Category: Episodes

Friend of the show Ben Dixon is back to talk about his new novel Vengeance and Honour, a sword and sorcery adventure for older teens and up. Fans of Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy RPGs, and Choose Your Own Adventure stories will LOVE this book, as its full of action, adventure, friendship, and just enough immature jokes involving PG-rated nudity to make teens (and grownups) giggle.

Ben has been on the show before to talk about what he has learned from conventional publishing and independent publishing, and I first featured him on the show back when it was an audio-only podcast. You can enjoy previous episodes with Ben at these links:

 

Leicestershire Author Ben Dixon

This was a big episode for me to put together, as in I had to limit myself to the amount of time it takes to drink a pot of tea or else I would have talked about Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein FOREVER.

How does it compare to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel? How many Snapes do I award this film for its faithfulness to the source material? And what does that have to do with whether or not the movie was good?

In this episode I mentioned how Victor is a Byronic character. Here’s my previous episode where Chloë and I discuss Byronic themes in Taylor Swift’s lyrics:

There are two bits of book related silliness to cover this week. A tiny group of outspoken activists are trying to cancel J.K. Rowling — again. And the corporate juggernaut Studio Canal+ has succeeded in canceling the wild-eyed parody of Paddington Bear that was featured on the revived comedy show Spitting Image.

This is a film adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, but I have to say I’m not very excited about it.

I recently saw a teacher blow his stack in public, and I couldn’t help but feel that if he wasn’t just a bully, maybe it was time for him to get a different job.

My friend Miguel Lopez joined me to record a commentary track for the silly and fun film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is based on the mashup novel by Seth Grahame-Smith that was based on the classic Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. You can play this commentary track while you watch the film:

Miguel spent twenty years in the United States Air Force, retiring with the rank of Major. He did a tour in Iraq and is now working on a PhD in History, focusing on World War II. He has a lot of great insight into the military situation in Jane Austen’s time and gives his opinion on the military prowess (or lack thereof) shown in the film.

Later we got together again to chat about the film and give it a Snape Score as well as a military ranking:

Please enjoy this Fireside reading of “The Raven.” As always, I have two versions — one with my commentary (and a roasted pumpkin!) as well as the poem on its own with no blah blah blah.

 

First, we start off with some MORE tedious Harry Potter book drama.

Then you get a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into a Fireside Fairy Tale. I always test stories on my kids and their friends, and I don’t mind that there are interruptions and a bunch of noise. Asking questions means they are interested, and the kids always ask questions about things I take for granted, which helps me give better commentary for all of you.

We start off with some book drama about a hilarious, not-safe-for kids parody of Paddington Bear on the comedy show Spitting Image as well as an unneccessary freakout over a url printed on children’s books leading to a spicy site.

In the main story, the biggest surprise for me this year is the amount of faith-based book adaptations that are . . . really good? Stories like this aren’t my usual thing, but I will enjoy a well told story no matter what it’s about, and a new web series doing a comedic adaptation of the Book of Exodus in a mockumentary style has got me hooked.

In this Fireside Fairytale, I share the first published version of Rapunzel, which was recorded by the Brothers Grimm for their famous 1812 collection of German folktales, Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Find out why this early version was offensive to 19th Century morality, and also why it really wasn’t as racy as pearl-clutching Victorians thought it was.

In this Fireside Fairytale, I share the first published version of Rapunzel, which was recorded by the Brothers Grimm for their famous 1812 collection of German folktales, Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Find out why this early version was offensive to 19th Century morality, and also why it really wasn’t as racy as pearl-clutching Victorians thought it was.

Also, I test out one of those super sized marshmallows to see how they toast up. It was . . . a lot of marshmallow.

If you would like the “story only” version of Rapunzel with no commentary, you can find that on my second channel, Storytime with T.Q. Townsend: