The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Bonus: An Interview with C.K. McDonnell

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, usually read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, a marvelous bonus episode! We sat down with the wonderful writer C.K. McDonnell to talk about The Stranger Times series and, of course, all things Pratchett!Find C.K. McDonnell on the internet:https://whitehairedirishman.com/https://thestrangertimes.co.uk/Love Will Tear Us Apart - the latest book in the Stranger Times series, is available in hardback on the 9th of February from all good bookshops! Pre-order here.See C.K. live in conversation here.Want more? Listen to The Bunny Cast and The Stranger Times Podcast here: The Bunny Cast - Apple PodcastsThe Bunny Cast - SpotifyThe Stranger Times - Apple PodcastsThe Stranger Times - SpotifyFollow C.K. on Twitter: @CaimhFind us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

Hello, dear listeners. In this special bonus episode, we are talking to C.K. MacDonald, who is the author of, well, of many books, actually, but most relevantly for today, of the Stranger Times series, the third of which, Love Will Terrace Apart, is coming out on the 9th of February, which is why we are dropping, as they say, this episode today. There are a couple of good reasons why we've got Quive MacDonald on the show. First of all, he's also a massive Pratchett fan, and so we can talk about that with him at length. And indeed, we did. Second, I think many of our listeners will hugely enjoy his work. I picked up The Stranger Times and read it in a day, which is something I don't often achieve these days outside of Discworld. In brief,

the series is based around the editorial team for The Stranger Times, which is a newspaper comparable to the Forty and Times magazine, covering the paranormal, the metaphysical, and the downright bizarre, where the news is the belief in the story, not necessarily the events recounted. However, this publication's ragtag bunch of misfit journals find out that at least some supernatural stories are alarmingly authentic. So, I hope you enjoy this conversation, and we'll see you back on Discworld shortly. Hello, and welcome to The Tree Shall Make You Threat, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one as time in

chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. I'm Francine Carroll, and with us today we have Quive MacDonald, aka CK MacDonald, stand-up comedian, writer on TV shows such as Have I Got News View and Mock the Week, and most relevantly for today, author of 14 novels, goodness me, including The Stranger Time series. Is that still accurate? I'm actually doing the maths in my head now, going, I think it might be 15. I think when the third stroke of time comes out, I think it's the 15th. Yeah, it's weird. I actually made jokes about the last book coming out, and like when you're 13, a book or something comes out, and I realised a week later that I'd done the sums wrong, and there was one more book, and it's like,

that's when you realize you've written quite a lot of books and you can't remember them all. You have to go through them all in your head and try and add them up again every time. That's a good place to be. I've got the reading order thing on your website open at the moment, and I do appreciate a good arcane infographic to go with anybody's body of work. Yeah, no, I have not. The Stranger Times is so far a linear series, thank God, but yeah, the bunny books, which to my other side, the one's written by is Quive. Yeah, that's a mess. For any writers listening to this, I cannot emphasise this enough. Never put a number in a series title. I called it the Dublin Trilogy, and it now has seven books in it.

Never, ever put a number in. Things change. Just be flexible. Increasingly and accurately made. Yes. Quick note on spoilers before we crack on. Obviously, we're a spoiler-like podcast. We will avoid spoiling any major events in CK's books, and as far as Discworld goes, we will avoid spoiling any events post-night watch, and of course, we're saving any in all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there so you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. I don't have an improv bit for that, Joanna. We don't have a book to go with. I'll be honest, I don't know the exact chronological order,

but if in doubt, I'm just going to try and not spoil stuff. I mean, I'm pretty sure I know night watches nearer the end of the watch stuff than the beginning, but I don't know the exact order because I'm not good at that. It's all right. We'll just bleep it out if you say anything horrific or throw in a bunch of wrong spoilers. Yeah, although that would be hilarious. It's like, what was it? Arrested Development was the brilliant sitcom, had the great thing where they had the next time on, and it was just randomly made up stuff that didn't exist. It took me longer than I'd like to admit before I realized that was what was happening when I watched it the first time. I was like, wait a minute. Cool. So before we got to

this series of books that we're talking about, you had a long and storied career in comic writing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to a various degrees. I mean, I was basically, I think I started doing stand up in 2001, and I was always like, I was always interested. I actually came to London from Dublin, which is where I'm from, basically. I got a six-month placement. I came over and I wanted to try stand up where nobody knew me, and I also wanted to start doing some courses in comedy writing. So I did a sitcom writing course and a stand-up writing course. And then sort of three years later, more or less, I went full-time as a stand-up and writing as well. And I was sort of, I was doing a boat with those things up until 2019,

when I retired from stand-up. And I mean, the only thing now I do is, to be honest, is writing my own books. I don't even like, everything's been optioned for TV, Stranger Times and The Bunny Books and stuff. And I'm basically not involved in writing the pilots for them. I just write books now. That's all I do. Interesting. Was it a wrench to give up control or a relief? To be honest, it's one of these things where, if I'm entirely honest, if you ask authors about this honestly, could you talk to authors about TV stuff, you kind of, they make like a big thing of like getting you involved, stuff when you're talking about options and all these sort of things. And there's very good people involved. I'm very lucky with who my books

are sort of with. But then they sort of go ahead and start doing stuff. And then they kind of, every six months or a year, my agent will ask them, like, oh, God, yeah, we should update you. And they do kind of, and almost every author I've spoken to, it's been the same, where you're not really, unless you're actually trying to write the thing yourself, you're kind of not involved in it day to day. There's an amazing story with, what's his name? James Patterson, who's written how many books he's named on. Yeah, and these names on how many others, because all these collaborate right over that model of writing he has. But there was a story, I saw him live talk about this. And bear in mind, he's James Patterson. He's one of those powerful authors

in the world. And he was watching the film they made in one of his books. And he was at the premier. And he turned to his wife and said, who's that that just walked into the kitchen? And they went, apparently it's the main character's sister. And he went, he has a sister? Like, that's how much control James Patterson has. So the reality is with other stuff, you kind of, you know, you wait and see and you hope for the best. You kind of, as long as you sort of work in with good companies, which I'm very lucky to be doing, you sort of hope these things will work out for the best, I guess. That's cool. How far along in the pipeline is that stuff, if you can say? Oh, it's, it's, it's hard to, I mean, I know the, the, the Bunny McGarry books

there with Avalon, who Chris Addison, who people might know as a comedian, who's a director and a writer and actor and stuff. And there's, he's sort of the showrunner for them. Well, he's actually involved as a producer and then there's somebody else. They've got a very good, well-known Irish writer involved, but it hasn't been announced yet that he's doing it. So I don't think I can say it, but he's writing pilots, basically, I believe. And then with The Strange of Times books, there's like a NBC Peacock and America's involved with it. And they're doing a mini writers room and stuff. But I don't know, we'll have to wait and see. It's one of these, it's a weird thing with TV where it's, nothing's really happened until everything's happening

and it could all fall apart so quickly and stuff. Like Ben Aranovic's books are, for ages, everyone was getting excited because they were with Simon Pegg's company and stuff, which obviously would be a great company to do them, but ultimately it didn't happen. And then they've now signed with the same company that made Slow Horses, which is not even seen on Apple, which is the Mick Herron books. And they've done a brilliant job with those books. And they've also filmed it in London, which is where you'd need to do Ben's books. So it's like one of these things, like as a fan of Ben's books, before The Strange of Times ever came out, or any of my other books ever came out, it was one of those things where the fan base got really

excited and then it didn't happen. And now it's like, oh, it might happen again. But like, when people have been there for a while ago and don't get your hopes up too much, but hopefully it will. But yeah. Yeah, when we've got an airing date, we'll... Yeah, even then, you know, it's, you literally don't know what's going to happen until they repeat it. That's really the real, pretty much. So how did you kind of transition from television writing into writing novels? Well, I sort of, I kind of had sitcoms and all that was sort of my first thing. And I was trying to get them away. And I've been trying to get them away since like 2002, 2003. I think I, I weirdly, I placed in a channel for competition for write a sitcom, really, like probably actually

before I came to London. So we would have been 2,099. And so I was always doing sitcoms. And they were like, I think I ended up with like 10 or so with them optioned at various different points, which I just know the thing is when production companies buy the rights to them, and then they're trying to get them to broadcasters to make, get them made and stuff. And nothing happened with any of them. But weirdly, The Strange of Times came out with a sitcom idea I wrote, God, about 15, probably years ago, that I loved that my age at the time just didn't really get. I don't think she ever did. I think she just didn't strike, you know, make any sense for her. So she didn't, she didn't sort of see it. So I kind of had that for ages. And then, you know, I've worked on kind

of, I worked with comic mates of mine, like I did the Sarah Millican show and stuff. She's a very good friend of mine. I was, you know, my supporter on tour and stuff. And her husband, Gary, I worked for on Mock the Week and all these different places. So it's kind of what these things are, I was doing all that sort of stuff. And then I had the idea to write a fairly standard thriller, probably think we're looking back on it. But I realized I didn't know how to write prose, I'd written loads of scripts. So I ended up doing a master's in creative writing at MMU in Manchester. I say I did, I finished half of it and left. Because by then it had been published in books. And literally at the end of it, you have to pay a few thousand pounds for someone to

read your book. And I'm like going, I'm paying people to read my book. People pay me to read my book. Yeah, it's number one rule, isn't it? You know, I don't just to get the piece of paper to put up on the wall. So I never finished it. But I kind of got it and got me into the great thing was it got me into workshops where we all shared a bit of our work. And that was great, where you got to start doing a bit. And I started practicing writing prose, I started writing short stories. And then one of those short stories, sort of accidentally turned into a novel, which I literally thought I was going to write as a practice. And that became a man at one of those faces, which is my first novel. And that's kind of, yeah, how I ended

there, I guess. Yeah, you can see that a lot of the, a lot of the plot is told through dialogue. And so yeah, you can definitely see the kind of the writing expertise in the background there, I think. Yeah, I think that's the absolute, you're absolutely right. Dialogue is, I think it's kind of important as a writer to know what your strengths are. And dialogue is, is one of my strengths. It's the easiest way. If I'm trying to figure out how to tell, say something, you know, get across something, I get two people in a room and get them discussing it and stuff. And it's, I just find the rhythm of dialogue. And, you know, I mean, authors have different things, like again, he's been around of it. He does fantastic descriptions of like

architecture and stuff. If you've ever read the Rivers alone and books, there's some amazing stuff. And it's really good. It's great detail, just a really fabulous description of a building and stuff. I generally, through my books, don't do that because I, that's not something that really interests me. And I think that's one of those things that one of the best piece of advice they've got was rather than trying to do what you think people think you should do, more or less concentrate on your skills. And I tell story best through character and dialogue. So I try and focus on that. Well, obviously, you do obviously have to explain that there are buildings and people are in them, et cetera. I just don't spend, I just don't spend

much time. I also never describe what people are wearing, unless it's really relevant. Because as my wife pointed out, it's weak, great for an evening. And I come home and ask you what anybody was wearing. And you almost certainly would not know. Because I've just not, I just don't care. I'm a bloke who spends these days walking around in a hoodie and a shirt and shorts or other. So I'm just not interested in that. So I just don't do it. Yeah. I mean, people fill in the details. As I read, it's a natural thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. I think very much, especially when it's a contemporary setting, we all, you know, we all,

we all know that people wear jeans and stuff. We don't need to point it out what everybody's wearing. Yeah. No. So the 14, 15, 15 books that you've published have all been in reasonably quick succession. So once you've gotten the swing of it, that was it pretty much, I guess. Yeah. I sort of, I think literally, I mean, my buddy books are independently published, as we like to say, because people technically say self-published, but we don't like that because Barling else, my wife now given up her job and runs our company full-time and we have like several people that work with us. So there is a team. It's not just me and my own sitting in my basement trying to not get a book. But yeah, we literally went looking for representation.

And everyone's literally, the feedback was it's, we got told literally it was too funny and too arish as I've said in interviews before, which was genuine feedback we got, which to this date, I don't understand what that guy's doing. And I'm very tempted to send him an email. Never have done, but there's a little part of my brain that goes, it'd be quite funny to send them that business card. Yeah, exactly. So we literally were told, oh, no, crime and comedy don't us. But that's basically what the bunny works where I don't mix. And we were like, well, that seems ridiculous. Chris Brookmeyer is one of my all-time favorite authors and he did it brilliantly for years. There's so many authors that did that, but it's publishing is very odd,

where they, they get these ideas in their head. And they don't really make a great deal of sense. And, you know, there are several authors now who are doing it and doing it well. And then even Richard Osman's books, if you look at them, they do combine comedy and crime. Although hilariously, I was asked my agent about that, he said, you think that's now publishing is now going to think that like comedy and crime will go together. And they went, he went, honestly, no, they just, they just think they should get celebrities to write crime. That's what they, that's the lesson they took from that. Not that that's a very well written book. And that's the style people enjoyed, just that we should get anybody who's a celebrity and see if

they can do the same thing, which of course is going to mean they're going to end up spending fortune on books that don't sell. But that's publishing for you. Yeah. Yeah. So going into the Stranger Time series, was there any reason you really want to start with writing like a newspaper? Do you have any like background of overlapping with journalism at all? Not at all. I mean, I sort of got asked that and quite a few times in interviews. And luckily, like journalists have asked me and I'm like, oh, good. The fact that they even asked that means that I may have bluffed it reasonably well. But to be honest, I've always, I think as a kid, I always loved the idea of it. But yeah, I never got anywhere close to doing journalism because

they literally gave us IQ tests when we're in school. And because no one could read my hand writing, this is absolutely true. I was a told I wouldn't be able to go to university for quite some time. My mother disagreed strongly. And then they kept giving us aptitude tests. And because people could read my, I was getting the answers correct in maths, they went, oh, we should be an engineer. So I have a degree in electronic engineering rather than doing anything involving writing because no one could read what I wrote back when you had to write things with your own pen. So I was literally told I was going to fail English and all this sort of stuff. And so I never got a chance to do any of those things. Because I would have had an interest in it. But you know,

at the same time, newspapers and stuff are having a hard time. But so maybe it was a good miss to not get it. Whereas yeah, but yeah, but I've always loved the idea of I've always found it fascinating. And so that's why the world of it really excited me because I just there was always a part of me that was frustrated and never get a chance to be a journalist, I guess. Yeah. And the stranger time specifically is the 14 or 14. And I've never tried to say that out loud. I think it's 14. Yeah, no, I've always been fascinated by that. Franny doesn't know the 14 times. I'm guessing a lot of the listeners of this probably do. But it's they're basically they report weird, wonderful stuff around the world. But they're not saying this is true.

But I think the 14 view on it is it's interesting as a phenomenon that people believe these things. And they're not saying they aren't true either. But they report the phenomenon and they find that in itself interesting. There's a great book called Borderlands that was done by a 14 times journalist, which one I got it got really into. And that book, I just picked up somewhere. And it's all about UFOs and ghosts and all these different things. But it has some really interesting theories and comparisons of stuff. One of which just quickly is when there was a boom in UFO sightings after the Second World War in America, at the same time in Europe, there was a big boom in visions of the Virgin Mary or similar things like that. And his thesis, which I thought was just

incredible was that there was something happening that humanity generally didn't understand. But what you saw was what you were basically society, what you were your brain expected to see. So if you're American, you're expecting to see UFOs. If you're European, you're expected to see, you know, some sort of religious apparition thing, which I just thought was amazing. And when I started reading that book, that's when I really got into to subscribe into the 14 times and just finding these things fascinating. I've got a copy as yet unread of Dan Shriver's book about all this kind of stuff that's quite recently out. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I think I've got that as well, actually. Yeah, I love the reframing a bit as,

no, that we're reporting what people believe. And that's interesting. That's interesting in itself. You don't need to, you can or you can't believe in the rest of it. But yeah, it's a sociological thing. Exactly. Good word. I was looking for the word sociological, you know, sociological. That's the word I showed you. If we can like re-edit this and cut me in saying sociological, so I say I'm really clever. Absolutely. I can rub my beard at the same time if that'll help because that's really sociological. That's the kind of beard you want for that word. I've been tempted to take up smoking a pipe just for this kind of thing. The day my first ever book came out, I got myself a fake plastic pipe and I had like pictures of me

doing the, but with everything else, I got lost on a house move. But I mean, along those lines, actually, so within universe, the cast of Stranger Times have different levels of skepticism about the paranormal. Where would you say you lie on that spectrum if you're anywhere solid on it? I kind of take the 4T interview, which I'm interested in all of it. I haven't personally seen much evidence of any of it. But I am, you know, if you ask me if I thought UFOs existed, I would say in probability, I believe they are, whether we know what they are or not. You know, I think it's fascinating. I think there's all kinds of theories that they might be from different planets. There might be different dimensions. There might be literally our future

coming back to look at us, all these different things. But I think there's definitely stuff happening there. I mean, it was an amazing thing where the US Congress, people don't really, but they've basically admitted that there's stuff going on around military bases like the last couple of years that people can't explain. But their attitude was we need to make sure it's not the Koreans, which I'm pretty sure it isn't the Koreans, but it's their view. But the fact they've admitted stuff is happening, they can't explain what it is. I think it's fascinating itself. So I would say I'm open to all of this. I haven't personally seen much evidence of it. I had one minor, very minor paranormal experience outside of that. But I'm definitely

open to all of it, I guess. Do you mind us asking what your minor paranormal experience was? Oh, yeah, not at all. I mean, it's the most bizarre one of these you'll hear, just in the sense of how odd it is. I don't know, do either of you have dogs? Yeah, I've got one asleep behind me right now. Oh, fabulous. I don't know if you know this, but where we are in Manchester, you can rent fields and bring the dog to the field. I've seen that, yeah. Yeah. And basically, the idea is you can rent the field for an hour, the dogs can be let off and they're all fenced in and they're all safe, and they can run around and be idiots safe that they're not going to do anxiety and get lost

and run off or anything. So I'm always using those at my two dogs. And a couple of years ago, last year, maybe about over a year ago now, I had the odd experience in the middle of the day in one of these fields, which is like surrounded by sheep, there's nothing near it, there's a road near it. I was standing there talking to the two dogs because they were sitting in front of me. I talk to my dogs regularly. I've had people look at me when I walk them. I think anyone who doesn't talk to their dog is weird, as far as I'm concerned, because I'm convinced they understand enough of what you're saying. So the two of them sitting in front of me, I was describing we're about to play a game or something like that. I was chatting away to them

both. And then right beside my ear, there was a laugh, like to the point where I was in the middle of this field and I literally ducked down and spun around because I thought somebody was standing behind me. Like, and I mean, like to the point where like right behind you, and there was nobody there. And like, literally, I was standing in the field and I'm looking around going, not only did that feel like there was someone there, but there's no surfaces that sound could have bounced off that I could see because it's in the middle of a wide open field. There is a road and I was like, Oh, maybe, but it didn't make any sense. That could have been traffic noise of some sort or because of how it bounced there. And those are these things where

I just sort of went down playing with the dogs and only when I got in the car afterwards about like half an hour later, I'm driving away. I was like, Yeah, no, that was properly weird. I don't know. I mean, up to be fair, I'm just, if there is a ghost there, I'm delighted for them because imagine how boring their life was before that was a dog field. Oh, yeah, it'd be so nice afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. Because before that, they would have just been haunting sheep and there's no satisfaction in haunting a sheep. So can you tell if you're the thing that scared them even now? Yeah, exactly. It's like, they're not being in their shape. They literally have their only emotion is hungry. I mean, it's like, you know, there's no point to it. So yeah, but that was my only and it's such an odd,

the reason I don't dismiss it is because it's such an odd experience. Like it was in the middle of the day and everything. So yeah, I don't know. I feel like if it was sinister in any way, the dogs would have kicked off. That's always my thought. You would hope so. I think, yeah, I mean, one of them is quite nervous as it is. And they didn't react at all, except why is he ducking down? I think one of them thought I was being attacked by a bee. But yeah, that's a good point. They didn't react at all to it. Yeah. Cool. So again, kind of circling back to the cast in the cast that there we go, I'm doing TV stuff now. Is it a cast in a book in the characters in Stranger Times? The ensemble. The ensemble. Thank you. Is there a particular character there that you see

a lot of yourself in or that you kind of speak through as an avatar? I think there's probably little elements in quite a few of them, I guess, would be me. It's a very good question. But I mean, Banecroft is a bigger Irish drunk, which I'm at least one of those things, but I don't think I'm probably the other two. But he's the great thing with Banecroft. He's the editor, if I hadn't read the books. And the great thing about him is he basically says the things that in real polite society nobody ever gets to say. And he is so he ends up being a lot of fun to write because he literally has no filter and it's just terrible to people in a way that's a lot of fun to write. But like sort of the Hannah is the woman who comes in who's kind of the eyes of the reader and

stuff in the sense that she's sort of brought into the whole thing. So I guess there's a mix of Banecroft, Hannah. Yeah, there's probably bits of me in almost all of them. Yeah, I think there's little bits of me in all of them in some ways, I guess. That's cool. The Hannah actually as a protagonist. She's very much kind of the straight man of the, certainly to start with. Because she's basically a typical technical thing. She's kind of our introduction to the world. She literally comes in and the first scene is her doing a good job in for you. Well, second scene, which was in the sitcom script. I wrote like 15 years ago, by the way. Oh, that would make a good scene.

Yeah. And that was literally what I had in the sitcom. And it was so she was like our eyes into this world. And then she ends up in this, which is because you need, if you're going to have this sort of weird collection of people, and this weird thing, you need somebody who starts off being the rational voice of reason sort of thing that we all so that they go in and they bring us into the world and introduce it all to everybody. So yeah, she starts off being the sensible one. And then I mean, by book three, she's, she's just crazy as anybody else in there. But by that point, she's done her job. That was, was it a conscious decision to get her on board with everything quite quickly? Because

I know, depending on the kind of, oh, there's supernatural stuff in the real world, bit of media, sometimes I think it drags out a bit long with the straight man being the skeptic. Yeah, I know there is like some series where they're still trying to pretend that someone doesn't believe in everything and stuff. And I think it sort of, it was one of these things that you have to decide for yourself and you're writing. And I do remember actually, now you mentioned that quite early doors going, right, I think at a certain point, they're just going to, yeah, they're going to go with it. They're going to realize. And I think it is, yeah, because I know what you mean. I mean, it can be done very well, but a lot of the time,

it's like, like with the X files, you sort of think, you've seen way too much to be skeptical. Why don't you be like, just, you've seen way too much crazy. That's ridiculous. I know he's on Ghosts last week. Yeah, it's like, nobody can hold onto skepticism in that situation. I mean, by literally by episode three, you would be, yeah, so I sort of made the decision that, well, it's important they react to it as being confused by it and stuff that they do, they are able to accept it because the way it works, like, it's just obvious after a while. I mean, you know, well, I know we should, it's very obvious after a while in the first book. So you've ended up with quite a unique

mythology in Stranger Times. How much of that was there like from the early sitcom scripts and how much of it developed as you write the books? Well, interesting, the sitcom script basically, I mean, I've really annoyed, I've tried to find that script by the way. I keep finding like DVDs with backups of old people, laptops and stuff, and I keep trying to find it. It's the only script I've written I can't find, which really... Oh, that's so frustrating. It is because you're like, you thought this would be quite an interesting thing to see, but I sort of, I think the sitcom, it didn't have the idea that all this stuff was real. It sort of got to the point in the first few chapters where this newspaper is reporting it. And then I was kind

of thinking about it again. And one of the early decisions before I started writing it was they find out it's real, that makes sense. But then the mythology, I think my idea is, I like the idea that sort of all the stuff we know from mythology and kind of even to more up-to-date things, things that appear in fiction and stuff, that's all, in my view, that's all potentially there. But like for example, in the second book, I'm not going to hang away with his vampires. It's, I've always find it weird when we watch stuff now that people don't know what a vampire is, you know, what appears and they're like, oh, it's somebody with pointy teeth and they seem to have drank somebody's blood. And like we all literally grew up with the concept of vampire. So how I kind

of did it was, I don't know how conscious this was, but I kind of like it now when I stick to it as a thing is, I believe all media and everything, all books exist. So the first time, like when vampires appear in the second book, they're almost like, they exist, theoretically it's explained in the first book that they exist as an allegory for the big baddies in the book, if you like. And then in the second book, actual vampires appear. But it turns out there's a very specific reason for that. And it's actually, like they think it's a wind-up or something, and then it turns out that something else has happened. But I think I just wanted to try and do something fresh and different with it, because I think tropes and stuff, people are always talking

about tropes and genres. And what I like to do is know what they are as much as possible, and then have my characters weirdly acknowledge them. Like even in my crime books, I've had things where I've had them deliberately talk about scenes in films. Oh, this is like that thing in a film. Do you remember how this is in the film? And I just think weirdly, that ends up being a much more interesting way of dealing with these things. Yeah, because you absolutely would. Yeah. It's far less realistic to have somebody unaware of how a crime thriller goes. Exactly. So I think it's more, and it's kind of, it's better because, you know, somebody's reading as red loads of these books. So rather than having to go back and go over that,

it's like with the Spider-Man films, where they kept going through the same origin story. Yeah, you don't need to say that three times. You got bitten by a spider. It's what they did so right with the Tom Holland ones, where they just went, he just says 50 minutes in, I got bitten by a spider, and then the spider's dead now. And we're enjoying being with Spider-Man, which is the bit everybody wants anyway. Speaking of folklore and mythology and stuff, is there any particular area of that that particularly fascinates you? Oh, I mean, I've kind of looked into various different bits of it and stuff. There's some great Irish things with banshees and stuff, which are quite hot right now, seeing as the name of the film has appeared, but the word banshee,

and it's a load of people that are interested in what a banshee is. Has it now? Yeah, yes. But apparently it's getting quite the moment banshees. They're hot now. They'll be thrilled. It's like, I mean, to be fair, the banshee of this year, more importantly, made mini-dunkies really popular. I'd imagine they'll be the most must have pet for the next year. Yeah, there's various things with banshees and stuff that I've always found fascinating and stuff. But I kind of, I like taking what's there and then finding a new different, weird way of doing something with it. Like, I can't remember the name from now, but there's great little sort of weird little small goblin characters, I think mainly based

around Scotland in mythology, and they're obsessed with music. I ended up doing a short story that's in the Strangetimes podcast where somebody's like going over the Pennines, which hails mountains between Manchester and Leeds, basically, and they get kidnapped by these guys, and they think they're Led Zeppelin because it's back in the 70s and they're Led Zeppelin's road crew. So they end up getting stolen by these guys thinking they're Led Zeppelin and they aren't. But that was like my way of doing a version of that story rather than somebody playing a flute, you know, having a battle with the devil or all that kind of stuff. Yeah, very cool. Cool. So yeah, with the podcast, sorry, sorry. So with the podcast, what made you want to decide to keep telling the short

stories from the universe via the podcast? Is it just there's so much that there's not always room for in the book? So yeah, it was just they kind of became a fun little thing where I think, because I've written a few crime short stories, but not honestly paranormal is just way better for short stories. Some genres fit them better, because paranormal can just kind of take one kind of mad idea and just do a story with it. And it just fits perfectly in that. So they're they're ended up being a lot of fun. I've done about God, I thought 15 or 16 of them probably now. And yeah, to us, it was in lockdown. The book was coming out. The first book 30 times came out, bang in the middle lockdown, where no bookstores were open, which was not the ideal way to launch a book,

but never mind. But around that, I sort of had, you know, couldn't do anything. So I started writing short stories, because I didn't want to write another novel that was in between that I sort of wrote a couple of these. And then I had the idea of getting them narrated by friends of mine from the comedy circus. And so they've I've got like, I mean, loads of different comedians have done them have been great. I mean, Jason Manfred did the Christmas special there a couple of years ago, or last year, which was one based on the blitz of Manchester back in World War Two, when there was a two day bombing thing, which is something I ended up doing a lot of research into because I find it fascinating. But yeah, so I ended up doing those. And it's just it's a fun

way to I just enjoy doing it. And it's kind of more me, it's not my publishers asked me to do might just do them. And I put them out as a podcast and then people who enjoy the books and stuff. I think it's great because it gives you when I really like the Rivers of London for another to use it as an example, again, I love like reading the books. And then there's also the graphic novels and stuff. And you can go and find more of the world and build it out. And I think particularly with like fantasy worlds in general, they become more interesting the more you find them. And as an author, like I've ended up building this mythology around loads of different things, just by writing short stories and those things end up becoming, you know, part of the whole thing.

And I just find it really rewarding. And it makes it makes writing the novels just a lot more fun when you have more stuff to draw on, I think. Have you found it challenging to actually going back to what we were talking about earlier, not accidentally referencing things that didn't go in the main novels? I do. I could have to be careful of it. I have had to in the second book, there's a there's a character called Stanley Roker, who sort of accidentally became I do this quite a lot where I write someone for one chapter to do achieve a goal. And then they end up joining the ensemble to the point where my books, you know, that scene in Muppets Take Manhattan, where they're all in the car driving along and there's loads of them and they're all my books

end up feeling like that. I'm not careful where I just keep picking people up. But because what happened with Stanley was did one chapter in the first book with him was for interest. And then I had an idea for a short story that he ended up working perfectly for send the brightness short story with him. And that became part of the mythology. And then the second book that sort of explained, and it's going to end up being an ongoing thing throughout the books. But yeah, so I had to be careful to recap it so that people didn't lose out. But the hope is then you can tell people go Oh, if you go back, you can hear the story properly of what happened and people can kind of enjoy that. Yeah, I've got to go back and listen to that one actually. But yes,

you did a good job not making it inexplicable in the book then. That's good. Yeah, I mean, it's always I mean, one of the most difficult things with this kind of book is to be honest, you have to recap and tell people what happened because I find this I would never do this. But some people do start reading the third book before they've read the other two. And so they're always getting notes and you're like, Can we explain what this is? And you're like, Oh, it's really because it's honestly, it's one of the hardest things to do as an author. And it's one of the things any author will tell you they hate doing. But trying to find an elegant way of explaining everything that happened previously, when you know most of the readers remember that and they're like, Yeah, we know

why we're doing this again. And yeah, but it's one of those things where you just have to find the right balance, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've always had a huge admiration for writes on TV shows who can do the perfect previously on to something like a whole season or something. I'm like, Wow, how did you pick those scenes? I would imagine they're not written by the writer or the guest. That's a very interesting, I'm not trying to find this out. My guess is there's an editor that puts that together probably as probably like the showrunner maybe does it and stuff. But yeah, because I've never, but yes, it would be, it's very, it's a very talented, the same way as I really want to be the person that comes up with the music for adverts for TV shows. I think that's

a cool job. And it's like, I mean, there's some great songs, but let's be clear, we've all heard the massive attack song, it's a wonderful song, because we stop using it. It's same as the cover of Running Up That Hill by Placebo that they use on every paranormal show. Now, it's incredible cover, but we should probably find a different song now, that's a bit of a break. And then in 20 years, you can bring it back and we'll be like, yeah. So this is, actually, I can tie it in, I can segue this. So the whole kind of explaining the mythology is going to be trickier as a series expands. And it's something that Terry Pratchett did to a greater or lesser extent, I think less as the books went on, he just kind of not gave up, but when you know what, it's fine,

there's a novel in its own right. How does it feel to be compared to Terry Pratchett on a regular basis? I mean, it's it's a weird because I mean, I am, I say I'm a massive fan of Terry Pratchett, I genuinely forgot this was here, this isn't, but this is the bus of Terry Pratchett, I bought myself as a little present for the limited edition one, when I completely be last book, because I just like having it. So yeah, look, I'm a massive fan of Terry Pratchett. But at the same time, while it's very flattering, people say that the books are very my books are set in a contemporary world. Obviously, the disc world is its own incredible creation. I mean, it's flat in the sense that I guess, when you put an element of comedy in a fantasy thing, I think it's

a go to thing that people sort of naturally associate with. And look, it's it's very flat. I think there's probably, honestly, if you're looking for comparisons, I think Ben Aranovic is probably closer just because they're both contemporary. But it's look, it's an all time greatest flattering thing he can say. But at the same time, as a Terry Pratchett fan, I know as a Terry Pratchett fan, I used to get annoyed and people did that, like journalists did that, comparing anybody to Terry Pratchett. And I'm aware that that occasionally now is me. And you know, I can see people get annoyed in the internet, I'm going, yeah, I mean, I didn't say it, I'm not saying it. But yeah, so it's, it's, I mean, but it's a great honor. In the same way,

it's like I was in Germany, because the books are doing well in Germany, which is lovely. But the odd thing is in Germany, they describe my books as British humor. Now, let me be very clear, I live in Britain, I have many, many British friends, this is not so weird, but there is a little part of me that goes, I think I'll find as Irish. But at the same time, when the Germans are saying that, what they're actually doing is my editors, my publishers going, well, it's just that that's Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are the two names that people use. And it's like, well, that's obviously the most flattering thing you could possibly say to anybody. So when I understand that, I kind of don't correct people anymore, and I just go, thank you very

much. That's very nice of you and all that. But it's, I mean, it's one of these things people do with the, it's the same way as they always, it's this meets this, that's always, you know, we've seen that a thousand million times. And it's, it's, it's not just journalists, it's how publishers have to sell stuff, it's how film studios sell things. And you kind of have to sort of deal with it. But just be aware, if anyone's here, getting annoyed by the comparison, I fully accept it and understand it. And I feel as annoyed as you are about it. But at the same time, I'm also a flatter boy. So there you go. It's got, it's a, I think more helpful, I'd say it is breeders of Pratchett may also enjoy. Yes, I believe that's transworld. Transworld, because transworlds are

Terry Pratchett's publishers, and I am with Transworld, and they're particularly aware that Pratchett fans can be a little bit touching at this, right? So they, they are always very careful how they, I mean, to be honest, because you know, they have quotes at the back, I probably didn't tell you this, but I will. And the hard back of the book, and they send you through the cover, and they're generally taking press quotes from like all the newspapers and people said nice stuff. But I did go through them and went, I wrote back and went, can we take like, I think there's two references to Terry Pratchett in there from quotes and various newspapers, and I went, that's after I went, could we take out this four? Could we take out two of them? Because that really

feels like that's being overegged. So they did take out the references to being that. And someone described it as horror, which it is not. I speak as someone who's way too scared to go and see a horror movie. I'm actually going to see a horror movie for when we record this next week, because, but that's only because my friend, Mark today, he was a fantastic fantasy author, he's on right, wrote a script called The Unwelcome. And in fact, I was a consultant on it, I said, I read it for him because it's based in Ireland, I was just giving him some tips on Irish stuff. And I'm thanked, apparently, in the end credits. So I'm going to go see myself be thanked. But even then, that's the only reason I'm going to a horror movie in the cinema is because my name's in the

title, my name's in the thing at the end. And I'm bringing my friend, Gary, who loves all things horror movies. And I'm like, we can finally go to see a horror movie together, because I'm willing to go to see my mate's film. But yeah, horror, it is not. Yes, no, I agreed. I'm also too scared to go and say, I'll read horror books a lot more willingly than I'll watch a horror movie. The music kills me, if that's what gets me. I can't even do that, to be honest. I remember reading Stephen King's, Oh, what's the one of the big famous Wool Murray's that they're on the hotel? Oh, The Shining. The Shining, thank you. A friend of mine got me that book as a present and said, you have to read this, it's brilliant. And I got to a point before they've even gone

to the hotel, his description of a child breaking her arm is that vivid that I just went, and it is, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's technically brilliant writing, absolutely fabulous. But I just go, that just stays in my head. And I go, oh, and then I was like, no, so when everyone got to the hotel, there's enough brilliant writing in the world to keep you happy without getting nightmares. I think that's fair. I mean, I love John Comley's stuff as well. And he's again, very dark, very vivid in times. And I have found myself trying to find ways of reading those books, not before I go to bed, because they stay in your head too much. But yeah, there are moments of perhaps not horror then, but certainly scary

bits in your books. Is there a balance you try and strike there? Is it just kind of naturally what you're comfortable with? Yeah, I think it sort of makes sense in certain things. And even like I'm starting writing the fourth one now, and there are going to be some elements of that. And I think you sort of have the elements of that because you needed for the story. But just thinking like Terry Pratchett did that. I mean, you know, his description of, is it going postal where they have this sort of vampire bat-crate creature that's in the the truth? No, wait, it is going postal. It is going postal. Yeah, there's sort of a Yeah, we don't give too much away. I think it's quite early, but there's a horrible sort of

thing in it. But the description of that is genuinely pretty scary. It's probably, I mean, this is a question you can ask your listeners, but I don't know what the scariest moment in a Terry Pratchett book was. I think that's probably, I'd say that's pretty close to it. But that's quite vivid. Yeah, we literally just covered the bit in Night Watch where he goes through the particulars headquarters, which is scary in a different way. Yes, that is genuinely quite affecting. But, you know, it needed to be, he wanted it to be because he wanted to make the point. Terry Pratchett didn't do any by accident, as we all know. But yeah, I agree. That's, but again, you, that's not horror. That's just an element in the story where it was important to

make the reader kind of stop and think and, you know, yeah. He does a few horror bits in Carpe Giaculum, but that's like very specifically trying to do the Gothic tropes. Yeah, yeah. It is kind of a very self aware, but that isn't it? Yeah, very true. So what's your kind of origin story with Terry Pratchett? I was thinking about this because yeah, it's interesting you should say that because I have a sneaking suspicion. This is going to be so odd, but there's a guy called Pascal Duda, who is currently the Irish Minister for Finance in the Irish government. And we were in school together, actually primary and secondary school. We were mates and I think he might have given me

my first Pratchett book to read, which is weird. It's kind of, it's because it's, yeah, he's, I haven't seen him for years, but yeah, we were just, and we were just like Christian Brothers State School. It wasn't like a, because the Irish government's just run by people that didn't have to go to private school. It's a bit of a different system. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. And this, I mean, this is getting off topic, but genuinely in the same week we had this, we're recording this, a senior British minister has had to pay 1.5 million in penalty of his tax. Pascal Duda, who in Ireland is under investigation, because some guys in a van put up some posters for him in his last election and didn't, he didn't fill out a form to say they were doing that.

And that's a serious investigation in Ireland. You just think, wow, something's happened where those two countries are now very different. So yeah, I think weirdly, I might have to give the credit to a politician. Yeah. Well, there we go. Do you remember which, which Pratchett book it was? Do you remember what the first one was you read? Oh, I think it would have been like the like fantastic or the color, which I always, the color of magic is the first one, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it would have been the first, it would have been the color of magic then, yeah. Cool. And was it kind of a love at first sight thing? Loved it, kept buying them straight away from there or came back to it? Yeah, I think I read a lot as probably like a lot of people in

sort of early twenties, they kind of probably moved away from reading and stuff for a while. But I think I was always getting Pratchett books when they were coming out. I think him and Chris Brookmeyer were the ones they always have like hardbacks and stuff off. So yeah, I think I kept it going pretty much. Yeah, for fairly constantly, I think, and I certainly may have missed a couple and caught up again. But yeah, they've been there throughout my whole life really. And what is it about them that that you like so much? Oh, God, how much time have we got now? Yeah, I'm struggling with a massive question. Yeah. I mean, look, the style of writing is

brilliant. I mean, he's, you know, he's often copied, never equals, let's be honest. There's even things like I did a little short story. There's actually in the Lovel Terrace apparel, the hardback, they had a little gap at the back of the hardback. And they said, have you got a really short story you want to put it? So there's one I wrote, which was basically me doing a little homage to Terry Pratchett. I use footnotes, basically. I've never done them before or since, but I put in footnotes. And it's quite cool when I saw it when the hardback came, it was like, they look proper footnotes. So just things like that. I think it's one of these things where

he's always just sort of, I've never met anyone who's read one Terry Pratchett book and didn't really like it and then gradually got it. It's one of these things I think that you either, it's like Douglas Adams, you either read it instantly, you go, this is my favorite thing ever, or it's not for you. And I think it's, you know, there's no point trying to convince people otherwise. But I love, you know, the humor in them and stuff. I think also his world view, genuinely how he's, there's great humanity in the books. And I think that's, that's really appealing. I think he's, there's the famous quote about him being in a Neil Gaiman saying that he's angry, and he definitely is. But at the same time, he's got the anger of someone who's

a true romantic who wants the world to be better and believes that people can be better than they are. And I think that was just, even just beyond the writing and stuff that informed, never mind me as a writer, as a person, I think, if you've read all the Terry Pratchett books, you don't, it changes your world view, it doesn't leave you untouched. And that's great writing that you can do that. Yeah. Is there any specific kind of part, part of your world view that you can kind of pinpoint as particularly Pratchett influenced? I mean, it's, I thought that's a tough question, because I mean, there's definitely, he deals with racism quite a lot in these books. And, you know, I've sort of dealt with that my own way and different things in my books. And I come from,

like, my, I come from a mixed race marriage and all that. So it's an important thing to me. And it's like, I've, I've actually, I think that's probably how he dealt with that. And he's, look, he found brilliant ways of doing it. And he's, he's also, he's not just gone the easy thing, he's, he's, he's explained people's fear of the unknown. He does that with the, particularly in, I think it's, what's the football one, the unseen academic, thank you, unseen academic, that's the one where there's the goblin. Am I right in thinking that? Yeah. And he deals with it probably particularly brilliantly there, where there's all these sort of ideas people have and these associations and stuff. And that fear of the other. And I think he did dealt brilliantly

with that, that people aren't, well, you know, they're defined as they get to define themselves. So I think that kind of thing, I think that was a big influence on me. It's not like before that I was going, yeah, racism, great. But the other way where it's, it just defines it more clearly in your head. Yeah. And I think that's the, the great thing Sir Mark could do was it gives you a more clearly defined view of your own opinion. It helps you define your own opinion. And I think that's a big thing that his books do for me. Definitely. And I mean, it would be hard for them not to, but do they influence your work and maybe noticeable ways to you? Yeah, I mean, I don't even know, it's, it's, they're so, you know, there, I've read them so

many times, I've listened to the audiobook so many times that you always, when I write a particularly good line, you genuinely look up and go, I've not taken that from a Terry Press book, right? And like, you genuinely, as far as I'm aware, I never have, but you do still read stuff and go, because it's also as a standard comedian when you, that's a big thing. When you write something, you have to be very careful to go, am I, this feels like if something turns up and it feels too good to be true, like that line just sort of hits and it's perfect. You go, no, that feels a bit too over and ready. Have I heard that and forgotten or because a friend of mine is a guy called Gary Delaney, who's a brilliant one-liner comic, one of the best in the world, literally.

And he gets ripped off all the time, but, but he has that where he's been a housemate and he, he spends ages looking at jokes, going, you haven't heard that or else have you? I was like, no, I'm, you know, and he's, he's gotten on psychopedic knowledge because he needs that. So, I mean, I'm sure it's had massive effects. Him, Christopher Bookmire as well, I'd say, will also have a huge effect on my writing, but I think it happens in just different ways. I think it's just in, it's in your, how your brain works. It's not like you're consciously trying to ape anything, but when you've read all those things, whether part of your thing, when you've listened to them over and over again, some part of your brain doesn't even realise has been learning from

them. And so inevitably it comes out when you're on writing. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have, and we understand this can change at any time and is only your answer now, but do you have a favourite or a top five of your discord books? I think I'm very legal. Oh God, yeah. No, I actually wrote a thing, I think, for the Terry Pratchett, one of the, the Terry Pratchett websites or something like that. And it was, I remember spending ages on this question. And even then I was like, I checked it just before I came on. It was like, oh, I don't even agree with that. I think Nightwatch definitely is there. The truth, bear in mind that I've now written books written in a newspaper. The truth, I think, really, again, was probably the beginning was directly on that. And there's, I know what I

did to think, controversially, I had none of the witches books in my top five. And I was, yeah, which it's, I can't be wrong. I'm, I'm outraged by that. I think the reason for that now, looking back at it, I think, is I love Angkor Pork specifically so much. I think the city is such a magnificent creation that all the books I picked were the ones that were set in that world. Yeah. Having said that, I've been listening to Lords and Ladies recently, and I love like the new audio version, which I love. And that's been great to the point where I'm thinking, oh, maybe my top five would change again. And I need to start listening to rereading the witches books. But I was a big fan of Go and Postal. Yeah, I think Unseen Academicals, frankly, I've seen people slag it off

relative to the other books and stuff. I think it stands up very well. And I think there is a lot of good stuff in that. And I think it also has the crab bucket thing, which is the crab bucket. I think that's in Unseen Academicals. Yeah. That and the, I think Men at Arms has the, the thing that's been all over the internet, the Boots theory, you know, the economic Boots theory of economics. Yes. Yes. Which has become, had a big thing because it was re-quoted again this year in Britain. Again, like if I had to pick, because those are such extraordinary great pieces of writing, I probably, that's what would nudge maybe some of the books in my top five, because I enjoyed them all. I mean, let's be clear, like it's not a bad one

amongst them. But yeah, but as I say, ask me tomorrow, I'll get a whole other bunch of books. And like within the, it doesn't always match up exactly, actually. Do you have like a favorite character or one that you particularly? Oh, I mean, I think Sam Vine's probably, given I've written crime books and stuff, and here that's the closest project comes to crime, I think just because his progression throughout the books is fascinating. That's what night does make Nightwatch so brilliant, where he's an older guy who's kind of thinks his life's got comfortable, then he ends up going back and meeting himself in his younger life. I think that book is amazing, because there's so much in Nightwatch that you probably, like if you're 12 reading Nightwatch,

it's one book, if you're in your mid 20s, there's another book, if you're in your 30s and 40s, it's a very different book experience. And that's a truly great piece of writing where it means something different to different people, all of which are very valid, but it depends where you are in your life, because it talks, you know, it makes incredible points about the whole of life. So I think Sam Vine's probably just because of his arc is so great is my favorite. We've just finished our coverage of Nightwatch, and we will have done by the time this comes out. Oh, no timelines. But how did it feel reading that for the first time? Do you recall? Oh, I don't know the first time. I remember it was, I think like, again, I know we're trying to

avoid spoilers. I mean, there's so many great things about it. I think my favorite thing about is the, I mean, Pratchett books have this thing where by the nature of the genre and stuff, they have more or less happy endings, not, you know, we can vary. I'm sure if we all told about there's probably different variations of it. But they generally, but I think the great thing was of all of the Pratchett book, look, you go on them for the journey, you don't go for the destination. And I frankly, I'm not interested in books, I always find in the crime books where the twist you'll never see coming, the twistiest twists and twists, that tagline, that tells me I don't want that book, because that's just someone's come up with an implausible twist. It's the journey that

I think people enjoy in books. And certainly I do. But having said that, Nightwatch, I can remember of all the Pratchett books, the ending being the most tense for various, because like, there's basically the back in time version of the story that has an ending, but then when they go back, there is the shock bit at the end. So I think that's one of the reasons I'd make it my very favorite, as well as all the stuff it says about the sort of aging process and where people are in their lives. And his analysis of revolution, I think, is incredible as well. So yeah. Do you think it kind of deserves its status as the best, status as the best disweld novel as a fan status, I suppose? Yeah, I mean, if that's, I was able to find it. Yeah, I can certainly see

it. If you have, I mean, if you put it going to my head, and I had to pick one, I guess I would pick that. But it's, I mean, that's the thing, that's the thing that makes Pratchett great is it's not like he had one great novel. There's, you can spend hours going over this, you'll have a, all you'll get is a longer, longer list. Yeah. Yeah, just as well, we would not have a podcast. Very simple, just go with it, correct? Yeah, no. It's very nice to write 40 odd books for us. Very helpful. And then if you could like pick one to read again for the first time, then would it be, now what would it be a different one? Oh, I mean, I'm tempted to say not watch

just because it is my very favorite. I know, because I think I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but when I do this thing, every time I'm feeling ill, I basically go to bed and read a Terry Pratchett book. That's what I'm saying. I'm always constantly reading one at some level. I think what actually I'll say is as a slight weird, because I love the audiobooks as well. And I had, I kind of went through all of them because being a standup comic is basically driving. It's like hours upon hours, thousands of miles of driving. And I got all the audiobooks and I was basically getting them every month on Audible and stuff. So I'm actually now, even though I don't do the driving anymore, I'm really looking forward to, I'm looking forward to hearing the new version

of the Night Watch audiobook, which I don't believe is out yet. Last time I checked. Time recording. Now, that's that's a very high standard to me because I love the onwards and stuff. But I guess I'm most looking forward to hearing that audiobook again. So I guess that would be what I'd most like to reread. That's cool. Did you ever get a chance to meet Terry Pratchett or go to any of the cons or really engage in the fandom side of the Discworld? No, I never did. And it's a great regret because I was thinking, I felt made to mind you've, like Mark Stay, I'm sure has met him, I think twice, I think. But yeah, no, I was never, I never did any of that kind of stuff. And in hindsight, I really wish I had. But no, never

got the chance. That's cool. It's kind of fandom culture, something you've been into as a it's a whole thing. I mean, I think Terry Pratchett is some of the better fans because there is, I also play like, I've started this year playing desktop basically because I know hobbies because I gave up standard comedy. And that's when you're my social life came with that. So I was literally, I'm sitting in my office and I got back out and as my wife went, you know, you need to find a reason to leave the house that doesn't involve walking a dog. At some point, you're going to have to do what normal beings do. So I've started, I've always wanted to play like desktop gaming and wargaming stuff. And I started, but it's interesting there where there's, there's different

fan things. And there are some areas that shall we say are a little bit toxic. So I always think the Terry Pratchett fans are generally great in that regard. I know there's been, oh, there was the, I mean, there was the TV series that was the one that was, they had to ban all mention of it from certain groups because they were sick of them. Yeah, bring out the worst in some people. Yeah. And that's, I mean, I do think some of that when people talk about the TV things and stuff, just as someone who's worked in that area to a certain extent, I think we all have to realize that it's a very different medium. And it has different needs and it has different ways of telling a story. And of course, it's never going to have the depth of a book. In the same ways,

Douglas Adams fans, a lot of them get very, I just watched that recently, a lot of them getting very upset about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film. Personally, I really enjoyed it. Is it as good as the radio series in particular, which is my favorite version of it? No, but that doesn't mean you have to enjoy it as a thing in its own right. I know people who've watched the watch and enjoyed it. I mean, I didn't manage that, but I can respect people who did. We decided to bail on our plans to go through it and like analyze it episode by episode as we do with a lot of the TV stuff, like for Good Omens we did. And yes, I played with our audience to let me off the hook for the watch. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. I mean, Good Omens was fantastic.

I love that. And I think it'd be, I mean, that was the thing that I think that's probably got people quite excited again now is now they've done Good Omens and done it well. People are going, oh, there's all this other Terry Pratchett stuff. It can be done. I remember they tried to, Guy Richie tried to make King Arthur into a big, it was supposed to be like loads of different films. And they made one and it flopped. Oh, yeah. But I remember watching it and there was all these just shots of these massive, sprawling cities. And I can remember watching it with my wife going, say, you could, you could, that could be Angmore pork. They could do it. They could just, you know, and it's like, you know, I mean, why not? But it's, I mean, reading the book is fascinating

with their talk with their various different TV things with Terry Pratchett and how it went for years and they never got it done. And then I ended up coming in the last minute and stuff. But again, that's the big thing with that's the way people ask me about TV stuff. And I kind of, people are always surprised when I go, yeah, well, you never know. It's because it's one of these things. There is no advantage to you as a writer in getting invest in the idea of your work going on TV because there are literally thousands of people involved. There's so many ways it can go wrong. And that's either won't get made or get made badly or all these things that you should just control what you do. And what I do is write books. And I love doing that. So that's what I

focus my energies on, I think. Do you think your background in TV kind of at least got you, you managed to fast track through that first bit of frustration, perhaps that Pratchett wrote? Yeah, I think just, I kind of, I knew because I had, I had sitcoms, things that we thought were getting commissioned and got nowhere and, you know, things that went horribly wrong were to nothing that I did. To be honest, the reason I started writing books is in hindsight, I didn't think at the time, but I was basically punched drunk where another thing had gone down. A production company apologized because they messed it up so badly, the pitch where they got someone to rewrite the

pitch and they made a comedy thing sound like a drama. And then literally they got the feedback from three broadcasters, which all said, Oh, this is not a, we want, we were hoping for a comedy. And it's like, I spent a year writing a script and none of these commissioners read the script because they messed up the pitch that badly. And like, literally, we know that for a fact. And like to the point where a producer said, I'm so sorry, we should not have done this, we should have listened to you. But yeah, you could. So I ended up kind of, that was the classic TV thing where it didn't, you know, it wasn't working out. So I guess that's why now my joy of writing books is my books are coming out, you know, people literally

can't stop them coming out. You know, if for any reason, trans were a pain when I've got a greatest relationship with, if they decided to stop publishing the strange times books, they can't stop me doing it. And, you know, luckily, that's not on the cards, thankfully. But yeah, and I, it's a great thing when it comes down to my office and sit down and think, whatever I'm doing today, it's, it's leading up to something. It's not something that could end up going nowhere. And it's honestly, for your own mental health as a writer, there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah, for sure. With the, um, oh, sorry, circling back briefly to the whole like fandom thing, I guess, have

you experienced that from the author side of things? Have you been, have you had, you know, fan mail, people dressing up as characters and stuff? Yeah. Yeah, we've had, yeah, we've had some lovely, I mean, we get, um, it's kind of a unique thing with our thing is you can email us and why we get like 10 or 12 emails a day. And my wife is generally deals, deals with the machine sort of chatting to people and stuff. And we people come in and ask questions and stuff. So we have amazing fans. It's great because we have like a, I send out a monthly newsletter, um, to people who want to sign up for it and stuff. And we encourage people to write back and stuff because, um, it's a lot of generally, and generally people are, are lovely. I mean, it's, it's honestly,

like you sort of, they, they, it's, I tried to explain this to somebody, we'll go, I wouldn't like to send out a newsletter. It's bothering people and you go, now people sign up because they're a fan of your work and they want to hear from you because people, like, if you really enjoy something, you want to be immersed in it. So like, if I do a podcast with new short stories, people that are really into it, love that. Um, and they kind of email us and tell us what they enjoy and stuff. So generally it's been great. I mean, you get the occasional lunatic. Um, I've got somebody writing to me about, I was before the strange times book came out, but I got someone writing to me going, um, I have stopped following any authors who use

foul language in their books or promote witchcraft. And I was like, oh, I wish you'd waited six months till the strange times came out. And I definitely would have had both. Um, but yeah, but you, I mean, generally you get a little bit of crazy, but it's so completely outweighed by, I mean, I've got friends who are well-known stand-up comedians and stuff like that. And again, their fans are generally okay, but they can get a bit overwhelmed where you can't go out and, you know, you've got people coming up to you and generally you never get that as an author. They're genuinely lovely. We went to Germany, we had a guy turned up with a box full of everything we've ever written that had been published in English or German. And he was lovely. And he was just,

just a really nice, charming fella. And he's, you know, and we send his emails, we're always chatting to him. And it was a couple of other people like that. And it's really cool to go to Germany and meet people who've like been a big fan of your work. And you're like, wow, this is amazing. This is great fun. And if you don't enjoy that, you know, there's something dead inside you. So generally, it's been absolutely lovely. And it's why I love doing the live events and stuff, because it's great to see people coming out and, you know, saying how much they enjoy stuff. That's wonderful. Yeah, that's great. Would you say that, aside from Terry Pratt to them, are there any other big like fantasy or genre speculative fiction kind of stuff that's been a big influence on you or

that you're just a massive fan of? I mean, the Douglas Adams, certainly the Hitchhiker's guide, I think I've read and listened to every different version of that at this point. But probably the radio thing is my favorite. Because again, I was listening to them in the car and stuff. So I listened to them again, they're always bringing out new deluxe versions every few years. So I guess that kind of stuff. I mean, the Lord of the Rings, everybody reads it in the fantasy when they were teenagers and stuff. I remember doing that. I can remember being convinced I needed to finish the Lord of the Rings before the Irish version of the A-Levels is the leaving cert. And I remember being convinced that I had to finish it before my results came

out. So I ended up staying up at five o'clock in the morning. You know that way, you just put something in your head and go, I'll finish this by then and then everything will be fine. Yeah. And there's no correlation between the two of them. So yeah, I did that with the Lord of the Rings and yeah, a few different things. But you know, it's weird, my wife was like, bought me a couple of Star Wars presents. And I was like, eventually, you know, I'm not really that into Star Wars, but you've seen all the films that you watch every TV show and I'm like, yeah, but that doesn't mean them. It's just because if you're a fan of fantasy, you sort of do watch those things. That doesn't necessarily mean they're the biggest thing in the world here. I still have a Darth Vader helmet

that I'm not putting on with a voice synthesizer. I've got a big head. It's one of those things that straps around your head. I'm not putting that on. It's terrifying. I don't want to be trapped inside this thing. Yeah, that's not the moment of uncertainty you want in your life. No. We've had it in our garage since we've moved into this house and we're moving house again in a few weeks time and it's still going to move to the next house list and I've never put it on the head. We keep trying to find someone to give it to and nobody wants it. Incredible. So coming up then, apart from Stranger Times series, are you working on anything else at the moment? Is there anything else you'd like to plug? Well, this is my buddy,

McGarry Books, this is Queen MacDonald. There's 14, 13, whatever, 16 minus 3. Yeah, 13. There's all those which people are always, it's quite nice that people have enjoyed the Stranger Times and come across and vice versa, where it's quite nice that you get people go, I don't really read crime, but because I like the Stranger Times, I'll go read them and then we've had lots of people go the other way where I wouldn't read Angler Warewolves in it normally, but seen as I like your books, I've given it a shot and enjoyed it. So yeah, that kind of stuff. We've got the live events coming up where just check Waterstones on the CK MacDonald and I'm doing, depending on when this comes out, we're doing the Ben Aranovich thing in London, which is

going to be amazing, but that's solved out unfortunately, probably because Ben's involved. I think that's, let's be honest. And then I'm doing a launch date. I'm doing one in Manchester and then there's one in Liverpool and Leeds. You can find all the details of all of them on the Waterstones website there. Cool. Excellent. And your podcast, you've got more than one podcast, right? We've got the Stranger Times podcast and we've got the Bunnycast. Yes. Is that still, I've got a couple of episodes downloaded, but I didn't check when the latest one was. Basically, what I do with the Stranger Times podcast is around the launch of the books, which are usually January, February. I do a sort of, I'm on season three now,

so we're doing a few more of them. So there's three new stories and a couple of recaps and a couple of previews and stuff. So yeah, there's loads of them there and people are kind of always finding them, which is great. It's the great thing about podcasts, you know, yourself, especially when they're not topical, people can go back and find you talking about whatever book and find short stories. So I'm really glad of them. Do check them out because some really good people do a narration. People who haven't done narration before are just coming in and doing an amazing job on it, which is just so cool. It's a lot of fun. And yes, we do them. The Bunnycast is more of a casual. It's more of a, it's how I let people know that the latest audiobooks are coming out,

most of the time sort of things. So it's very sporadic, but there's still about 40 episodes, but now I think. But the Stranger Times is a little bit more structured where we generally do it in January and February, and then there'll probably be a special in October when the paperback comes out. Cool. We did ask, do you have any kind of obscure reference for us? As in something I found out was in my research, my favorite research fact I will tell you about Manchester is there is a massive cavern right under the centre of Manchester that I believe you could fit a cathedral in. It's something to do, it existed when boats used to go under Manchester because like a lot of cities like London and Dublin, there's a lot of canals

that have been built over and stuff, but this was actually, there are canals that went in, always went in under Manchester when they were delivering stuff by like lots of, you know, back in the commercial days. And there was this massive area that's not used for anything now that you used to be able to go in and see, but it got bought out by a company a few years ago, and now it's just there. There's this massive cavern under Manchester, and nobody knows what it's being used for, if it's been used for anything, which is actually something that kind of inspired some stuff in the Stranger Times universe. That and the random fact my wife found out yesterday, which is that the Aldi in the Trafford Centre is the, no, the Aldi in the Arndale shopping centre

is the busiest in the world. It sounds like, oh my god, amazing. She was literally just standing there at my niece's, oh god, it's so busy. And this security guard, who obviously made his day, but being able to tell somebody came up and went, I think I'll find it's the busiest in the world, like have that proof, that's the physical proof. And like, and then came back to my wife and told me that is like, I don't know where I'll use that, but I'll try and find some way to stick it in somewhere. That's great. Oh, that's my fate. That's much better than some of the blind research techniques. If I can like somehow get people to come up and tell me trivia. Yeah. And even if it's not real, I don't read it. I was like, I was saying this to somebody recently that I think

there's a podcast that I did, but Desert Ardent Dicks and others use that. That's the podcast. It's all about the worst people in the world. And one of the things was my big things was people who don't understand how stories work. Like they'll ask you, is that true? And you go, did you enjoy the story? Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's true or not. I'm not asking you to vote for me. Just enjoy the story. But so I'm quite flexible with, I don't mind if facts are true, as long as facts are interesting, then I'm a bit, you know, as long as it's in the world of fiction, generate, then I'm fine with facts being a little bit fictiony, as long as it's not, you know, important stuff in the real world. Yeah. As one of the nice bits in Rob's book is the many,

many mentions of these facts are too good to check. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, you don't need things to be truthful for certain areas. Yeah. That's similarly to kind of the point behind the Stranger Times, the 14 times, isn't it? It's the point is that this is a story. Yeah. Whether it's fact or not is an interesting thing in its own right, but that doesn't take away from what the story is, and that's the important thing. Do you have a favorite method of like doing all this research and finding out cool folklore and, and Manchester history and? I'm sort of, because I always feel guilty, but again, I've quoted him like five times, because I'm doing the thing a couple weeks with Ben Oranovich, because he's always doing very detailed research. I can be following myself

to me. He's always got very detailed questions. And I'm like, let's look at it and go, God, I just make it up. Like I have a couple, I mean, I sort of wander around Manchester, something that I really want to do actually that I might do in October, because I thought it'd be really fun to do. And I forgot to do it this time, to be honest, is I had the idea of, I'm just going to go into Manchester for the day, wander around and take pictures of various different things. And the whole idea is I'll have a zoom that night with like fans of the books and go, right, I'm going to write a short story based on something I've seen today. And then I'll start showing people's stuff and see what they think is interesting. But yeah, like, because I've sort of come up with

short story ideas based on random little things, just from walking around Manchester. So it's less research. And it's more just sort of wandering around and finding something interesting. Like you do see, I think I referenced it in a short story in the new series. And you will see in Manchester randomly, occasionally just blokes randomly dancing on street corners that look like they went to the Hacienda back in the 1990s and never came home. And it's kind of part of the culture here with various different things. And like things like this, there's a guy who goes around Manchester with a boombox, like an old school boombox on the in the strapped to the back of his bike. And he's just cycling along Oxford Road, it's the big road in Manchester. And you

hear him coming. And like it's so loud, music's distorted and stuff. But he just drives around with this thing on all the time. And he's just part of Manchester thing that you go, Oh, yeah, it's the boombox guy going. And it's sort of I've never. Yeah, but I'm funny, we could use that in a story story quickly, my very favorite thing Manchester experience. This is again, not really research, but I passed it when I was given bloated a couple of days ago. So I remembered it. There's a thing at the end of the very first strange of times book, but I've given an angle away, because this isn't course of the plot. But they're literally two of them sitting in a car and a bloke in a one of those hospital gowns with the thing thing open at the back runs out and is running

by my editor said, that's what can we take that out? I was like, no, I want to leave it is because it actually happened to me. I was like, okay, he came running by in a hospital gown trying to flag down somebody to stop form with these are like backside hanging out with the back of this thing. And it clearly was basically there was a policeman somewhere that should have been keeping an item. He was in hospital. He'd taken his chance and done a runner. And what was great about it just it was wouldn't be Mancunin the way that he was also running down. And also there's a whole line of traffic and nobody was honking there. Nobody was gonna like double him in. We're all just sitting there watching him going, go on fella. I mean, I'm not picking you up, but away you go. Good luck to

you. Exactly. I'm so happy to find out that's based on a true story. Yeah. I forgot all about it till literally last week. Yeah, that's really true. Yeah. I love that. Okay. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you think we ought to cover? Nope, I think that's what you'd like to talk about. Okay. I think we've covered everything. I think thank you very much. You've let me ramble on. No, we've enjoyed it very much. Where can people follow you for further ramblings? Oh, people want to find out about me. They can go to this whitehead Irishman.com, which is my general website, which covers all the books. There's also the strangertimes.com, which is more for the Stranger Times books. And you can see some of the articles and stuff there

as well. Or you can find me on the social media, on Twitter, on the Only Quieve. And if you can spell Quieve, I mean, if you can, it's kind of like a, it's an impressive test if you can figure out how it spells without being shown it. We'll put it in the show notes, but try it yourself first. Yeah, I mean, gentlemen, you can have a very fun game of Hagman with yourself, you try and spell it without saying it, and then realise that you can actually manage to, because the phonetic spelling of my name features none of the letters that are in my name. But yeah, but generally the Stranger Times website and stuff is, and the whitehead Irishman.com is probably the best place to find me yet. Cool, good stuff. Excellent.

And dear listeners, of course, you can find us in all the usual places on Instagram, at the true show, makeyfret, on Twitter, at makeyfretpod, on Facebook, at the true show, makeyfret, and our subreddit community, r slash t t s m y f. I can normally do it in one breath. And email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, and albatrosses, the true show, makeyfretpod, at gmail.com. Until next time, dear listener. Do not let us detain you. I said, I got it right. That was right, wasn't it?