From Jurassic Park to Jules Verne, Roland Squire explores how dinosaurs captured human imagination across 200 years of fiction. Season 2 — Stones to Stories — traces prehistoric literature from Victorian fossil hunters to Cold War science fiction, taking in Michael Crichton, Arthur Conan Doyle, and beyond. For fans of Jurassic Park, dinosaurs, natural history, and the books that put teeth into deep time.
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Monsters & Myths with Natalie Lawrence (Author of Enchanted Creatures)
Season 2 · Episode 11
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 • Duration 35:58
While I’m ensconced in the maintenance shed getting ready for the next few episodes I’m going to bring you my extended interview with Natalie Lawrence. In it we talk about her love for the Pangolin and Richard Owen’s fascination with the Aye-Aye.
Enchanted Creatures https://amzn.to/4dQqtuK (affiliated link so I might earn commission on items bought)
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
Living Dinosaurs, Cryptids and Michael Crichton’s Congo with Eddie Guimont
Season 2 · Episode 10
Tuesday, September 1, 2026 • Duration 54:51
You're in a canoe, sweating in thick jungle heat, and something enormous stirs in the water ahead. That's the mood pulling us into Mokele-mbembe, the legendary "living dinosaur" of Central Africa, and the bigger question we can't stop circling: why do we keep needing monsters, especially when the world feels like it's running out of mysteries?
I'm joined by historian Eddie Guimont, whose research into dinosaur hunting, lost cities and conspiracy culture shows how cryptozoology ties into colonial exploration, museum prestige and the politics of who gets to call something a discovery. We talk about the okapi as a proof point for European audiences, Carl Hagenbeck's confidence in local reports, and the moment The Lost World lands in a culture already primed to believe extinct animals might still be out there.
From there we jump to Michael Crichton's Congo recycling Victorian "dark continent" tropes, the 1970s and 80s boom in monster expeditions (including Young Earth creationist funding for living-dinosaur searches), and the pull of reptiles in conspiracy thinking, from lizard people to the wider ecosystem of pseudoscience, flat earth belief and anti-expert politics.
How did a self-described character actor become the beating heart of the biggest film franchise on Earth? At the beginning of July we lost our dinosaur man, Dr Alan Grant himself, Sam Neill. This is an episode I never expected to make, but I could not let the moment pass without turning a very sad event into a celebration of a remarkable life and career.
I am joined by James Mottram, author of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Ultimate Visual Histories and the Jurassic Park script book. James interviewed Sam Neill a handful of times across 25 years, from a London press day for The Dish in 2000 to a long lockdown phone call during the making of Jurassic World Dominion, and he shares every one of those encounters here!
We go through the James Mason phone call that followed My Brilliant Career, the daredevil early years of Possession and Omen III, and the Dead Calm breakout that convinced Spielberg he had found his Alan Grant. We get into the extraordinary 1993 of The Piano and Jurassic Park, the Bond screen test that never was, the John Carpenter collaborations, the grumpy joys of Jurassic Park 3 and the late masterpiece of Hunt for the Wilderpeople. And we finish on Dominion and the reunion of the original trio, the future of the franchise, the essential Sam Neill films to seek out, and the lovely story of the signed cards he sent out to bookshops when he could not meet readers in person.
Stay to the end for a listener message and my reflections on the Celebrating Sam Neill moment at DinoCon.
James’s books Jurassic Park: The Ultimate Visual History (affiliate link) https://amzn.to/4wL0BYY Jurassic World: The Ultimate Visual History (affiliate link) https://amzn.to/4wL0BYY The World of The Odyssey: A Visual Journey (affiliate link)Filming The Odyssey: Inside the Making of Christopher Nolan’s Modern Epic,(affiliate link)
Hey Roland! - Gareth Leaves The Island, DinoCon Debrief and Sam Neill Tribute
Season 2
Thursday, August 13, 2026 • Duration 31:11
Who should direct the next Jurassic film now that Gareth Edwards has walked away? In this free sample of Hey, Roland!, the monthly bonus show for subscribers, I work through the director shortlist name by name, report back from DinoCon 2026 in Birmingham, and set up next week's very special tribute to Sam Neill with James Mottram.
I also want your voice on that tribute episode. Tap the Fan Mail link at the bottom of these show notes and leave me your memories of Sam Neill, Jurassic or otherwise, and I will share them on the show.
Links from this episode
- Jurassic Outpost on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JurassicOutpost - The Hollywood Reporter on Gareth Edwards leaving the Rebirth sequel: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/jurassic-world-rebirth-sequel-loses-director-gareth-edwards-1236666236/ - DinoCon UK: https://www.dinocon.co.uk/ - Terrible Lizards with Dave Hone and Iszi Lawrence: https://terriblelizards.libsyn.com/ - The Lost Valley Podcast with Cian Gill: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-lost-valley-podcast/id1448284008
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
The Lost World (1912) by Arthur Conan Doyle with Richard Fallon
Season 2 · Episode 8
Tuesday, August 4, 2026 • Duration 01:09:35
In 1912 Arthur Conan Doyle dragged four men to the far edge of the map and brought Dinosaurs back to reality! The Lost World is the first major work to put dinosaurs, rather than marine reptiles, at the centre of prehistoric fiction, and it remains the book that comes out on top whenever I ask a guest for their favourite.
I am joined by Richard Fallon, research associate in natural history humanities at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge, author of Contesting Earth’s History and currently editing a new scholarly edition of the novel. He has read it roughly twelve times, six of those in the last year alone!
Richard takes me through Edwardian palaeontology, the arrival of Dippy the Diplodocus, and the real men behind Challenger, Summerlee, Malone and Roxton. We get into the fake photographs and Doyle’s ambition to publish the whole thing as a hoax, the Piltdown Man connection, and what the manuscript gives away about Roxton’s voice. And we finish on the novel’s colonial logic, its homosocial heart, and the one illustration of Central Lake that Doyle cared about more than any other.
Creatures of Another Age: Classic Visions of Prehistoric Monsters, Valancourt Books 2021 (affiliate link)
Sea Dragons And Second Chances with Matthew Myerscough
Season 2 · Episode 7
Wednesday, July 22, 2026 • Duration 58:13
Can searching the rocks for sea dragons bring you back from the worst day of your life? In this week's episode I swap the underground for the shoreline with fossil hunter Matthew Myerscough, whose story starts with an avalanche on Yr Wyddfa and leads to the ancient seas of the Severn shores. Along the way we talk about Mary Anning and the two kinds of time travel, a plesiosaur paddle rescued from a Somerset boulder in fifteen pieces, and the fifty million dollar T. rex that sold at auction the very day we recorded.
For the first time ever, you can also watch this conversation on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) by Jules Verne with Cian Gill
Season 2 · Episode 6
Tuesday, July 14, 2026 • Duration 01:14:13
In this weeks episode I head underground with The Lost Valley’s Cian Gill to trace how Jules Verne turns geology, ciphers and sheer wonder became the template for every lost world adventure. Along the way we talk about deep time dread, dodgy Victorian translations, and the sea-dragon spectacle that still makes modern monster stories work.
The History of Science Fiction with professor and author Adam Roberts
Season 2 · Episode 5
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 56:24
Dinosaurs are real, which is exactly why they are so hard to write. Humans never lived alongside them, so any prehistoric fiction that wants characters, conflict, and drama has to cheat time, bend geography, or invent new science. I’m joined by Adam Roberts, professor of nineteenth-century literature at Royal Holloway and a leading critic of science fiction, to unpack how writers solve that problem and what those solutions reveal about our fears and fantasies.
The Book List:
Jules Verne – Journey to the Centre of the Earth Arthur Conan Doyle – The Lost World Edgar Rice Burroughs – The Land That Time Forgot Trilogy Ray Bradbury – A Sound of Thunder Anne McCaffrey – Dinosaur Planet Harry Adam Knight – Carnosaur Michael Crichton – Jurassic Park / The Lost World James Gurney – Dinotopia Greg Bear – Dinosaur Summer Robert T. Bakker – Raptor Red Stephen Baxter – Evolution Ethan Pettus – Primitive War Lee Murray – Into the Mist
The Natural History Museum is the most visited attraction in the UK, and almost nobody looks up.
In this episode I walk through the museum as two things at once: a beloved London landmark, and a working scientific institution with hundreds of researchers behind the galleries. We start in the cathedral-like main hall and work outward, taking in the terracotta animals hidden in the stonework, the Darwin myths that refuse to die, Hope the blue whale, and Dippy the Diplodocus, whose arrival in 1905 kicked off British dinosaur fever. Along the way we get into Hans Sloane and the British Museum roots, Richard Owen’s ambition to build a temple to nature, and what the museum is planning for its 150th anniversary.
Guests Alastair Hendry Tom Luker
Links Natural History Museum: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
Plymouth, summer of 1841. Richard Owen stepped before the British Association for the Advancement of Science and coined a word that would reshape our understanding of the deep past: Dinosauria. This episode follows that word from Owen’s meeting hall to South London, where sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins turned fragmentary bones into life-size stone giants. I am joined by palaeoartist and author Mark Witton for a conversation about the history of the site and then Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs trustee Andrew Brady, and Jurassic Outpost’s Caleb Burnett and I go for a walk through the world’s oldest surviving prehistoric animal park. For the extended interview with Mark Witton, you can hear it by subscribing to the Plus version of the podcast in Apple Podcasts or clicking the ‘support the show’ link below.
Guests
Mark Witton Palaeoartist, palaeontologist and author Markwitton.co.uk
Andrew Brady Trustee of the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, the charity formed in 2013 to conserve and celebrate the geological court at Crystal Palace Park. Follow the ongoing restoration and find out how to support the project.
The Art and Science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs by Eleanor Michel and Mark WittonAll author proceeds go to the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.
Further Reading
Beasts and Men, being Carl Hagenbeck's experiences for half a century among wild animals (1912) — free to read on the Internet Archive
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
The Essential Sam Neill Films, as chosen in this episode My Brilliant Career (1979) Possession (1981) In the Mouth of Madness (1994) Event Horizon (1997) Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
Links Sam Neill, Did I Ever Tell You This? His wonderful memoir, read by Sam himself on audiobook (affiliate link) https://amzn.to/4zvljyC
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
The Dragon of St Paul’s by Reginald Bacchus and Cyril Ranger Gull The 1899 story referenced in the episode, in which a prehistoric creature thaws from a block of ice and runs amok across London. It can be found in Richard Fallon’a brilliant prehistoric story collection here: https://amzn.eu/d/0ceDiAs4 (this is an affiliate link so might earn commission when using)
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts would mean the world, it’s one of the best ways to help fellow Jurassic fans discover us.
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