Connie Willis is known for her stocked awards cabinet and for her lengthy novels in the "Oxford Time Travel" series. But this major figure of US SF has not always been concerned with exploring the past, or with doorstop-sized tomes. Remake<...

Time travel is, if scientists are to be believed, impossible. That has never stopped science fiction writers, who have made it one of their most frequently used and popular concepts. But if time travel is impossible, can it at least be made pla...

Science fiction is famously difficult to define. In 1952, the writer and editor Damon Knight famously wrote that "science fiction is what we point to when we say it." But what if what we point to is just the surface, just an aesthetic, and what...

This is an exploration of four short novels by a neglected female writer of SF who sought to subvert the genre from within.One happy development in recent years is the growing awareness of the contribution of women writers to the develop...

Edmund Cooper is hardly a familiar name today, but he was once a significant presence on the British science fiction scene. For 23 years, he reviewed new SF books for The Sunday Times, and one of his short stories was adapted into the 1957 film...

The generation starship is a classic concept in science fiction. Other stars are hugely far away, and our spacecraft are slow - why not condemn several generations of our descendants to live on board ship, in the hope of reaching a new world in...

Back in episode 131, we looked at The Embedding, Ian Watson's startling debut novel published in 1973. Watson was soon to ascend to new heights, winning the BSFA Award for Best Novel for his second effort, 1975's The Jonah Kit

The backwoods of Wisconsin may not seem like the likeliest place for humanity's future in the stars to be decided, but only outside of a Clifford D. Simak story. Wisconsin was his preferred setting, particularly the woodsy Wisconsin of his yout...

Rather than looking at a specific work of classic SF, this episode takes a wider view. It's my personal introduction to five concepts which I think can help enhance your science fiction reading, to boost your understanding and appreciati...

Science fiction icon Philip K. Dick is such a well known figure now - over 40 years after his death - that it is possible to lose sight of the struggles he faced in his career. Back in the 1950s, he longed to break into the mainstream fiction m...

Science fiction has seen many audacious heroes who use their wit and guile to overthrow dictatorships, bring the truth to light, and save the world. While this kind of wish fulfilment has its place, so too do stories in which protagonists know ...

A soulful sequel to The Soul of the Robot (1974)In episode 119, I took a look at The Soul of the Robot from 1974, the best-known novel by the little-known British SF author Barrington J. Bayley. As ...

A clash of the deep past and the near futureFeatured in episode 107, Pat Murphy's 1986 novel The Falling Woman was one of my favourite reads of 2024. This episode covers her debut novel, The Shadow Hunter,...

Confinement and culture shock in a hyper-urban worldRecent projections suggest that the human population will peak somewhere around 2085; it could even occur, according to some models, as early as 2060. But what would society look...

A personal struggle with cosmic consequencesSome people are their own worst enemy - that's particularly true for John Breton. One night, he finds himself confronted with an identical, rival version of himself - who has crossed ove...

Coming of age on a hollowed-out asteroidThe critic Algis Budrys said of this novel, "one feels a real shock as one realizes that Panshin after all has never been a girl growing up aboard a hollowed-out planetoid". He was praising ...

A tall tale of impossible products, mutants, and parallel EarthsClifford D. Simak explores the parallel worlds theme to intriguing, energetic effect in his 1953 novel Ring Around the Sun. In this tall tale, origina...

Entropic tales from the end of time It is a bit of a truism to say that people are entranced by imagining the end of the world. But what about the end of time? In this immensely distant scenario, entropy has had its way with ...

The Culture is run by Minds - AI constructs of immense computing power, some of the greatest intelligences in the galaxy. But no amount of intelligence can prevent you from making mistakes.The sixth novel in the Culture series by Iain M...

Answering listener questions about all things classic SF.Can you believe it, it's episode 150! To mark this milestone, this episode is a special Q&A. Questions and answers take a tour of Ursula K. Le Guin, J. G. Ballard, ...

A shocking collision of warped sexuality and twisted metal"I wanted to rub the human face in its own vomit - and force it to look in the mirror." With these words, J.G. Ballard described the aim of his 1973 novel Crash...

Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction classic which crossed over into the mainstream. Originally published in novel form in 1966, Daniel Keyes' only fully-fledged SF book not only won a Nebula, but was adapted to film, and f...

A plea for human connection in a computerised worldThe reputation of John Brunner rests largely on his four "tract novels" published between 1968 and 1975. Complex and imposing, they are fictional explorations of issues and crises...

A moving meditation on revolution, knowledge, and human longevityKim Stanley Robinson has been a major fixture of American SF for 30 years. Best known for his Mars trilogy from the 1990s, each of his recent novels has been a major...

The classic which helped to define hard science fictionWhatever your definition of "hard science fiction", Hal Clement's 1954 novel Mission of Gravity is sure to meet it. Rich with meaty discussions of the hard sci...