Top Ten TV Shows 2016! (Up now on the MFV website!)

Hello universe!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and other such exclamations. Usually around now, I post my Top Ten TV Shows of the year gone by, but since the Moderate Fantasy Violence podcast is now my main outlet for the pop culture chat, it's up on that blog instead.

Still, hopefully that won't discourage you from clicking here and having a look at what I liked (and in what order) in the year gone by!

And if you want even more year-in-review type action from me, we also did a full-on 2016 talk-down podcast episode where we met up in person for the first time in MFV history and chatted about our favourite films, television and other recommended stuff from the year.

And that's all this year's recaps! See you in 2017, when I imagine I'll do a fuller blog post about the fact you can now buy this comic anthology I contributed to on Comixology.

Moderate Fantasy Violence #10 - Orphan Is The New Black

Hello! My podcast Moderate Fantasy Violence has reached double digits and here is that tenth episode. It is another good one, I think - particularly pleased with the Outcast discussion - and I hope you like it and tell your friends. You can download the MP3 directly here.

Today, of course, is also the "Brexit" referendum in the UK, in which we decide whether to leave the EU. That is not mentioned in the podcast at all, as we didn't feel it really fitted in, but do make sure you vote if eligible. I personally am voting remain, because no-one has convinced me there's a good reason to leave or a strong plan for what happens if we do that, and broadly I feel we're better off more connected to the rest of the world, not less. But you do you.

Anyway, Enough politics. Here is the episode description and website player for MFV #10. Enjoy! (And if you do enjoy, consider reviewing us on iTunes or something, it helps.)

We hit double figures, and taking the zero in the number far too seriously, cover three different TV series beginning with O. But first, Nick rates his superhero shows and Alastair has loftier viewing tastes.

And then down to business: Netflix's Orange Is The New Black begins its fourth year behind bars (4:18), new possession horror show Outcast reaches out for us (21:26) and we look back at Orphan Black's penultimate season of clone chaos (38:27). Then end up running a death bet.

Finally, Alastair recommended Richard Linklater's Philip K. Dick adaptation A Scanner Darkly to Nick last week - is he okay with its heady mix of animation and drugs? (55:35)

Moderate Fantasy Violence #9 – Prisoner Of Warcraft

New podcast episode! And I think one of our best ones yet, despite it being beset with minor technical issues during the recording. You can see the episode on the dedicated MFV website here, or below lurks the description, including download link and a nice embedded player..

Episode nine, we're doing fine! Or are we? After a brief opening chat about iZombie and the recent Captain America controversy, we plunge comics newcomer Alastair into the swirling heart of the latest DC superhero relaunch with the DC Rebirth and Batman: Rebirth specials (5:09), stare in fantastical bafflement at video game orc movie Warcraft (25:14) and develop crushes on Matt LeBlanc while covering the BBC's Top Gear revamp (38:17).

Then our recommendations feature (51:48) goes on a bit longer than usual as we're covering one of Nick's favourite superhero comics ever: Black Panther (1998) #1-5 by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira.

As ever, we spoil all our topics pretty egregiously. Use the timestamps to avoid any you're sensitive about. Also, we suffered a few technical sound problems while recording it, but hopefully Nick has edited the bulk of them into oblivion. Get the mp3 download here! And if you want to leave us a review on iTunes, we'd like that a lot.

Oh, and if you want to hear us talk more about the promotion and purpose of DC Rebirth, we did that a bit back here in MFV #2.

Moderate Fantasy Violence #8 - A Wave Of Your Massive Blue Smurf Hand

I'm going on holiday very shortly so can't spend too long endlessly talking about myself on the internet, but the eighth episode of my pop culture talky podcast with my friend Alastair is up now and you can see more info on the podcast website, or I'll paste the description and an audio player in below.

Or if you want to just cut to the chase, download the file here!

Right, I'm off to York. Probably some pictures on Twitter or Instagram or something if you like that sort of thing.

It's our eighth episode, the fourth to feature a major superhero movie! But at least there isn't another one until Suicide Squad in August! We start with X-Men: Apocalypse (3:22), then move on to cape-free TV comic adaptation Preacher (23:34). After all that, we finally watch an all-original film, namely horror-thriller Green Room starring Patrick Stewart as a Nazi (43:21).

And then we leave the realm of narrative entirely for our recommendation feature, as Alastair suggests the Cammell Laird Social Club album by irreverent post-punk band Half Man Half Biscuit (53:27).

Spoilers abound, especially for the X-Men movie. Beware! And if you enjoy the show, do review us on iTunes or tell your friends!

Moderate Fantasy Violence #6 - Black Panther's Trailing Entrails

It's been just over two weeks and that must mean it's podcast time! And also time to mark my failure to do a real blog! Sorry - although Hobson & Choi v4 is now off with the external editor, so some form of contentful blogging on here will probably have to happen.

In the meantime, full details about MFV #6 over at the dedicated podcast website, but we're talking in full about Civil War, the return of Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul season 2 and Blue Velvet, plus a brief exchange about the new Doctor Who companion. Wow.

There should also be a short bonus episode going up (in two chunks) during the coming week talking about the Civil War ending and implications of same, with full spoilers. If that floats your boat.

You can download the episode here, or you can go here to get it for your iTunes. Last but not least, here is some kind of in-line audio player...

Moderate Fantasy Violence #5 - The Man Who Laughs At Goats

Latest episode of my new pop culture podcast is up, and the title absolutely refers to me! (Yes, I pick the titles, so really it's surprising that this has taken a full five epiodes.)

Not done any blogs since the last one, surprisingly, but you can listen to some bonus MFV clips here if you like.

So, here's the podcast blurb:

Five episodes in and Nick and Alastair are spanning mediums like a common HTML tag refusing to accept the results of his psychic reading.

So we’re taking in recent hit horror movie The Witch (plus Alastair’s problems with recent horror and Nick’s amusement at livestock), the second season of mega-podcast Serial (plus the natural excitement of murder and the dangers of doorstepping) and the BAFTA-winning video game Her Story (plus the fun of fragmented narratives and the truth about human nature).

BEWARE: plot spoilers in both The Witch and Her Story sections, though we flag the major ones shortly beforehand.

Lastly, Nick recommended Alastair two Punisher books by Garth Ennis last episode –Punisher: Born and Punisher: From First To Last. This fortnight, we find out whether roaming the streets gunning down criminals is his sort of thing. Oh, and stick around after that for some hot info about MFV #6.

In short, another great episode. As ever, you can download the show directly, you can subscribe on iTunes or you can listen in the embedded player below.

Moderate Fantasy Violence #4 - Having Your Kids And Eating Them

Unusually, I kept to my goal of writing a whole blog post between this podcast episode and the last one! It was a thirty-second birthday post and you can go read it if you haven't already!

Fortunate really, as I don't have time to write much now. The fourth episode of MFV is up, you can see more details on the all-new official podcast website! Or I'll paste the blurb and an embed player below too.

After last week's superhero-free effort, it's time for the opposite! Nick and Alastair have seen Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and one of them disliked it more than the other! Find out which is which (plus the repeated futility of Doomsday and what Nick has in common with Wonder Woman), then witness our discussion of Daredevil season 2 (plus the weakness of the Kingpin and exactly when it's time for the plebs).

We finally move away from capes in our climactic recommendation section, with Nick watching Ari Folman's sad animated documentary Waltz With Bashir at Alastair's behest. But don't worry, superpeople might make a last-minute comeback.

Thirty-Second Birthday V Hobson & Choi 4: Dawn of Moderate Fantasy Violence

Hello!

Since I keep saying I should do a blog here without a podcast attached, I thought I'd slide a quick one out today - because it is my thirty-second birthday! And I always seem to blog on this day, for whatever reason. I've got to go out for my celebratory activity quite soon - more on that later - but here is some stuff. It's been a while since the last substantial Hobson & Choi update, so let's start there...

H&C4 - Coming To The Airwaves!

Yes, I have a complete not-shit draft of Hobson & Choi Case Four! Almost time to send it to the external editor, get some informed feedback and then take a big swing to try and make it publication-ready.

First, however, I have to read the whole text out loud to myself. I inflict this upon all my fiction-prose work before releasing it to an external audience, because I find it really helps with the flow of the writing. However, it is boring as shit, and no amount of knowledge that it's useful seems to change that.

I did a whole blog post on this task a while back if you're interested in more, but the current-upshot is: H&C4 is coming along, it should be with you... if I had to guess, I'd say around the third quarter of 2016. I am hopeful that it won't slip into the fourth, but no promises.

Weirdly, looking back on my thirty-first birthday post, this is almost exactly where I was with H&C3 at the same time last year. However, I'm hoping it won't take until October to get this one out, as I don't have the distraction of moving across London this time.

So anyway, it's coming soon. If you want to check out any of the first three, you should absolutely do that. The first case remains free on digital. All links and info on the main H&C page.

Moderate Fantasy Violence website and the Birthday Activity

My pop-culture-chat podcast Moderate Fantasy Violence, the focus of every other post on this blog so far in 2016, continues apace. For my birthday activity, we're going to see the widely-criticised film Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Then we'll record our fourth episode tomorrow and see if we can add anything to the critical conversation.

Yes, the film's reviews are bad, but it sounds like it might be an Interesting Failure, and those are absolute catnip to story-talky-people like myself, so I'm still excited.

In other MFV news, we now have a proper separate website at ModerateFantasyViolence.com where you can see and listen to all the podcast stuff so far. Kudos to my co-host Alastair JR Ball for doing most of the hard work setting that up, it looks great. I'll continue posting here when a new ep comes out, but the new site is now the main hub. As well as the main episodes that I've been posting here, you can hear some deleted tangent-conversations that were cut to get the shows under an hour. Check that out, and if you fancy subscribing to or reviewing us on iTunes, even better.

So how are you in yourself, Nick?

Alright?

Kinda struggling to get another writing project going thanks to ideas not quite coming together or seeming as beautiful on the page as they do in my head. Once H&C4 is off to an editor, I'm going to take another swing at that. I think I've probably become a bit complacent thanks to spending so long working almost exclusively on Hobson & Choi, which is a world I love, know and can write easily. Maybe a short story or something to make it less intimidating?

And outside that, the new flat in Lewisham seems to be working out, realising my long-held dream of doing a podcast is a lot of fun and I don't even mind turning 32 because it seems a lot like 31. So cool. Good work. See you back here next year, I suppose?

(I will attempt to blog at some stage before my thirty-third birthday.)

Moderate Fantasy Violence #3 - Alastair Isn't Dead

So, that blog post to break up the podcast episodes still hasn't happened, but at least I'm getting work done on Hobson & Choi Case Four.

For now, though, here's the third pod, as myself and Alastair try to do one without superheroes. If you miss them, don't worry, the next episode will likely cover Batman V Superman and Daredevil.

As ever, subscribe on iTunes here, download the file here or listen on the Soudcloud player just below this official blurb...

It's time for a no-superheroes episode! Eschewing all cultural trends, Nick and Alastair take a look at social satire movie High Rise (plus the difficulty of adapting books and vertical living returning to London), new podcast Alice Isn't Dead (plus methods of audio advertising and whether this very show has a secret purpose) and the latest Coen brothers comedy Hail, Ceasar! (plus the life and death of old movie genres).

Lastly, in our stubbornly unnamed recommendations feature, Alastair reads his first comic in years: The Manhattan Projects by Jonathan Hickman & Nick Pitarra. Is this the beginning of a deep love for graphic storytelling as a medium? Or is it... The End?

Moderate Fantasy Violence #2 - Better Call Bob Messiah

Hello!

The second episode of Moderate Fantasy Violence, my new geek-stuff podcast with Alastair JR Ball, is upon you. I did kinda mean to do an actual blog post in the intervening fortnight so this blog doesn't just end up being a long string of podcasts, but there you go. You can hear the podcast in the embedded player below, or subscribe on iTunes or just right click here and download the MP3 file.

And what's in it? Well:

In a not-that-difficult second episode, Nick and Alastair look at the return of Better Call Saul (plus Gotham's prequel problems and the terrible omen of Bryan Cranston), the upcoming DC Comics Rebirth (plus how superhero comics are morphing into Doctor Who and the recent Iron Fist casting controversy) and the possibility of more adult-rated superhero movies after the success of Deadpool (plus eternal hope for sexy Gambit and Wolverine's stabby vendetta against walls and robots).

And then it's our still-nameless recommendations feature! Nick reports back on quietly squelchy crime series Messiah II, then recommends Alastair his first comic book in years. What will it be?

Oh, and if you enjoy it, I'm posting a few of the tangential discussions cut for time to the show's Soundcloud page under the name Excessive Fantasy Violence. The ones from #2 will start going up next week.

Moderate Fantasy Violence #1 - A new pop culture podcast co-featuring me!

Hello!

I don't have time to write 1000 words on this right now, sadly, but you may be interested to hear that I am back in the field of podcasting, after a couple of years in the wilderness. The show is called Moderate Fantasy Violence and is a vehicle for myself and Alastair JR Ball of Nimbus Space to discuss the geek/pop culture world.

You can download the first episode from this link right here or use the player below. You can also subscribe via iTunes if you want to get it pushed straight to your iThing. What's in it? Well...

In their first Moderate Fantasy Episode, Nick and Alastair discuss the new Deadpool movie (plus the importance of humour in superhero movies and which Deadpool comics are terrible), the #RIPTwitter algorithmic timeline kerfuffle (plus the inevitability of Vine porn and if anything good will ever happen to anyone) and their verdict on Netflix's Making A Murderer (plus the omnipresent evil of John Luther and whether true crime documentaries are the same as gladiatorial combat).

Our as-yet-unnamed recommendations feature shows up at the end and waves.

Hobson & Choi Podcast Special - Writers' Huddle Interview with Ali Luke!

Like a bolt from the blue, the Hobson & Choi Podcast is back on the scene!

I've moving house in the near future and will be without wifi, so internet content from the Nick Bryan/H&C Media Empire will be thin on the ground. But before disappearing into irrelevant meatspace for a bit, I recorded an interview for Writers' Huddle, a subscription-only writing forum run by the excellent author and blogger Ali Luke.

Listen now to hear me talk about H&C, serialisation, self-publishing, writing characters different from yourself and whether I ever considered putting Hobson & Choi into first person. Plus a little news about the status of upcoming H&C books in the outro.

So, download the episode here using the power of browser rightclicking!

Or use the embeddy player below, or if you're faithful enough to still be subscribed to H&C in iTunes, it should be there too...

Hobson & Choi Podcast Special - Writers' Huddle Interview with Ali Luke! by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud

Thanks to Ali for hosting the chat and letting me put it out to the wider internet. Be sure to check out her blog at Aliventures and her own self-published fantasy book Lycopolis. Plus she's on Twitter (obviously) as @aliventures.

If this interview got you interested in my Hobson & Choi darkly comic crime books, you can read more about them at HobsonAndChoi.com. Sounds by zagi2 on Freesound as before.

And that, for now, might really be it for a wee while...

Nick On The Radio - Me on Resonance FM talking H&C

Just a quick bulletin to flag something up - I was on the excellent Daniel Ruiz Tizon Is Available show on Resonance FM last night to talk about Hobson & Choi, plus my strange attachment to my first ever London houseshare.

Full details on Daniel's site - the show is also available on iTunes if you want to download it from the feed there. (It's the 26th Jan 2015 episode, obviously.)

And now, for an encore, I'll attempt to include an embedded version as well...

Daniel Ruiz Tizon is Available - 26th January 2015 by Resonance Fm on Mixcloud

BEST OF 2014 - Podcasts, Films, Music

Right, 2014 is one week and a few Christmas crackers away from ending, so it's time for bloggers to work out their Favourite [THING] Of [YEAR] lists. I am no exception, especially as I've hardly reviewed anything for ages and kinda miss it.

So, exactly as I did last year, I've broken my enjoyment down into a series of headings. In this first effort, we'll tackle the podcasts, movies and music. One of those segments will be much, much longer than the other two.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #33 - "A Long Weekend"

The conclusion is here! Hobson and Choi face the epilogue of their big wolf-case, while I deal with something even more heartbreaking: the end of the podcast itself. At least you get an extra-length 15 mnute episode before it goes away.

Thanks to everyone who listened to the podcast while it existed - as I've said in various episodes, I enjoyed working on it a lot, so I may one day return with a new audio-based vehicle. For now, though, this is the end. If you want more multimedia material, I did a video blog the other week.

You can play the episode in the player below, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #33 - A Long Weekend by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud

Hobson & Choi Podcast #32 - "Crazy Like A Wolf"

It's here! At long last! The final battle! #HOBSONVSWOLF!

You can play the episode in the player below, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes to have it thrown at you every week. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #32 - Crazy Like A Wolf by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud

Hobson & Choi Podcast #31 - "Cornered Animals"

The truth will out! It's the inevitable exposition-before-final-battle episode, as we find out who killed who and when. Meanwhile, out back, the end is getting nigher...

You can play the episode in the player below, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes to have it thrown at you every week. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #31 - Cornered Animals by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud

Hobson & Choi Podcast #30 - "All Together Now"

It's almost my 30th birthday, so it's time for our thirtieth podcast! I'm pretty hungover from last night's party as I type this, but happily the actual show was recorded a few days back. Meanwhile, in the fictional world of H&C, the net is closing...

You can play the episode in the player below, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes to have it thrown at you every week. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #30 - All Together Now by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud

Hobson & Choi Podcast #29 - "Gone Quiet"

The final confrontation begins! Upcoming Hobson & Choi projects revealed! The most exciting podcast since... ever?

You can play the episode in the player below, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes to have it thrown at you every week. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #29 - Gone Quiet by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud

Hobson & Choi Podcast #28 - "Suspects On Parade"

Time to take stock now, as Hobson & Choi assess their suspects list before the case moves into its final stage. Meanwhile, I've been reading a lotta X-Men comics...

You can play the episode in the player below, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes to have it thrown at you every week. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #28 - Suspects On Parade by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud