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Words about books, boardgames, music, film and videogames by Andy Johnson.
114 Episodes
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Get in touch with a text message!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 Light. It's a gloomy, mournful story of lost love and personal obligations set on a dying, rogue planet. Next, I'll t...
Get in touch with a text message!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. The Atlantic Abomination and Sanctuary in the Sky were both published in 1960 by Ace Books. They represent only half ...
Get in touch with a text message!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. But when officer of the Third Time Fleet, Mond Aton, glimpses the true nature of the "temporal substratum", it...
Get in touch with a text message!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 who complemented each other perfectly. Significantly, all three books were originally serialised in Galaxy magazine...
Get in touch with a text message!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 vast and mysterious structure, the Excession. On one level a classic "big dumb object" story, Exc...
Get in touch with a text message!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 grounded in his understanding of phyics at the time. This episode takes a close look at the novel, and the reas...
Get in touch with a text message!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 Frachonard suit which gives its wearer remarkable influence over others. This is both an exciting interstellar ...
Get in touch with a text message!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 - in which the dead have a profound effect on the living.This episode takes a look at Pat Murphy's 1986 novel, whi...
Get in touch with a text message!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 also includes a bonus - a brief look at the first five novels in Roger Zelazny's popular fantasy series,...
Get in touch with a text message!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 intervention, violence, responsibility, and guilt. This episode explores what makes this perhaps th...
Get in touch with a text message!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 his sexuality could land him in prison, or worse.McHugh's book is an attempt to write what she called an "anti-SF ...
Get in touch with a text message!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. This episode picks through the wreck, to figure out what went wrong with Pyr...
Get in touch with a text message!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 sprang up in the early 2000s, died off, and were then revived in 2016.After the release of the standalone expansion Be...
Get in touch with a text message!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 implications of a new kind of artificial, biological intelligence run amok.In the story, a renegade scientist based in a r...
Get in touch with a text message!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 convincing and humane take on interstellar military conflict. Support the Show.For lots more writing on class...
Get in touch with a text message!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, manipulation, and the nature of games.To catch up with this series, be sure to listen to my thoughts on the shor...
Get in touch with a text message!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 extraordinary back in the day, and is better still in 2023. Support the Show.For lots more writing on classic scienc...
Get in touch with a text message!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) Support the Show.For lots more writing on classic science fiction, other books, video games, and more check our my site andyjohnson.xyz and follow me on Twitter: @andyjohnsonuk
Get in touch with a text message!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. Support the Show.For lots more writing on classic science fiction, other books, video games, and more check our my site...
![#95 Crystal methods: Sentenced to Prism (1985) by Alan Dean Foster [Review]](https://s3.castbox.fm/c0/e8/1c/e48f8db7844cee2001897c37adca6d54e8_scaled_v1_400.jpg "#95 Crystal methods: Sentenced to Prism (1985) by Alan Dean Foster [Review]")
Get in touch with a text message!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 context of an SF adventure. Support the Show.For lots more writing on classic science fiction, other books, v...
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