Classic SF with Andy Johnson

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, cruc…

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 Hero…

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…

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 mes…

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 preque…

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 (2…

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 H…

If humans mastered the stars and met other alien species, what would they do in order to stay on top? This short episode covers The Long Result, a 1965 sci-fi novel by British author John Brunner whi…

The latest monthly roundup of the games I've played lately, new and old. Featured in November 2022: 

• Evil West (2022)
• Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 (2022)
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005)
• Rise of Nations: …

My coverage of Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series continues with Nor Crystal Tears (1982). This third novel focuses on the early history of the setting, and the first encounter between hum…

Aliens, generation ships, dated social attitudes, and the horror of infinite nothingness. This episode is an overview of the book Spaceworlds: Stories of Life in the Void. Published by the British Li…

This month's bumper roundup of the games I played features seven entries:

• Asterigos: Curse of the Stars (2022)
• Dome Keeper (2022)
• Gotham Knights (2022)
• Titanfall 2 (2016)
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2…

Another month bites the dust, and it was a busy one for me. Writing for Entertainium, I reviewed three games in September - a record. First up was Circus Electrique, an interesting mix of management …

American author Patricia A. McKillip passed away in May 2022. This episode covers her breakthrough novel for adults, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974), which won the first World Fantasy Award. The b…

Each month, I take a look back at the games I've played recently - be they new or old - and share my quick thoughts. In this instalment, I cover new releases Hard West II and Cursed to Golf, as well …

Would you believe it, it's the 75th episode! Thank you to everyone who has listened to this odd, bitesize, sort-of-podcast and its highly inconsistent subject matter. 

Barry Malzberg's breakthrough sc…

Originally serialised in Analog magazine in 1975, Lifeboat is a collaborative SF novel by Harry Harrison and Gordon R. Dickson. Can the humans and aliens trapped together in a cramped interstellar es…

Inflation is rising rapidly, plunging working people into poverty. A huge strike wave spreads from one sector to another. A major economy has pulled out of Europe, adding to the economic chaos, and a…

This latest instalment of my monthly series on the games I’ve played has four entries. It kicks off with Strange Brigade and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, two very different games which are u…

Normal human lives are in short supply in The Time Dweller. Originally published in 1969, this collection is one of the earliest efforts to gather together some of Michael Moorcock’s shorter stories.…