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Robert Silverberg's To Open the Sky (1967) combines five pre-planned stories originally published in Galaxy magazine in 1965 and 1966, it is an interestingly structured piece of work published at a time when Silverberg was just entering his own personal golden age. It also combines themes of religion, psychic powers, terraforming, immortality, and political conflict into a unique take on the "future history" subgenre of SF.

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George R.R. Martin is easily one of the best-known, most successful, and wealthiest genre writers still working today - albeit slowly.

While Martin is a giant of modern fantasy writing, even some of his ardent fans may not be aware that he first made an impact in science fiction. This episode first covers his debut novel from 1977, Dying of the Light. It's a gloomy, mournful story of lost love and personal obligations set on a dying, rogue planet. Next, I'll take a look at the very different Tuf Voyaging from 1986. A more light-hearted affair, it collects seven stories of eco-engineering, monstrous creatures, and witty dialogue, and cats.

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John Brunner was a startlingly prolific British writer of science fiction, whose reputation rests on four acclaimed books he published from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. However, earlier in his career he wrote many SF adventures which while less ambitious, are a rich source of pulp excitement.

This episode focuses on two of these many novels. The Atlantic Abomination and Sanctuary in the Sky were both published in 1960 by Ace Books. They represent only half the novels Brunner published that year through the same US publisher. Listen on for a brisk look at these two fast-paced books, little-remembered but accomplished genre exercises from a giant of British SF.

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Pure SF pulp, The Fall of Chronopolis (1974) is the fifth novel by British author Barrington J. Bayley. While it superficially resembles a space opera, it is really more of what could be called a "time opera". The Chronotic Empire rules hundreds of years of human history, using powerful time-ships to head off threats from the past and the future. But when officer of the Third Time Fleet, Mond Aton, glimpses the true nature of the "temporal substratum", it begins to change everything...

This episode is a brisk look at the novel which Rhys Hughes called "perhaps the ultimate time travel story", and which was possibly was an influence on the setting of Warhammer 40,000. To catch up with a previous review of Bayley's The Garments of Caean (1976), listen to episode 108.

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This special feature episode focuses on three novels written in partnership by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbbluth - The Space Merchants (1952), Gladiator-at-Law (1955), and Wolfbane (1959). Each unique in their own way, these three books are classics of the genre in the 1950s. They are the products of a special partnership between two writers who complemented each other perfectly.

Significantly, all three books were originally serialised in Galaxy magazine, which at the time was edited by H.L. Gold. In this sense, the three books represent some of the high watermarks of magazine SF in the exciting, productive 1950s. All three were also published in book form by Ballantine, then a new company which was helping to build a market for SF novels, which had never existed prior to the '50s.

The partnership ended early due to the untimely death of Kornbluth in 1958. Soon afterwards, H.L. Gold stepped down from Galaxy, and left Pohl to take over from him. These three novels, then, arrived at a time of tremendous change in the genre. In this episode, I try to do them some justice - especially Gladiator-at-Law and Wolfbane, which I feel deserve the classic status already afforded to The Space Merchants.

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Winner of the BSFA Award for Best Novel, Excession (1996) is the fourth novel in Iain M. Banks ever-popular Culture series of SF novels. In this entry, the awesome power of the post-scarcity Culture civilisation is challenged by two linked threats. One is the increasing aggression of a cruel species, the Affront. The other is the emergence of a vast and mysterious structure, the Excession.

On one level a classic "big dumb object" story, Excession explores previously unseen elements of the Culture setting - not least the workings of its super-intelligent AIs.

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Poul Anderson's Tau Zero, published in 1970, is a landmark of hard SF which pushes out far further, beyond the Milky Way and into the frightening emptiness of intergalactic space. It also deals memorably with time dilation, and a vast spain of eons.

Significantly, Anderson does all of this in a scientifically convincing way, with a plot strongly grounded in his understanding of phyics at the time. This episode takes a close look at the novel, and the reasons why it remains a classic of its type over 50 years later.

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The Garments of Caean is a science fiction novel by the British author Barrington J. Bayley (1937 - 2008). It forms a part of his classic run of unusual and energetic books in the mid-1970s, and is included in guide 100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels. This is a space opera with an odd hook - it is about clothes, specifically an incredible Frachonard suit which gives its wearer remarkable influence over others.

This is both an exciting interstellar adventure with comic elements, and an interesting vehicle for sociological speculation about cultural exchange, self-image, and whether the clothes really make the man.

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For lots more writing on classic science fiction, other books, video games, and more check our my site andyjohnson.xyz and follow me on Twitter: @andyjohnsonuk