Breakfast in the Ruins is a sometimes harrowing experimental novel by Michael Moorcock. Originally published in 1972, the novel is a loose sequel of sorts to Moorcock's earlier novel Behold the Man - covered in episode 96. This time, protagonist Karl Glogauer is split into many different lives, in which he becomes entangled, and increasingly guilty…

Since he died in 1982, Philip K. Dick has become, and has remained, one of the best-known science fiction writers of all time. He has recognition not only from established fans of SF, but also from more general audiences - very unusual for a writer who started out publishing in Ace Doubles in the 1950s. To a significant extent, that wide acceptance…

Oddly, the British author Ian Watson may be best known today for his various novels in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. Long before he flirted with "the grim darkness of the far future", Watson carved a space for himself as one of the most intellectually challenging and formidable British SF writers of the 1970s. This episode covers Watson's bracing d…

It's been over a year since we last covered a novel in Alan Dean Foster's expansive Humanx Commonwealth setting. In these far-future novels, humanity has allied with the insectoid thranx species, which resemble huge, intelligent ants. Together, the two species create a benevolent, star-faring civilisation. The thranx are disappointingly absent from…

In recent years, the reputation of the Northern Irish writer Bob Shaw has grown. He died in 1996, but left behind a large body of cleverly entertaining science fiction series, novels, and stories. Today, more readers are discovering Shaw's work, which is eminently readable and packed with intriguing ideas taken in surprising directions. Recently, I…

The hugely prolific Michael Moorcock is credited with making a major contribution to New Wave science fiction, mainly due to his editorship of the pivotal British magazine New Worlds. Moorcock wrote relatively few science fiction novels, certainly compared to his huge output of fantasy work, which he used to help support New Worlds financially. How…

The time has come to continue exploring Iain M. Banks' Culture series. Inversions is the fifth of nine novels, and also the last to be published in the 1990s. This time, Banks stretched himself further than ever before, experimenting with a radically different view of his post-scarcity setting. What does the Culture look like, viewed from a medieva…

No discussion of classic British science fiction could be complete without mentioning John Wyndham, and perhaps especially his 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids. A pioneer in the noble tradition of the British disaster novel, this influential classic piles not one, or two, but three catastrophes onto the world. The protagonist, Bill Masen, must na…

This episode covers two quite different science fiction novels by two quite different writers, published more than a decade apart. What links them is their emphasis on religious themes. Let the Fire Fall by Kate Wilhelm was published in 1969, and is largely forgotten. Set in a near-contemporary world, it deals with alien visitation and a manipulati…

Back in episode 111, I took a trip back to the 1950s, and looked at three books written collaboratively by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. The first two of these, The Space Merchants and Gladiator-at-Law, are major landmarks in the development of social science fiction. In 1955, while that collaboration was ongoing, Frederik Pohl published an…

Originally published in 1960, Rogue Moon is an excellent novel by the Lithuanian-American author, critic, and editor Algis Budrys. If you read classic science fiction and encounter contemporary reviews of those books, you are sure to have heard Budrys' name. He was a major critic of SF for many years. However he was also a highly capable writer of …

A debut novel which deals with guilt, art, and suspicious happenings on a troubled colony founded on matter transmission. The British SF author Eric Brown passed away in March 2023. He first came to prominence through his short fiction in the 1980s. Following the publication of his first collection, Brown was given the chance to put out his first n…

What if we share our world with a different intelligent species, but are separated from them by a failure of perception? And what if that gap could be bridged by a new technology, a new way of seeing? That is the premise of Bob Shaw's 1976 novel A Wreath of Stars. In his ninth novel, the Northern Irish writer combined his interest in optics with sp…

In a recent episode, we looked at Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, who formed the most important science fiction writing team of the 1950s. This instalment looks at a key book by a dominant collaboration of the 1970s and 1980s - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. These right-wing hard SF authors worked together on numerous books, and even collaborat…

Barrington J. Bayley's novel The Soul of the Robot (1974) fits within the wider context of robot stories in SF - these include Isaac Asimov's influential tales from the 1940s, and the more subversive work of John Sladek in the 1980s. The protagonist of Bayley's novel, the fully conscious robot Jasperodus, can be seen as a kind of middle ground betw…

Charles L. Harness' 1953 novel The Paradox Men was originally published under the title Flight Into Yesterday. It is a classic example of elevated pulp, which features swordfights, superpowers, voyages to the sun, and a strange furry creature that can speak - if only to speak the phrase "don't go..." The Paradox Men is featured in David Pringle's 1…

Originally published in the December 1971 issue of Playboy, “A Meeting With Medusa” is generally thought of as Clarke’s last significant shorter work. Notably, it won the Nebula Award for Best Novella the following year. It was also an early inspiration for two of Clarke’s successors in the British SF scene. 45 years after the novella’s publication…

In The Forge of God (1987), the Earth’s demise is an inevitability. Greg Bear’s novel of apocalypse was published when he was establishing himself as a leader of American hard SF in the 1980s. This is a sophisticated, chillingly believable, and scientifically rigorous view of the end of the world. Crucially, Bear is as interested in human beings as…

Robert Silverberg's To Open the Sky (1967) combines five pre-planned stories originally published in Galaxy magazine in 1965 and 1966, it is an interestingly structured piece of work published at a time when Silverberg was just entering his own personal golden age. It also combines themes of religion, psychic powers, terraforming, immortality, and …

George R.R. Martin is easily one of the best-known, most successful, and wealthiest genre writers still working today - albeit slowly. While Martin is a giant of modern fantasy writing, even some of his ardent fans may not be aware that he first made an impact in science fiction. This episode first covers his debut novel from 1977, Dying of the Lig…

John Brunner was a startlingly prolific British writer of science fiction, whose reputation rests on four acclaimed books he published from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. However, earlier in his career he wrote many SF adventures which while less ambitious, are a rich source of pulp excitement. This episode focuses on two of these many novels. Th…

Pure SF pulp, The Fall of Chronopolis (1974) is the fifth novel by British author Barrington J. Bayley. While it superficially resembles a space opera, it is really more of what could be called a "time opera". The Chronotic Empire rules hundreds of years of human history, using powerful time-ships to head off threats from the past and the future. B…

This special feature episode focuses on three novels written in partnership by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbbluth - The Space Merchants (1952), Gladiator-at-Law (1955), and Wolfbane (1959). Each unique in their own way, these three books are classics of the genre in the 1950s. They are the products of a special partnership between two writers wh…

Winner of the BSFA Award for Best Novel, Excession (1996) is the fourth novel in Iain M. Banks ever-popular Culture series of SF novels. In this entry, the awesome power of the post-scarcity Culture civilisation is challenged by two linked threats. One is the increasing aggression of a cruel species, the Affront. The other is the emergence of a vas…

Poul Anderson's Tau Zero, published in 1970, is a landmark of hard SF which pushes out far further, beyond the Milky Way and into the frightening emptiness of intergalactic space. It also deals memorably with time dilation, and a vast spain of eons. Significantly, Anderson does all of this in a scientifically convincing way, with a plot strongly gr…

The Garments of Caean is a science fiction novel by the British author Barrington J. Bayley (1937 - 2008). It forms a part of his classic run of unusual and energetic books in the mid-1970s, and is included in guide 100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels. This is a space opera with an odd hook - it is about clothes, specifically an incredible Frachon…

American fantasy in the 1980s is often associated with big, bloated series of novels steeped in Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons. The Falling Woman is something very different. It isn't set in some imagined world stuck in the middle ages - the story occurs in contemporary Mexico, in and around an archaelogical dig site. But this is a fantasy novel …

Imperial Earth is the second of three novels Arthur C. Clarke published during the 1970s - and of those three, it is the least well-known. The main focus of this episode is to assess this tale of 2276, which takes in the quincentennial of the United States, a technological utopia, and Clarke's coy take on sexuality in science fiction. This episode …

Use of Weapons (1990) is the third novel in the Culture series of science fiction novels by the much-missed author Iain M. Banks. Originally drafted in 1974, the book follows the interstellar supersoldier Cheradenine Zakalwe, an efficient agent of the Culture. Combining two interleaved narratives, Use of Weapons tells a complex story about military…

Maureen F. McHugh published her debut novel China Mountain Zhang in 1992 and it went on to win multiple awards. An impactful social science fiction story, the book is set in a 22nd century world in which China is the dominant superpower. Zhang Zhongshan is a young, gay construction engineer in New York City, trying to make his way in a world where …

In 2006, Spanish developers Pyro Studios had big hopes for the fourth entry in the successful Commandos series. Strike Force was intended to help them break into the World War II shooter market, and onto consoles. Unfortunately, it was a critical and commercial disaster. Strike Force sank the Commandos series, and took Pyro Studios down with it. Th…

In 1998, Madrid-based videogame developers Pyro Studios produced a shock hit with their landmark game Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines. It shifted 900,000 copies, and did particularly well in the UK and Germany. Eventually, it would prove to be the trigger point for a small but uniquely engaging sub-genre of real-time stealth tactics games. These spra…

American science fiction author Greg Bear, who passed away in 2022, had a major success with his 1985 novel Blood Music. An expansion of his award-winning 1983 short story, the novel is themed around emerging sciences of the 1980s: biotechnology and genetic engineering. Both unsettling and in a way inspiring, the book confronts the massive implicat…

Welcome to episode 100! Thank you so much to everyone who has listened to this humble podcast project, an extension of my site andyjohnson.xyz. This episode begins with a brief reflection on this milestone, and then moves on to its main subject: Joe Haldeman's 1974 science fiction classic The Forever War. An iconic entry in the genre, it is a convi…

The Player of Games is the second novel to be published in Iain M. Banks’ revered Culture cycle, following Consider Phlebas (1987). It is often thought to be one of the most popular of the books, and is sometimes suggested to be a good starting point. It is an engaging character study of Gurgeh, and a story which deals cleverly with themes of power…

In August 2023, id Software’s 1997 first-person shooter Quake II was updated to a new, enhanced version. This was no surprise - it had been rumoured for some time, and seemed inevitable after the 2021 reissue of the original Quake. What few were prepared for is how brilliantly the job was done. Here we explore three aspects in which it was extraord…

This latest roundup of the games I've played covers May 2023, and features two new and two older releases: Miasma Chronicles (2023) Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (2023) Mafia III: Definitive Edition (2016/2020) Dishonored (2012) Get in touch with a text message! For more classic SF reviews, visit andyjohnson.xyz…

In 1966, New Worlds magazine published the story "Behold the Man", by its editor Michael Moorcock. This sacrilegious tale of a man who travels back in time to replace Jesus won Moorcock the Nebula Award for Best Novella. This episode covers the extended 1969 novel version of what may be one of the boldest time travel stories of all. Get in touch wi…

Continuing our look at Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series, this episode covers the fifth standalone novel: Sentenced to Prism (1985). Corporate troubleshooter Evan Orgell finds himself on a distant planet where silicon-based life is abundant. As Orgell struggles to survive, Foster gets to explore some of his favourite themes in the conte…

The 2020 "definitive editions" of Mafia and Mafia II are the stars of the show in this latest overview of the games I've played recently. This bumper instalment features: Supplice [Early Access] (2023) Gun Jam (2023) Oni (2001) Urban Chaos (1999) War Mongrels (2021) Mafia: Definitive Edition (2020) Mafia II: Definitive Edition (2020) Deus Ex: Human…

This second episode in a series on Iain M. Banks' Culture series of science fiction books covers the first novel, Consider Phlebas (1987). In this subversive take on the space opera, Banks introduces the Culture from the outside - by using as his protagonist the ruthless, shape-changing agent Bora Horza Gobuchul. Expect space pirates, cannibals, a …

An expansion of her 1974 novella, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is Kate Wilhelm's best-known work in the science fiction genre. Winner of three major awards for Best Novel in 1977, it is often called one of the most important SF novels to deal with the issue of cloning. This episode looks at how Wilhelm's scientific shortcomings are compensated f…

The anime-inspired third-person action game Oni is often thought of mainly as "Bungie's forgotten game". But in fact, this classic deserves to be recognised as something much more than just a footnote in the history of the studio that made Halo. This review does a dream dive into what makes Oni special, and makes the case that it should be a cult c…

The 1991 collection The State of the Art serves an important function in the bibliography of revered Scottish author Iain M. Banks (1954 - 2013). It collects his short fiction from 1987 to 1989, crucially including the stories "A Gift From the Culture", "Descendant", and the title story. These are entries in Banks' Culture series, and good entry po…

Can 2023 live up to the lofty hopes of a revival of real-time strategy games? We had the first major test of that thesis in February, with the releases of The Settlers: New Allies and Company of Heroes 3. I reviewed both of those games for Entertainium this month, and share some brief thoughts in this episode. The games covered this month are: The …

The exploration and colonisation of Mars is a perennial subject in science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke's 1951 novel The Sands of Mars is a significant entry in that history, especially because it takes a realistic approach before the Mariner 4 flyby in 1965 - at least until the alien kangaroos show up. This episode takes a look at the book, and how i…

Before The Handmaid's Tale (1985), there was Native Tongue (1984). Suzette Haden Elgin's feminist dystopia is an early precedent for this increasingly popular genre. Combining a powerful feminist message with a detailed exploration of the science of linguistics, this is an interesting curio of 1980s social SF. But why has Klingon proven to be so mu…

American author Roger Zelazny won the Hugo and Locus awards for Best Novella for his story "Home is the Hangman". The 1976 book My Name is Legion collects this science fiction tale and its two prequels. Featuring nuclear engineering projects, assumed identities, dolphins, and a killer robot, how does this collection stack up? Get in touch with a te…

This bumper edition of "what I played" covers not one but two months! Featured in this instalment: Need for Speed Unbound (2022) Metro Exodus (2019) Company of Heroes 2 (2013) A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019) Get in touch with a text message! For more classic SF reviews, visit andyjohnson.xyzOleh Andy Johnson

This episode continues our look at the Humanx Commonwealth sci-fi series by Alan Dean Foster. The fourth standalone book, Voyage to the City of the Dead, is set on the diverse Commonwealth world of Horseye. Married human scientists Etienne and Lyra Redowl travel up the massive Skar river and could make an incredible discovery - if they can survive …