Classic SF with Andy Johnson

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.

However, some of Moorcock's own SF novels are themselves significant contributions to the New Wave. The Black Corridor, written in uncredited collaboration with his then-wife Hilary Bailey, is one example. To catch up with my review of another classic Moorcock SF novel from 1969, listen back to episode 96 for Behold the Man.

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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 medieval society that is unaware that other worlds even exist?

To catch up with my coverage of the series, listen to episode 90 for The State of the Art, 93 for Consider Phlebas, 99 for The Player of Games, 105 for Use of Weapons and 110 for Excession. 

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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 navigate not only mass blindness and a mystery disease, but the iconic triffids themselves - mobile, venomous, and possibly intelligent plants with mysterious origins and a taste for human flesh.

Despite its pulpy premise, The Day of the Triffids is written in genteel prose that reflects its postwar British origins. But Wyndham's breakthrough novel is no "cosy catastrophe", a phrase coined by Brian Aldiss. It is an unsettling depiction of societal collapse, which probes the frailty and weakness of civilisation in the face of rapid change and technology that spirals out of control. 

In this episode, walk the deserted streets of a fallen London to explore an enduring classic of British SF, one that casts a long shadow over the genre even after more than 70 years.

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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 manipulative religious cult.

Strength of Stones is an early novel by Greg Bear, published in 1981. It has a far-future setting on a planet colonised by religious outcasts. How do these lesser known novels by prominent authors stack up today?

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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 another novel in partnership with a different author - Lester del Rey. That novel was Preferred Risk, another minor classic of social SF in which the world is dominated by a huge, monolithic insurance company.

This episod explores Preferred Risk, its unusual future world, and the controversial circumstances in which it was written and published.

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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 his own fiction, both at short story and novel length.

Rogue Moon is his best-known novel, a nominee for the 1961 Hugo Award which combines a lunar mystery with penetrating questions about human psychology and the philosophy of life, death, and struggle. 

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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 novel. This episode covers that book, Meridian Days. While it has been out of print since 1993, this is an interesting first effort from a writer who would ultimately publish numerous novels up until his sadly premature death.

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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 speculation about exotic particles and a grounded, African setting. This short, intriguing novel is all about perception, and how it can both divide and unite.

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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 collaborated on fantasy at times. Their 1981 novel Oath of Fealty is an interesting fusion of their scientific speculations and their unsettling, libertarian politics. It is also a prominent work of SF focusing on the theme of arcologies - high-tech, self-contained, urban communities cut off from the outside world.

Oath of Fealty was published just after Ronald Reagan became President of the United States, and reflects the hard-right atmosphere of the time. A few years later it was included, with some misgivings, in David Pringle's book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels. This episode gives an overview of this memorable book, and its significance in 1980s political SF.

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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 between these two approaches.

Featuring fallen empires, a strange mix of technologies, a war for control of Mars, and a robot revolution, The Soul of the Robot is another of Bayley's clever confections. However it also explores deeper questions of consciousness, identity, and free will.

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