Classic SF with Andy Johnson

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 adventure with comic elements, and an interesting vehicle for sociological speculation about cultural exchange, self-image, and whether the clothes really make the man.

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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, which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel the following year - beating out authors like Gene Wolfe, David Brin, and Greg Bear.

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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, The Chonicles of Amber. Do these tales of infinite alternate universes stand up to their towering reputation?

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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 the best-known and most acclaimed novel in the whole Culture sequence.

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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 novel". Unlike most of the genre, it has a main character who has little to no ability to change the world around him, let alone to save it. This episode looks at how successful McHugh was, and what makes China Mountain Zhang remain relevant over 30 years after its first publication.

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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 Pyro's fourth and final Commandos game and see if there is anything worth salvaging.

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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 Beyond the Call of Duty in 1999, Pyro’s British publisher, Eidos, were eager to profit from another success. They put their weight behind the Spanish developers, who set to work on a sequel with a hefty budget of $7 million. Flush with cash and manpower, Pyro ultimately delivered an almost recklessly ambitious follow-up: 2001’s Commandos 2: Men of Courage.

Over 20 years later, the game is still an essential entry in the genre that Pyro invented. Commandos 2 is definitely a product of its time, and its learning curve can be steep for those more familiar with the friendlier revivals made by Mimimi Games. It is exuberant but imperfect, with a number of new concepts and systems which could have been better implemented. Despite these flaws, Commandos 2 is a thrilling exercise in painstaking stealth - and no exploration of the genre is complete without it.

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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 realistic, contemporary California uses his own lymphocytes to create what he calls “noocytes”, or thinking cells. What begins as an experiment in information processing brings seismic changes first to the scientist’s body, then to the people around him, and later to the whole world. Blood Music comprises a series of frightening transformations, and explores themes of consciousness, individuality, and the nature of reality itself.

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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.

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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 short story collection The State of the Art (in episode 90) and the first Culture novel Consider Phlebas (in episode 93).

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