Geek Syndicate

This month on the show we review X-Men #3 (January 1964) in which our team of teenaged heroes take on The Blob! The Beast has become an intellectual seemingly overnight, Cyclops takes everything a little too seriously, and Professor X makes a...disturbing admission. We also talk about all the movie news flying around the internet at the moment and we return to our discussion of Avengers vs X-Men now that we're four issues into AvX: Consequences.

This week the Dissecting Worlds duo go after the most dangerous game the well used trope of human hunting in geek fiction. In the process they bag: - The Hunger Games - Predator - Battle Royale - Vengeance on Varos - The Most Dangerous Game - And whatever else lurks in the undergrowth!   We value your feedback via comments, twitter or email. Full details at the end of the show! Also, Matt is doing "Movember", a charity Moustache growing month. Pictures and full details at: http://mobro.co/mattfarr2

Hello there, come in, come in.  Yes, it is dark isn't it?  The nights draw in ever so quickly these days.  There's a real bite in the air now - you'd almost think it was Winter!  Here, let me take that coat from you.  You must be freezing.  Blowing quite a gale out there, by the sounds of it.  You know, I remember a night like this oh.., many years back, when I was at school with old Monty.  Hah!  Now, there was a character and no mistake.  Famed for his fireside stories.  There's one he told me that fair set the hairs on the back of my neck a-rising (back when I was a wee lad, you understand.)  He wrote it down later and, do you know, I believe I have a copy of it somewhere.  Let me see... Come, fetch yourself a warm drink, if you haven't one already.  Take your ease.  There's warm cocoa in the pan, and I'm sure I can find something a little stronger to slip in, to help warm your bones.  Lovely.  Ah, here's the tale!  It's called 'Lost Hearts.'  Got yer drink?  Marvellous. Oh dear, the cat's jumped up on me

The Next Level is back again, with more news from the gaming world and there's even (gasp) a review or two as well! This month, Amaechi, Ant and Barry discuss the fall of Onlive, Singstar's new Micropayment model, DLC for Mass Effect 3 and other news. The lads also discuss Booth Babes at gaming shows. Amaechi and Barry look back at this year's Euro-Gamer expo and the show is rounded up with first-play thoughts of Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unkown and a review of Sleeping Dogs.

Halloween is just around the corner and the Countdown To Abertoir continues, so we've pulled together some of our writing team to chat about our favourite horror movies.  Your host is Dion from the Scrolls podcast, joined by regular cohort Phil Ambler.  Joining them are GS film reviewer Phil Hobden, GS tv reviewer Dee (aka Faint Dreams) and special guests Conor Boyle and Nia Edwards-Behi. It's a massive genre with examples to suit all tastes, so we've tackled the subject from several different angles.  You'll get our first movie memories, great examples of phsychology vs special effects, the most beloved rubbish, how humour works in horror, the best remakes and adaptations and, finally, our all-time personal favourites. There's a lot of laughter, a little friction and one or two shocks along the way, but we all had a great time recording it.  So much so that we over-ran by a good couple of hours.  Herding cats - that's all I'm saying...  The cut you've got here keeps things relatively focused on the topic a

In this episode we review X-Men #2 (November 1963) featuring the Vanisher! We also finally get to discuss the entire Avengers vs X-Men mega-event which finished on October 3rd. Listeners who haven't finished reading the series or who are waiting for the trade should avoid this second part of the show because spoilers abound!    Finally, we talk about which back issues we were able to pick up this month in our unplanned spending spree at Orbital Comics. Our poor bank account took a savage beating when we discovered a gold mine in X-Men back issues just begging to be added to our fledgling collection.

Grab on to your sense of the normal as the Dissecting Duo head down the Rabbit Hole and seek out the Truth behind the Veil of Lies fed to you by "The Man" and other Tools of The Conspiracy. Delving into works of (alleged) fiction and (supposed) fact, we take a roaming quest through the twisted landscapes of History, but Not As We Know It. We stop off at:  - The Knights Templar, Merovingian Dynasties and Dan Brown - The Philadelphia Experiment, Escaped Nazis' and conspiricies that really happened.  - Aliens from Roswell to The X-Files - Mystical Conspiricies from the Real Illuminati to the Fictional Ones.  - Who is "The Man" ?  Tom Lehrer's "Wernher Von Braun" can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro We welcome comments and corrections (including audio files for our conclusion ep) to dissectingworlds(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk or tweet @dissectingwrlds.

In this first episode of the Children of the Atom podcast we talk about how we first discovered the X-Men and what motivated us to podcast about the X-Universe. We also discuss the original development of the X-Men by Stan Lee, some contemporary influences on the concept, and where the series fits within the rest of the Marvel universe. In the main part of the show we review the first ever X-Men issue released in September 1963. Finally, we talk about which of the first run issues we managed to buy for our collection this month.

So wth Merlin series 5 all ready to start back on the BBC this weekend we thought it was a perfect time to catch up with our good frend Julian Jones, the co-creator and head writer on the show. With Dave off on his adventures Barry flys solo in this special episode in which Julian opens up about series 5 and what we can expect from the characters and the story. We also take a little look back at season 4 and some of Julian's thoughts on his episodes and plot points in that series. There's also some talk on season six and the status of a Merlin feature film. Julian also lets slip a massive spolier for series 5 which we have moved until right at the end of the interview to give those of you who don't want to know fair warning. Enjoy!

Join Stace and Lee for the big Four Oh! This episode is the "The" episode with reviews of The Reckoning, The Scarifyers, The Mire and The Absence amongst others, we also have news AND a first for Small Press Big Mouth - a prize giveaway - what could possibly go wrong eh?  

Join Barry and Amaechi in this special episode as they interview Tom Champion, Community Manager for the Eurogamer Expo. Tom tells us all about this years upcoming Expo and what games, developer session and new additions attendees can expect from this years show.

The Next Level Episode 46 In this episode the boys we discuss Ant's lack of understand of the difference between stealth gaming and going all berserker in our muiltiplayer gaming sessions News The Wii U is about to get an officially release date but will any of the team be buying one Resident Evil 6 brings a whole new meaning to limited edition games bundles and Call of Duty Black Ops gets its own limited edition bundle Popcap to tricker treat free copies of Plants vs. Zombies 2012 Golden Joystick Awards voting opens Microsoft reveal poor Summer of Arcade sales The first review for Borderlands 2 hits the net Feature In our feature this episode we discuss the growing trend of delays and long development times for games and ask if this negatively effects the final games quality and reception and does extra development time actually deliver a better game.

The Life-cycle of Software Objects is a story by Ted Chiang about our relationship with artificial intelligence and what it means to be alive.  It's kind of a peculiar read but well worth it, as we quickly discovered.  Joining Dion and Phil to discuss the tale is our guest host, the delightful Dee - otherwise known as 'Faint Dreams.'Now, don't go skipping straight past.  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking 'I've never heard of it, never read it, so why listen to the podcast?'  Well, Firstly we're bloody brilliant.  Honest, guv'nor.  Secondly, it's actually a pretty quick read - a novella rather than a book (Around 60 pages.)  Thirdly, The Life-cycle Of Software Objects is available right here for free, and Fourthly it's an absolute corker.  We've all had ideas and questions exploding in our brains long after we finished reading it.So you're not going anywhere, right?Right :-DYou snuggle down and start reading, I'll just sit here and... I dunno, tweet or something.Dum de dum...  de dum...  de dum...R

They're Back! After an unscheduled most-of-Summer break, Amaechi, Barry and Ant return to discuss the latest gaming news. This month: the boys talk about Amaechi's weariness with hackers, the switch in payment model for MMORPGs and discuss the forthcoming Halo web-series amongst other stories. As a feature, they discuss Co-Op gaming: its rise, fall and rise again while talking about some of their favourite co-op game memories. Finally, a brief look at the game releases for September is presented. 

The crowd are going wild as the Dissecting Worlds explore the somewhat lost world of Sports Comics. Joined by Mike Hodder and with a contribution from Max Barnard, we cover... - The Magic Boots of Dead-shot Keane - The Startling Longevity (and crazy plot-lines) of Roy of the Rovers - The strange, and long-running world of Baseball Manga - Class, and other social considerations for our sporting heroes.  Grab your glass of Vimto and packet of Wagon Wheels and tune in! 

In Geek To Geek Issue 5 the Scrolls team contributed a little segment on Flash Fiction, defining it and discussing the attraction of this growing form story-telling.It will surprise none of our regular listeners when I tell you that the conversation went on for an awful lot longer than the 18 minutes previously released.  Here,for the first time, you can hear the full discussion (clocking in at just under an hour and a half.)  Furthermore, for your listening pleasure, we present recordings ofno less that ten Flash pieces scattered throughout the episode. There is some bad language used by the team and there are elements of horror in several of these Flash pieces, varying from the visceral to the psychological. Whilst we do not always think to put a Parental Advisory warning on our podcasts, you should think twice before playing this episode in the hearing of children. I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributing authors here in the order in which their stories appear: Rebecca Bohn - 'One

Yee-haw,   The pair of desperadoes known as Kehaar & Matt are joined by Matt Mitrovitch custodian of the work of boundless energy & love which is the AH Weekly Update: (http://alternatehistoryweeklyupdate.blogspot.com)looking at that popular alternate history topic of the American Civil War in the course of which they look at   * Harry Harrison’s Star & Stripes series, the Trent affair & options for European intervention  * Harry Turtledove's 191-timeline & the romanticisation of both sides of the ACW * The appeal (and consequences) of Balkanised America  * Alien Space Bats & South African nazis * Captain Confederacy!: http://captainconfederacy.blogspot.com * Race in America and its legacy in fiction and reality   Matts writing blog is http://mitroauthor.wordpress.com/ He has a story in Jake's Monthly-Alternate History Anthology: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/180165   Saddle up, enjoy & feedback :) 

00:00:00 Geek to Geek with Monts and Nuge – David Montieth and Barry Nugent bring you their monthly slice of pop culture madness. No script, no preparation and but hopefully some hope that you will enjoy the experience 00:55:39 Minster of Chance Audio Drama - Episode 3 Trailer more info on the series here. 00:57:06 The Scrolls  team discuss Flash Fiction with Lily Childs 01:14:56 Scarifyers Audio Drama - The Nazad Conspiracy trailer. More info here 01:15:59 Montoya and Silver Fox from Trailer Trash Two check out the lastest film trailers 01:33:49 Notes from Nuge: Avengers theme played on Violin by Taylor Davis 01:34:56 Woman in Black Book Reading by Dion(Scrolls) 01:37:33 Dark Knight Returns Trailer 01:39:04 A look at early horror with Matt (Dissecting Worlds), Keharr (Dissecting Worlds) and Phil (Scrolls)

he quarrelsome Northerners are joined by MOMBCAST stalwart James falling in behind the Eagle standard to dissect and consider the alternative histories of Rome and the Roman Empire. Inspired by the History of Rome podcast they march in a less than straight road through: * The Punic Wars (including the alternate history 'Hannibal's Children) * Roman history as a game of Total War* The Porous nature of Rome to people and ideas * Why couldn't the Greeks get their act together?* School nativity plays and the Dallas and Dynasty appeal of the Julio-Claudians * Agrippa the Immortal * The fickle survival and destruction of Republics and Monarchies * Why not to let Commodus run & ruin your Empire.* The Marian reforms and the dangers of a professional miltiary (with thanks to Will Self.)* They debate irresistible nature of monotheism and Time-Travelling Popes* Mad Max and the fall of the West * Julian the Apostate (Our hero, he's dreamy, titter yee not!)   The Romanitas Trilogy Timeline can be found here: http://ww

Welcome to Episode 39 of Small Press Big Mouth, this the one where Stace and indeed Lee throw the usual format out of the window in a sad and desperate attempt to catch up on some reviews. That's right this is a review only episode! We cover such wonders as Porcelain and The Butterfly Gate, White Knuckle, Disconnected Vol 1, Sgt Mike Battle #17, Leroy and Popo, Robot Shorts and No More Heroes.