By 1972, Ursula K. Le Guin was increasingly being seen as one of the most important writers of science fiction and fantasy. Following three fascinating but mostly ignored novels, the Oregon-based author and her Hainish series were brought to wide attention by The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). She had also published A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Tombs of Atuan (1971), the first two entries in her Earthsea fantasy series, to some acclaim.

While Le Guin’s career was taking off, she was profoundly troubled by outside events - specifically the horror of the Vietnam War. This would profoundly influence the fifth entry in her Hainish series, The Word for World is Forest. As Ken MacLeod put it in his introduction, the book is a “reflection on invasion, exploitation and oppression, and on the necessity and cost of resistance.”

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Nothing looks quite like Amid Evil. Released from the murky ambiguity of Early Access into the sunlit uplands of actual completion in 2019, the fantasy shooter by developer Indefatigable has a genuinely unique aesthetic. Even moreso than its eminently solid gameplay, it is the visuals and level design of Amid Evil which elevate the game into being one of the best examples in the recent retro shooter boom.

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Ursula K. Le Guin made her name with her groundbreaking 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness. Thie episode recommends this oft-recommended book, introduces some of its themes, and looks at how it connects to the larger Hainish cycle.

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Michael Moorcock is one of speculative fiction's greatest ever authors, and Elric of Melniboné is one of the key characters in British fantasy fiction. However, the series' tortured chronology can make it less accessible than it could be - this episode is the first in a two part series exploring the epic Elric books in their internal chronological order.

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C.J. Cherryh's 1981 novel Downbelow Station won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, becoming the first book published by DAW Books to achieve this feat. A part of the long-running Alliance-Union universe, the novel is one of the definitive space station stories - but does it still hold up?

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On September 5 and 6, 3D Realms masterminded an online game show dedicated almost entirely to retro-style FPS games. This episode runs down some of the highlights from Realms Deep 2020, and what the event implies about the health of the "boomer shooter" movement.

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Ursula K. LeGuin is best known for her award-winning sci-fi novels The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Disposessed (1974). These are both part of her loose "Hainish cycle", but far fewer people have read the books which began the series.

This episode looks at LeGuin's first three novels - Rocannon's World (1966), Planet of Exile (1966) and City of Illusions (1967) - to see how they fit into the author's wider SF project.

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Vincent Bevins' remarkable book The Jakarta Method is an unsettling but hugely informative look at the history of anticommunist violence in the 20th century. Focusing primarily on the Indonesian mass killings of 1965 and 1966, it also covers Brazil, Chile and numerous other countries - and explains how the U.S. assisted in appalling massacres in the Third World.

The book is highly recommended and available to buy here: https://vincentbevins.com/book/

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Richard Garfield's boardgame King of Tokyo had sold 750,000 copies even before its second edition was released in 2016. This episode looks at what made this classic dice-rolling game a hit, and and what brings players coming back. 

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Featuring Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode and Claudia Cardinale, The Professionals was one of the biggest Westerns of the 1960s. Packed with explosive action and a fantastic script, it's also more than just box-office dynamite.

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