Classic SF with Andy Johnson

20 years ago, Alfonso Cuaron's film Children of Men was released to some acclaim. Today, its depiction of a decaying, paranoid UK is often described as chillingly prescient. Less discussed is the central concept - of a sterile world, a world without children being born. The film was loosely based on P.D. James' 1992 novel, which itself has been described as "derivative" of Greybeard - a 1964 novel by British SF legend Brian Aldiss.This episode takes a close look at Greybeard, which was written as means for Aldiss to process a difficult time in his personal life and which is a powerfully effective entry in the tradition of the British catastrophe novel.Get in touch with a text message!For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.

This episode returns to the work of Michael Moorcock, and to one of his many trilogies - the playful, baroque books that make up The Dancers at the End of Time. Strongly influenced by the writing and art of the 1890s, these are tales of superpowered, decadent immortals living at the end of everything. Get in touch with a text message!For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.

Fateful encounters in the long dawn of early humanityNeanderthals seem to have been a recurring theme here lately. They have shown up in Pat Murphy's The Shadow Hunter (episode 157), in Stephen Baxter's Mammoth trilogy (episode 179), and most recently in Wilson Tucker's novel Ice and Iron (episode 185). This episode focuses on one of the most notable examples of prehistoric SF, William Golding's 1955 novel The Inheritors. What was a secondary element of Baxter's novels - the conflict between Neanderthals and early humans - is at the core of this novel, Golding's follow-up to his better known 1954 debut Lord of the Flies. Described by the Science Fiction Encyclopedia as having "considerable, even hallucinatory, force", this is a striking novel from the alien perspective of our own ancestors.Get in touch with a text message!For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.

Humans attempt to communicate with aliens - at any costIt's time to cover - for the first time here - a work by the Polish science fiction icon Stanislaw Lem. It's an unconventional entry point, as this episode focuses on his last novel, Fiasco, published in 1986. It is a fascinating but deeply gloomy piece of work, in which Lem doesn't so much burst the bubble of optimism about humankind's place in the stars, but systematically demolishes it. Approached from various philosophical perspectives, Fiasco is a startlingly pessimistic novel which Lem used to cap his science fiction career - a challenging testament to human hubris and frailty, an indictment of how much we have to learn.Get in touch with a text message!For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.