Join Bean, Peat and Dan as we talk about our various works in progress, our own writing styles, triumphs, and what listeners can expect from our next few episodes.

On the menu are: commercialisation versus art and independent literature, the late great David Lynch, short fiction; what are the rules and whether or not to break them. We talk about shared fictional universes. We talk about our various progresses with our work, whether or not to self-publish.

Elsewhere, Bean drinks some tea, Dan talks about his cat, and Peat talks about bastards.

Following our last episode with Richard Sparks on The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, in which we must have mentioned The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy at least, ooh, I don't know, at least three times, and after which we lost radio contact with Brian Sexton after he was devoured by the Black Sinkhole of Sligo, we decided to plough on with the second half of the interview.

So, on a tight schedule (Richard had tickets for the opera, meladdo) we delved into his debut novel, New Rock, New Role, an epic fantasy derived from Richard's own love of gaming, It's a funny and touching tale of finding purpose, friendship and adventure later in life, when all the signs tell that life may have finished dishing out adventures.

This was pertinent to Richard as he wrote this novel, his first, in his seventies. So we talk about the convetions of gaming, the friendships you make, the conventions of fantasy and the comfort and community it brings.

Elsewhere, Captain Halfmilkcarton gets the shock of his life when he's joined by an unexpected but remarkably familiar guest...

Hi!

Hi!

Hi there!

Wow.

Wow.

Wow!

This is beautiful.

This is so beautiful.... I might just buy it.

Dan and Brian are joined by - DON'T PANIC - the comedy writer Richard Sparks about Douglas Adams' seminal SF comic masterpiece, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Hitchhiker's Guide has influenced the culture in innumerable ways, but no one really knew it was going to be such a smash hit.

Neither Adams nor Sparks, contemporaries in the late 1970s/early 1980s comedy scene in London, predicted how big the book would be. Richard talks to us about his experiences of working with Adams, how the book was born of the early alternative comedy scene, and why it still resonates today.

Richard Sparks is a comedy writer who cut his teeth on various TV shows, working for HTV (Wales) ITV (Southern and Central) and the BBC . He's written for the stage, both original plays and adaptations of Goldoni comedies), and done a lot of freelance script editing. He now lives in Los Angeles, and has recently turned his hand to MMORPGS and writing comic fantasy novels, beginning with his gaming-based series, New Rock, New Role.