In his book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, David Pringle aptly described A Canticle for Leibowitz as "a beautifully written novel, rich in character and ironic detail, and at the same time funny and sad." Published in 1959, this book was the only novel published by Walter M. Miller Jr. during his lifetime.

One of the most highly praised science fiction novels of the 1950s, A Canticle for Leibowitz is in part Miller's reflection on his traumatic experiences in World War II, his Catholic faith, and his fears of nuclear conflict. It is also a stark warning about the dangers of both ignorance and knowledge, and an exploration of humankind's capacity for creativity and destruction.

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.

My coverage of Iain M. Banks' wonderful Culture series continues with the seventh novel, Matter, published in 2008. This is the longest Culture novel yet, and in some ways the most complex - set on a vast macrostructure, specifically the artificial planet of Sursamen. Banks weaves an ambitious plot which at times makes the novel feel like Use of Weapons nested inside Inversions - or perhaps it is the other way around. This is literally a story of spheres within spheres, as the different levels of the planet play host to various species, conflicts, and levels of technological development.

In what is in part another Banksian meditation on the ethics of intervention, a novice Culture agent must decide how best to interfere in a conflict that threatens not only her siblings, but the fate of a world.

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.

Confronting a time mystery as a new ice age looms

Climate breakdown, and rising temperatures, are a fact of life. But in the 1970s, there was a subset of climate scientists who believed that global cooling was going to be the challenge of the 21st century. Ice and Iron is a little-discussed 1974 novel by the author, critic and fan Wilson Tucker which explores this scenario. It also follows a strange conflict between heavily armed women from the future, and violent nomads, apparently from prehistory.

Can the eccentric researcher Fisher Highsmith solve a mystery of deep time and the human future?

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.

Another comic inferno from another stupid timeline

Back in November, in episode 176, I took a look at The Reproductive System, the first novel by the US writer John Sladek, who produced almost all of his work while living in the UK. This episode tackles his second novel, the even more anarchic The Müller-Fokker Effect, published in 1970. It was not successful, and Sladek did not publish another SF novel for a decade.

However, The Müller-Fokker Effect is one of those novels from decades past which captures something of the vibe of today's times. Welcome to a wild ride featuring a tradwife proto-influencer, a semi-literate racist demogogue with an eye on the US presidency, and a mind without a body.

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.

Corporate warfare becomes deadly as the state crumbles

Robert Asprin was best known for the humorous fantasy series MythAdventure and for creating the influential Thieves' World series of anthologies which ran from 1979 to 1989. But before launching either of those long-running enterprises, Asprin got his start in science fiction. His story of corporate mercenaries in the August 1977 issue of Analog was followed immediately by a full-length version, his debut novel The Cold Cash War.

Fairly obscure today, this novel is a precursor to cyberpunk which explores a new kind of corporate warfare, fought by non-lethal means and in secrecy. A product of a very particular moment in the late 1970s, how well does The Cold Cash War stand up today, and what contemporary relevance does it have?

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.

The definitive travel guide to a place that never existed

Like J. G. Ballard's Crash - featured in episode 149 - Last Letters From Hav is another novel which might challenge or expand definitions of science fiction. Originally published in 1985, the book is a work of veteran British travel writer Jan Morris, who died in 2020. Sitting comfortably alongside her books on cities like Oxford, Venice, and New York, it is a travelogue - the difference being that Hav is a fictional place. But what is it that makes Hav such a strangely believable locale? And what qualifies it as science fiction?

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.

The influential classic of enhanced intelligence with a breakneck pace

An early novel by Poul Anderson, Brain Wave (1954) is also a landmark science fiction story on the topic of intelligence enhancement. Unlike in the later Flowers for Algernon (1966) - see episode 148 - an explosive rise of brainpower is not the work of human scientists. Instead, the whole world gets a huge intelligence boost, as the Earth exits a vast cosmic field which for millions of years had inhibited "certain electromagnetic and electrochemical processes". Can society survive this colossal, overnight shift? And if so, what does it mean for the human future?

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.

It's time for the final episode of 2025! Find out which were the top 10 science fiction books I read over the course of the year, along with five honourable mentions. Plus, a brief reflection on how the year has gone, some plans for 2026, and a thank you to everyone who has listened, shared, and got in touch over the last 12 months. And: corny sound effects!

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.