A truly unique figure in SF, Frederik Pohl (1919 - 2013) died on this day. Last year, I wrote about three of his novels written with Cyril M. Kornbluth, including my personal favourite Wolfbane (1959).
Exploring classic science fiction, with a focus on the 1950s to the 1990s. Weekly articles and podcast at andyjohnson.xyz
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A truly unique figure in SF, Frederik Pohl (1919 - 2013) died on this day. Last year, I wrote about three of his novels written with Cyril M. Kornbluth, including my personal favourite Wolfbane (1959).
It's time for that monthly roundup that I sometimes remember to do! In early August, I wrote a piece about the science fiction aesthetic, and whether it has overtaken the genre itself.
For what it's worth, I enjoy your rigorous and thoughtful writing very much.
It is a sorry state of affairs. It pains me to see the countless slop "stories" pumped out every day, all along the lines of "They Tried To Brainwash Her. Now She Controls Their Leaders".
Problem. Solved.
Talk about "fire in the hole"...
The search results for "science fiction" are an absolute hellscape of slop garbage, totally drowning out anything of value.
The Book of Everywhere (2024) has an unseen character called Kaz Miller - coincidence?
August was a successful month in the numbers game - the podcast received exactly the same number of downloads as the previous best month. Really appreciate everyone who reads, listens, and shares.
My third and last piece for August is a look at Connie Willis' short novel Remake (1995), about a gloomy future of creative bankruptcy, computer-generated slop, and resurrected actors in a cynical Hollywood.
After a short hiatus, I published a piece on Gregory Benford's breakthrough novel Timescape (1980), with its vivid characters, ecological collapse, and unusual approach to time travel.
It's time for that monthly roundup that I sometimes remember to do! In early August, I wrote a piece about the science fiction aesthetic, and whether it has overtaken the genre itself.
It is all of those things, and worth a go in my view - but definitely more interesting than great for me. What I've heard about Blackout / All Clear sounds very off-putting.
Hope you enjoy it! I will be getting to Greybeard myself fairly soon, I would think.
I enjoyed this one - quite an unusual approach to time travel.
Two purchases this weekend, £3 in total. I now have most of the novels credited to Iain Banks, all that remains is to start reading them...
Two purchases this weekend, £3 in total. I now have most of the novels credited to Iain Banks, all that remains is to start reading them...
New fanzine column: What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Update No. XXV sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/08/30/w... Come join the community and discussion! #scifi #sciencefiction
I picked up this particular edition in the Netherlands earlier this year, but haven't got to it yet.
Computerised slop, resurrected actors, and a creatively bankrupt Hollywood - in a novel published 30 years ago. This week's article, on Connie Willis' Remake (1995) is here.
Getting properly started on this.
We had editors on the road for Worldcon and all kinds of other end-of-summer activities, and yet! Some great reviews and columns in August, and still managed to pull together this month's link round-up: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/08/29/w...
It does seem like translations into English are on the up - in this way Liu Cixin made a huge impact in English years after seemingly ceasing to write in Chinese - and that's a big positive.
I'm not quite in a doom and gloom camp, but I do think a thriving SF requires more investment and support from publishers than it is getting. I think the shrunken retail space for SF is pretty significant.
It's obviously anecdotal, but when I look at the new science fiction and fantasy hardcovers in my local high street chain bookshop, 90% of them are fantasy.
The thread gets at some of the things I was gesturing towards in this recent piece, in which I was aiming to express (imperfectly, I know), my sense that SF the real, living genre has been supplanted by its aesthetic.
Really interesting if somewhat depressing thread on the decline of SF as a genre (or as I might put it differently, as a publishing category).
The Stars My Destination is swift and eventful, and rarely stops for breath. I was a little wearied by the end - and not only by the racism and misogyny - and I didn't find it at all thought-provoking in the way I like SF to be.
One reason I didn't get on with Bester's earlier novel is that I have a strong dislike of "psionic" nonsense in SF, which is rather a pet hate of mine. There's some here, but mercifully quite a bit less - and no tiresome hierarchy of "espers".
The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester ✅ - a ripping yarn about a lowly space crewman who, betrayed, becomes a vengeful playboy superman. I liked this a lot more than The Demolished Man (1953), but can't agree with Joe Haldeman that it is a "work of genius".
This was my first experience of her work - what I've heard about her time travel books does not appeal, to be honest, but it was interesting to try a shorter, more approachable one.
The first edition of Remake was a deluxe product put out by publisher Mark V. Ziesing, and limited to 2,000 signed copies and priced at $40. The cover art is by Arnie Fenner. According to the ISFDB, this was available in December 1994, but the novel is coprighted 1995.
This week's mailing is also out, linking to interesting recent coverage of classic SF from @vintage-sf.bsky.social, @bdcollins95.bsky.social, and @joachimboaz.bsky.social.
Computerised slop, resurrected actors, and a creatively bankrupt Hollywood - in a novel published 30 years ago. This week's article, on Connie Willis' Remake (1995) is here.
Live later today: I cover Connie Willis for the first time, specifically her short novel Remake (1995). Do we dare imagine a future of Hollywood creative bankruptcy and computer-generated slop? Mailing list available here.
US writer and biologist Vonda N. McIntyre (1948 - 2019) was born on this day. One of my first articles of this year was a look at her novel Dreamsnake (1978), a striking work of feminist, post-apocalyptic SF.
Vonda N. McIntyre (1948-2019) was born on this day. Bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c... L, George Underwood, 1979; R, Charles Shields, 1979 #scifi #sciencefiction #books
Edward Bryant (1945 - 2017) was born on this day. Earlier this year I wrote about Cinnabar (1976), his collection of linked stories and a showcase for his New Wave SF style.
Edward Bryant (1945-2017) was born on this day. Bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c... L, Gray Morrow, 1973; R, Lou Feck, 1976 #scifi #sciencefiction #books
Also Benford's Timescape (1980) which I've just covered and which is a very interesting and more "serious" or rigorous look at time and causality.
While I don't regret reading Dune I do think it is immensely overrated. Book of the New Sun I am yet to get to, but I have mixed feelings on Wolfe so far.
I read the original Foundation trilogy but looking back, I'm not sure how (or why) I forced myself through it.
I'm not overly keen on the so-called "golden age" (as you I think you rightly put it), but think the 1950s was the period when writing began to step up in quality. Possibly that was connected to the dawn of book-first SF publishing.
I'm always on about it, but still Times Without Number (1962) by John Brunner - AKA The Society of Time in later editions.
SF supports a lot of definitions - which is a beautiful thing about it - but one which requires it to be set in the future seems quite a restrictive one to me.
It's very funny to me that in David Pringle's Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1985), he includes one Asimov book with obvious reluctance - he chooses The End of Eternity (1955), viewing it essentially as the least bad one.
Asimov's reputation is in decline partly because he was a grotesque misogynist, and also because books like Foundation are full of his absolutely leaden prose and dreadful dialogue.
I've now read 13 books by Reynolds but House of Suns is not one of them - though I have a copy. It seems to be his most highly regarded standalone. Will be interested to know what you think!
It is just banger after banger with Reynolds. The only one of his I haven't thought to be excellent was Revenger (2016), which felt like a half-hearted swing for the YA market.
Pushing Ice (2005) by Alastair Reynolds ✅ - another gripping adventure from one of the UK's best SF writers, in a setting somewhat less hostile than Revelation Space. Enthralling stuff
After an unplanned hiatus last week, we're back with a piece on the epic sort-of time travel novel Timescape (1980) by Gregory Benford.
It was almost completely lost on me.
It is brilliant. I've got the first ten of the books but haven't found the time to give one a go as yet...
Covers for Timescape by Terry Pastor, Pamela Lee, Chris Moore, and One Plus One Studio (the first edition).
Thanks for sharing! It's definitely quite an unusual and in some ways more "serious" and rigorous take on time and its implications. I don't have any more Benford on hand, but may get to some eventually.
After an unplanned hiatus last week, we're back with a piece on the epic sort-of time travel novel Timescape (1980) by Gregory Benford.
While I read them all, the Wayfarers books didn't do much for me. I found this one a bit better.
More recently, I wrote about Bear's also brilliant novel The Forge of God (1987) which in its own way combines ultimate terror with moments of moving beauty.
Greg Bear (1951 - 2022) was born on this day. In 2023, I wrote about his brilliant SF novel Blood Music (1985), as uplifting as it is disturbing, and one of my favourite books of the 1980s.
I've only read one of his (Gridlinked), which I thought was thoroughly stupid and bad - the kind of thing I would have written aged 12 (derogatory).
After the epic time it took to write on Jordan's Eye of the World, it was a refreshing to write about Anne Logston's SHADOW (Ace Books, 1991), which really fucking rocks. It's hilarious, its charming, its emotional, its bawdy, misogynists get kicked in the balls, the elves are awesome. Read it.
The torment nexus meme is misleading in that it suggests that our technoligarchs are capable of actually building anything. All that happens is that they use old sfnal concepts as a shared language—that old sensawunda, now bottled—for marketing their quite ordinary torment products
D. G. Compton (1930-2023) was born on this day. Bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c... L, David Bergen, 1975; R, Richard Powers, 1979 #scifi #sciencefiction #books
Glad to hear it! It's always a good day to read some Shaw.
Bob Shaw's Orbitsville (1975) except the surface area equivalent to five billion Earths is used to make marketing emails and pictures of Garfield with big boobs
It's not a conventional detective story - but there's a mystery to be solved. It's a good read, and I do like ocean world settings.
"A kind of SF detective story, starring the curious combination of three scientists, a cop, and a pair of friendly killer whales." I wrote about Cachlot (1980), one of my favourite Alan Dean Foster novels so far, in 2022.
Brian Aldiss was born 100 years ago today, on 18 August 1925. Recently, I wrote about his debut SF novel, the generation starship classic Non-Stop (1958).
The protagonist essentially lives through classic Hollywood, to the novel's detriment - it is drowning in film references in a way which becomes exhausting. There is something here through, 1955 and 1995 and 2025 all in conversation.
What it lacks in story, Remake makes up in still-relevant ideas: Hollywood cynicism, a terminally nostalgic culture, a rising tide of CG slop, people so bound up in pop culture minutiae they are oblivious to the world outside.
This reads to me like a short story which grew too long - the plot is tissue-thin, stretched over 140 pages. The focus is very tight, largely confined to one room and with only two and a half characters.
Remake (1995) by Connie Willis ✅ - my first Willis; her doorstop time travel novels don't appeal, but I was keen to try something shorter. Here, Hollywood makes only computer-generated films, reconstituted from elements scavenged from old ones.
Michael Whelan is a great follow, full of interesting insights into a very different era of cover art.
Congratulations!
I think the one I'm most likely to try next is The Masks of Time (1968).
I set out to have a focus on Silverberg in 2025, and have read five of his so far this year. It has been rewarding, but his relentless, crass sexualisation of almost every female character becomes wearying, fast.
...and I also preferred The World Inside (more a collection than a novel in my view), his look at dubious sexual freedom, superstructures, and a society centred on constant population increase.
Of Silverberg's 1971 novels, I had a better time with the swifter, darker, and more powerful The Second Trip, about two psyches struggling over control of one body...
There is a related concept of a psychoactive drug as vector for social revolution, which I think John Brunner did more effectively in The Stone That Never Came Down (1973).
This is set on Borthan, a human colony world where saying "I", "me", "myself", etc. is a reviled sin. This idea of negation of self is interesting, but I don't think there is enough in it to sustain a novel.
A Time of Changes (1971) by Robert Silverberg ✅ - the third '71 Silverberg I've read this year. This one won the Nebula, but I think I liked it least of those three.
Wait… I made a new video…? I made a new video! The long hiatus is over! A brief history of perhaps my favorite SF concept. More to come… SFF180 🚀 To the Stars! ✨ Generation Ships in Science Fiction youtu.be/yciyQ9tTd0I
Yesterday's charity shop finds in Cheltenham: Pangborn, Willis, Harness, and Alan Dean Foster's debut novel. Love the Willis cover art by Gary Ruddell.
Just finished Wingspan + Asia over here - this was the before shot...
Artist Darrell K. Sweet (1934-2011) was born on this day. Bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c... L, 1975; R, 1977 #scifi #sciencefiction #art #artist
Reminds me of an eye-opening anecdote featuring Campbell, Michael Moorcock, and John Brunner.
The first winner of the Campbell Memorial Award was a novel he would have hated - Malzberg's Beyond Apollo (1972). Sweeping generalisations about SF in the 20th century are not at all constructive.
Campbell's influence was huge (and he was a racist crank). But SF was never "filtered through one dude". The US is not the world, other approaches grew and flourished while he was around, and Campbell died in 1971.
They are - I also have West of the Sun and The Company of Glory, but not Davy.
That one is also beautiful - by the great Bob Haberfield.
Yesterday's charity shop finds in Cheltenham: Pangborn, Willis, Harness, and Alan Dean Foster's debut novel. Love the Willis cover art by Gary Ruddell.
I found it brilliant at times and its sheer scope and ambition is quite bracing, but I think most people would have to be in a pretty specific mood to tackle it (and in that mood for quite a while, of course...).
Same here!
SF scholar, critic, and writer Alexei Panshin (1940 - 2022) was born on this day. Earlier this year, I read and wrote about this excellent novel Rite of Passage (1968), which deals with growing up, colonialism, and change.
Alexei Panshin (1940-2022) was born on this day. Bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c... L, Diane and Leo Dillon, 1968; R, Frank Kelly Freas, 1969 #scifi #sciencefiction #books
It sounds fairly dense and challenging, but I'm sure I'll get to it when the mood takes me. Glad to have a copy, as it seems relatively scarce.
Just arrived: fourth printing of the US first edition of The Snow Queen (1980) by Joan D. Vinge. This novel won the 1981 Hugo for Best Novel, and last had a UK edition in 1988.
It's my birthday today, the only time I'll straight up ask you to share my site (*). Dozens of articles/podcast eps on classic science fiction, mainly from the 1950s to the 1990s. I'd love to discuss these books with new readers/listeners. * May be a lie
Thanks for reading and sharing!
Thanks!