martin.
00:23:38
Speaker
said the scripts were just so good. yeah he's had a sort of He took a similar a journey into fantasy fiction as you. He got there rather more quickly. I think he'd been published as a fantasy writer before, but he said that this is legendary. I don't have this from the horse's mouth. He had yeah he' he had fed up really a long history of writing short fiction and horror and other stuff. yeah ah Apparently he said after the Hollywood experience of Beauty and the Beast, um Oh, I'm fed up with this. I'm going to go away and write something so big that no one will ever think of trying to film. Of course, it was the biggest smash it of of the decade. So it's kind of fun to be George Martin's step writing partner via Lee.
00:24:26
Speaker
ah who But but but yeah unlike George, you're sort you're looking to complete conclude your series. but I think I have done. It more or less wraps up, but then I still want to go on with the characters, but it's it's like spinning off Frasier from Cheers. If people love the show, excuse me the series, I don't want them to feel that that world is over because it's by no means over, but there's something about a real big character arc, a story arc is completed. As Steve, my beta reader said here, beta reader where they call them,
00:25:00
Speaker
So I love it when a series ends. but that's That's a very telling line, that isn't it? and and and Isn't it? Is that a producer, he said? Yeah, he's a producer. and um i yeah it's its it just I think it probably him saying that probably reveals just how difficult it is for a series to really stick its landing if it's been going on for you know could not be several books or several TV seasons.
00:25:29
Speaker
you don't want to outstay your welcome, you don't want to jump the shark. And when it wrapped up in a natural wrapping up, that is amazing. I didn't, I didn't see, well, I, you know, ah ah it's, I like a book where you have this two things going on at once. You can't wait to see how it all turns out and you never want it to end. So when you're in the book, you go, God, this is great. This is great. This is like with Ready Player One, yeah for example.
00:25:55
Speaker
And then so I had to go back and listen to it again, because it was so good. ah and ah But then when it's finished, so it when yeah yeah you get that sense of but of deprivation. So then I've got the when people say this, oh, there's another book and you got it on. We don't know. That's so exciting. you know ah And the difference in the interviews I've had with people who've read the books and those who just want to talk about Douglas or Rowan or pythons or whatever, ah it's night and day. You know, people say, oh, you know,
00:26:24
Speaker
I really enjoyed it and looking forward to the s sequel and what happens next and like this character and just getting into the nitty-gritty and kind of geeking out on it. Yeah, well, it's it's ah it's a classical, like I said before, it's sort of a classical medieval secondary world, but it's it's got all the things that we know and love from that from that secondary world and it's not ashamed to be planted squarely in that pseudo-European medieval fantasy world that is the backbone of the genre. Which we all know and love, and it's the same but different, isn't it? It's the same but different. And it's sort of bucking the trend, I would say, in recent years of fantasy fiction, which is
00:27:06
Speaker
which is much more global. So a few weeks ago, we spoke to Aparna Varma, who's an American Indian writer, and she's drawing on various aspects of Indian culture and Indian mythology for her fantasy series, which is absolutely fantastic. You haven't seen it before. yeah But at the same time, I love the fact that there's still room for this this this spine of like I said, pseudo-European secondary medieval fantasy. It's the thing that runs through sort of Tolkien and and Eliot and all of those guys. But we're we're all ploughing the same fields. It goes back to
00:27:51
Speaker
Look, all great literature from the early days is speculative fiction. Gilgamesh, the Ramayana, Tolkien of Indians. I love the Ramayana when I was a kid, the story of Ram and Caesar. The Thousand and One Nights, The Fairy Queen, Beowulf, there are orcs in Beowulf. Tolkien didn't invent orcs, he just mined them.
00:28:11
Speaker
ah then all the 19th century writers like William Morris, Lord Dunsany, the goth, yeah gothic writers, Shakespeare, even Wuthering Heights, Mary Shelley, even things like Wuthering Heights, you could argue that's a gothic horror. oh Certainly. And you could say that 1984, an animal farmer speculative. And Shakespeare is full of magic and fairies. It all bleeds in. It all bleeds in together. It's an incredibly rich turf that we're all using. and As you've seen, my orcs are not like Tolkien's orcs. My guys are always up for a scrap, but they're always up for a good party as well. Absolutely. but yeah there are some sort of the ah There are some heroic hangovers and drinking sessions and parties in the book as well as the adventures.
00:28:56
Speaker
ah whichches and party jokes And party games. Don't forget the Orc party games. And the odd smutty interlude as well, but we'll we'll oh yeah well we won't dwell on that. because we Well I don't know, I think you should tell people if you really want to find out what an Orc-mating ritual is like, check out Chapter 11. If you go to richandsparks.com you can get a free chapter. I think that's the one with the Orc-mating ritual in it, which is very unexpected. It was very unexpected.
00:29:23
Speaker
and ah It's my agent's favourite chapter. In its own way, kind of oddly charming as well. It's refreshing, it's sweet. And then there's another audio chapter you can get, which has got one of the best, worst poems you'll ever hear and the critique of that. Oh, well, that's all Chris to the mill. And this funny talk about set up and set up and play off. In that poem,
00:29:47
Speaker
Ola mentioned something about trying to find a rhyme for Orange when they're talking about it. Yes. And that has inspired where they go in book four. That sets you up for book four, where there is, yeah, there's there's more more capers in that. Brilliant. I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it. that No, i'm I'm so pleased that you that you sent it along to us and you and you you reached out to be to be part of the show. It's been fantastic having you on. I know you've got a hard stop in about a minute, so I think we're going to have to wrap up now. We can go on for another 10. I just need to put my shoes on. but but it's it's been It's been fabulous having you on.
Publishing Experience and Future Plans
00:30:26
Speaker
and the the thing we okay Before we leave then, the thing we always ask of our guests, we have a couple of questions that we always ask. The first one is, what are you reading at the moment? And the second one is, what would you recommend
00:30:39
Speaker
to our readers. So what's something a little bit niche, something that they might not have heard of and you think, oh yeah, I've i've come across that and I'd recommend that. So what are you reading at the moment and what would you recommend? Right, at the moment I listen to audiobooks most of the time. That's it, that's your hard stop.
00:30:58
Speaker
god yeah ah I'm listening to audiobooks at the moment, and I haven't haven't listened to a fiction one recently, or I listened to the Marlowe Murder Club, which was fun. I don't always do fantasy. and iris I loved Stephen Fry reading his trilogy of mythos, Troy, and heroes. Oh, right. I haven't read those, rose and I really should.
00:31:20
Speaker
Well, he's a wonderful reader, and those were all the stories I loved when I was a kid growing up, but embellished and brought to life. And I also, I'm just about to listen to L.E. Modisett's book. I can't remember which one, it's on my audio book, because I met Lee in um ah so and Baltimore, at Balticon, and he said, isolate by L.E. Modisett Jr. And he's written about 80 books. Fascinating chat, but he's now reading mine, so I hope he likes it.
00:31:48
Speaker
um And then I've got Carol Lynn. Where's hers? Oh no, next I've got Bits and Pieces by Whoopi Goldberg coming up. And oh, I listened to Alex Schwarzman's books, The Middling Affliction and Cachistocracy. He's a fellow Kazakh author, very funny man, Alex. oh And um I love listening to people reading themselves. One of the books that really stands out is Mel Brooks' uh, all about me because Mel reads it and Mel's a great hero. I've met him a few times. Um, it was kind of another sort of, uh, one of the people who was one of the parts of the backbone of sixties and seventies, uh, just American comedy. We had a French au pair. We were staying on in France on a holiday and, um, with Jenny's parents, we were together and this French au pair
00:32:47
Speaker
talking about how my mother, my mother-in-law, had high anxiety. Rosemary, she has high anxiety because she really thought vertigo i was called high anxiety. So I told Mel this and he said, she really said that? He just was happy. So his book is delightful and he reads it beautifully. Of course, I also like Seth Rogen's yearbook. Alan Arkin's autobiography has got one of the funniest Groucho Marx stories you'll ever hear in it.
00:33:16
Speaker
And that's called An Improvised Life. um And he was the only man, my father-in-law was a very eminent music producer, Milt Oaken, who produced Peter Paul the Mayor in John Denver and Cherry Lane Music. They produced everything, published everything from The Beatles to Elvis to NASCAR. And um ah where was I going with Milt? like Where was I before that? but we We were going through various recommendations for our readers our listeners.
00:33:47
Speaker
OK, we'll cut cut that out because whatever. and it's okay Oh, yeah, no, no, I remember. I remember he but when he left university, he worked as selling insurance. He sold one life policy his entire life career before he got into the music business. And that was to Alan Arkin, who was ah a banjo player in the Terriers at the time before he became an actor. Oh, well, I didn't know he lived. Alan lived forever, so i never got to collect on his life insurance. Well, that's a that's a lovely optimistic note.
00:34:16
Speaker
on which to end the show. Alan Arkin, Living Forever. bob he did that you know and The book is called An Improvised Life. yes and Super. ah well Thanks so much for joining us, Richard. It's been fantastic listening to all the all the different stories, the multitude of stories that have put together your life. Like you said, your life is a compilation of everyone you've met. And so we got a little taste of that over the last hour and a half, which is lovely. So yeah, thanks so much for being a part of the show and best of luck. Oh, actually tell us what the the title of the second book is and when it's coming out. The the second book is called New Rock, New Realm. Third is New Rock, New Rules and New Rock, New Roads.
00:35:03
Speaker
ah New Rock New Realm coming out I think November the 19th and for some reason there's a glitch on the Amazon.co.uk page so you can't buy New Rock New Realm it goes straight through to the pre-order for New Rock New Realm which it shouldn't do and the publisher's trying to sort it out. Okay well if we find ah rightot somewhere real yeah if we find the right link from from Downpour or something then we'll put that on the episode notes.
00:35:26
Speaker
or get it from Barnes and Noble. Yes, guys don't don't go to a bookshop. Or the audiobook with me reading it. And I'm really, um it's so nice to get um great and encouraging feedback. but i You're very welcome. that's correct um Best of luck, right? You better get off to the opera. So we'll see you later. I'll see you. If you want me back, I'll come and talk about the seat. Yeah, why not? Okay. Cheers, Richard. Lovely to speak to you. Bye-bye. Thank you, Dan. Bye.
00:35:52
Speaker
bye
00:35:56
Speaker
I know many of you are excited about this next segment, an in-depth analysis of the hot topic of Frongorial rot with our resident expert, Lieutenant Bungello. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Richard! Richard! F***! Or should I say gentle goos festering away there in your mulch tank. Now, where's the plug?
00:36:16
Speaker
You said the Mars catapult takes fifteen months. I didn't come by catapult. It failed its MOT. What? What? It's not a car. The clue is in the name, Lieutenant Bungalow. It is a catapult. Use your brain if you have one in that viscous globular vial-smelling gunk you call a body. What car could get here from Earth? The MOT it failed was the Mars Orbital Transfer Certificate, without which it cannot, of course, operate. The senior inspector from the MOT herself explained it to me. The Mars Orbital Ministry of Tourism. I explained the urgency of my mission and she felt sorry for me and gave me a lift here in our M.O.T. Ministry of Multidimensional Omnidirectional Tesla. She was on Earth at the Taylor Swift tour. She's an M.O.T. Multi. Madly obsessed Taylorian, as indeed is the entire population of the planet Tayloria, formerly known as Prince.
00:37:06
Speaker
Well, I mean, we're both Swifties, aren't we, Captain? Uh, that is a rude word in their language. It means, if I might remind you of the purpose of my visit, Fluntricle... Oh, look, look, I can explain! I very much doubt that anyone can, let alone you, Half Milk Carton. Or should I say, about to be emptied, Milk Carton? No, no, no, please! Give me one good reason why I should not rid the solar system of you two excretances!
00:37:28
Speaker
we loved your book um didn't we captain new rock new row r o l e brilliant title baby brilliant book loved it absolutely devoured it i did well not literally i i don't need paper i couldn't put it down not literally obviously i couldn't pick it up not having actual hands but but the audiobook blew me away! Really? Really, an instant classic! Am I not in the least humble in the expert opinion? I said as much to you, didn't I, Bumble? You're very worried! An instant classic, if I ever saw one! Well, I'm a Banjax Vaspritite!
00:38:03
Speaker
Well, it's always nice to meet ones adoring public. Wait, especially two readers as discerning and insightful as your good selves. Uh, do go on. Wha-wha-what I laughed? I cried? I was gripped, shaken, and stirred! A wild ride of rip-roaring originality! Whoo! Mmm, yes, uh, yeah, that's not bad. Perhaps spine-tingling? Wh-wha-I mean, we-we don't have spine. Oh, no, no, of course not, silly me. Well, it's hardly my job to write your reviews for you. Ha ha.
00:38:32
Speaker
We'll do that with pleasure. I look forward to hearing them. Don't spare my blushes. The honest truth now. Of course, of course, we promise if if we insult you with anything less. After all, you know the old saying, all any writer humbly expects from any critic is two thousand words of closely reasoned praise.
00:38:51
Speaker
Two thousand! Twenty thousand wouldn't do it justice! Who would they, Lieutenant? Forty! Fifty even! Eighty! Oh, well, it's it it's kind of you to say so. Well, it was kind of you to write such a fabulous, brilliant, exciting book! I'm still under spell! What a magical, wonderful world you created to lose ourselves in! And what incredible characters!
00:39:12
Speaker
and what adventures they have but What was your favorite part? The ending. The ending was fantastic! Oh, I like the beginning. It just gets better and better from there. Yeah, it does rather, doesn't it? And I hear there's a sequel? There is. Oh, that's wonderful news for all us fans. What's it gonna be called? New rock, new realm. They go somewhere else, like doing a new realm and and do something else.
00:39:41
Speaker
Got it in one, Lieutenant Bungalow. Oh my god, that sounds frickin' amazing! Hey, when's it coming out? On the 19th of November. I can't wait! You heard it here first folks! Put it in your diaries November the 19th! Publication of New Rock New Realm! The sequel to the smash hit fantasy adventure New Rock New Roll by Richard, Richard Sparks! And we'll be sure to give it the glowing 10 star review! We just know it will reserve! Don't wait Bungalow! 20 star, 30 star!
00:40:09
Speaker
And we'd love to have you back on the show to talk about it! Oh, well, I'd be delighted, thank you! Oh, no, no, no! Thank you for dating and to honor us with your auteurial presence! Ah, ah, ah, and for not unplugging us! Or how could we interview you? Ha! Ha, ha, ha! How indeed! Ha, ha! Oh, they'll get someone else present as a tenner penny.
00:40:33
Speaker
Good job, Richard! Oh, thank you, Inspector Swiftnut. Ready and excited. Where's Taylor playing tonight? Oh, she's not. It's her night off. She's taking off another world tour. She is? Oh, that's incredible news. And guess which word? No. Tayloria. Tayloria. Oh, you are so lucky. I know. Wait until they tell the folks back home. They'll go nuts. Many of us already are. Swiss nuts. Me too.
00:41:00
Speaker
See you
00:41:35
Speaker
This episode of Kronskast was brought to you by Dan Jones and Brian Sexton and our special guest, Richard Sparks. Additional content was provided by Brian Sexton and Jay Starloper. Special thanks to Brian Turner and the staff at Kronsk and thanks