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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 01/10/2026

I think The Forge of God (1987) also builds on Eon. Bear found a much better way here to capture a devastating sense of loss, and it has somewhat more fully realised characters.

andyjohnson.xyz

End of days: The Forge of God (1987) by Greg Bear

A genuinely harrowing and yet moving novel of an unstoppable assault on Earth by unknowable aliens.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 01/10/2026

For me, Bear's other 1985 novel Blood Music is more assured and controlled, with much greater emotional resonance - even if the ideas aren't quite as mind-bending as those in Eon.

andyjohnson.xyz

Uncontrolled evolution: Blood Music (1985) by Greg Bear

Exploring Greg Bear's unsettling classic novel of biotechnology, disaster, and transcendence.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 01/10/2026

The conflicts - both on Earth and within the Stone (as the Americans name the asteroid) - are not delineated clearly enough, and the characters and emotions are rather flat.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 01/10/2026

A hugely ambitious development of the 1970s macrostructure-themed novel, reminiscent of Rendezvous with Rama or Orbitsville but taken much further. While epic in scope, Bear doesn't always have things under control.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 01/10/2026

Eon (1985) by Greg Bear ✅ - a hollow asteroid arrives in Earth orbit, full of empty cities and incredible technology. Will its presence prevent, or cause, a catastrophic nuclear exchange?

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 29/09/2026

China continues to absolutely crush it where book design is concerned. Some UK classic SF authors in translation, represented in the huge Eslite store in Suzhou.

Chinese edition of The Player of Games (1988) by Iain M. Banks

Chinese edition of Concrete Island (1974) by J. G. Ballard

Chinese edition of Non-Stop (1958) by Brian Aldisa

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 29/09/2026

China continues to absolutely crush it where book design is concerned. Some UK classic SF authors in translation, represented in the huge Eslite store in Suzhou.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 21/09/2026

Space elevators have shown up frequently in SF, but Arthur C. Clarke popularised them with his novel The Fountains of Paradise (1979). My new piece looks at this optimistic story of mega-engineering, set in a version of Sri Lanka.

andyjohnson.xyz

Down to the wire: The Fountains of Paradise (1979) by Arthur C. Clarke

A better future through mega-engineering

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 25/09/2026

It does feel like a short story or novella that has burst its banks - it meanders on for at least 50 pages after its imaginative power has dried up. At its best, though, it is what the cover quotes call "classic Ballard".

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 25/09/2026

This was Ballard's first novel after his breakthrough with Empire of the Sun (1984), but is closer in style to The Drowned World (1962). As you would expect it is overflowing with Ballard's trademark vivid images.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 25/09/2026

The Day of Creation (1987) by J. G. Ballard ✅ - the archetypal Ballard protagonist (a listless middle-aged doctor) accidentally "creates" a river and causes psychic and ecological upheaval in a fictional African country.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 24/09/2026

I will also again plug Brunner's excellent Society of Time series (1962), a really well-crafted set of time travel + alternate history stories reissued by the @britishlibrary.bsky.social in 2021. I wrote about them last year.

andyjohnson.xyz

Hanging by a thread: the Society of Time trilogy (1962) by John Brunner

One man struggles to protect the Spanish Empire in a fragile timeline

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 24/09/2026

The prolific, sometimes brilliant, British SF writer John Brunner (1934 - 1995) was born on this day. I've covered his work fairly extensively, most recently his fourth and final "tract novel", The Shockwave Rider (1975). As a prediction of an online society, it is by turns prescient and naive.

andyjohnson.xyz

Computer fugitive: The Shockwave Rider (1975) by John Brunner

On the run in the networked society

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 24/09/2026

If you're in the vicinity of exotown LV-539 (AKA "Brighton") on 14 October, and you like Aliens - and who doesn't? - this sounds like a great time!

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 24/09/2026

"Clarke was, in point of fact, not Sri Lankan, but he lived here in a state of such absolute colonial privilege that they made a new category of resident just for him." I found this 2022 piece by @vajra.me, which mentions The Fountains of Paradise, very interesting.

vajra.me

The Extractivism of Setting and the Traitor’s Text

On canon and place.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 24/09/2026

I'll shortly be headed to China for two weeks - looking forward to visiting some bookshops there. I may not be able to read the books, but they are often beautiful.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 24/09/2026

My actually "low-tech way to enjoy music and movies" is to use elaborate smoke signals to recreate them from memory.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 21/09/2026

What is a space elevator, anyway? Here's a video from a few years ago with quick background on the idea, and a rather optimistic take on its feasibility with emerging materials science.

youtube.com

Space Elevators Are Getting Closer to Reality

YouTube video by Bloomberg Originals

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 21/09/2026

andyjohnson.xyz

Down to the wire: The Fountains of Paradise (1979) by Arthur C. Clarke

A better future through mega-engineering

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 21/09/2026

Dickson's setting is so thin and his concepts so stupid, and he treats them with total deadly seriousness. Add in the near-absence of women and abundance of dialogue and it's up there with that bore Asimov.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 21/09/2026

Soldier, Ask Not (1967) by Gordon R. Dickson ✅ - another infallible giga-genius sets the galaxy to rights, this time a "newsman" out for revenge. This one was a slog, slim though it is.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 21/09/2026

Sometimes the best form of spacecraft propulsion is a truck.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 20/09/2026

George R. R. Martin was born on this day in 1948. He may now be "the American Tolkien", but he established himself with his science fiction. Here, I wrote about his books Dying of the Light (1977) and Tuf Voyaging (1986).

andyjohnson.xyz

A Thousand Worlds: Dying of the Light (1977) and Tuf Voyaging (1986) by George R.R. Martin

A look at the only two full-length works in the Thousand Worlds science fiction setting by the author of A Game of Thrones.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 20/09/2026

andyjohnson.xyz

A Thousand Worlds: Dying of the Light (1977) and Tuf Voyaging (1986) by George R.R. Martin

A look at the only two full-length works in the Thousand Worlds science fiction setting by the author of A Game of Thrones.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 20/09/2026

I always assumed it was a quirk of the rights, as "The White Boat" was the only story originally published in New Worlds, as opposed to Impulse.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 16/09/2026

One minor but striking thing is that Clarke predicts something very like Google Alerts, but doesn't predict it becoming almost completely poisoned by SEO bait from slop merchants like Collider and Screen Rant.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 16/09/2026

The Fountains of Paradise (1979) by Arthur C. Clarke ✅ - classic Clarke, about the construction of a space elevator in a slightly fictionalised Sri Lanka. A very solid tale, hardly cutting edge even for its time, but with a quite moving ending.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 16/09/2026

"And through it alllll, she offers me flood protection..."

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shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

the only threats "AI" poses to society are when people put it in charge of things that require thought, or crash the economy over it, or destroy the environment to power it. but it's people doing all of those things. AI poses zero threat by itself as it cannot do anything due to not existing

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 14/09/2026

It's due to be forced out and turned into a flat, but for now Riverman Records survives on Walton Street.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 13/09/2026

So far - as entertaining as this is - it feels like an enormously hyper-extended prologue to a novel that doesn't exist. The contrast with the fleet, efficient Piranesi is so stark.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 13/09/2026

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell [Volume II] (2004) by Susanna Clarke ✅ - another 370 pages of this flew by, and it's still witty and engaging. But good grief is it circuitous, circling constantly while scarcely going anywhere.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 11/09/2026

I have a Kobo, which has served me well although it's a little long in the tooth now and a mite sluggish. The unfortunate thing with Humble is the bundles that are unavailable outside the US (recently including Elizabeth Moon and C.J. Cherryh ones).

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 11/09/2026

This week the Manics announced their first live album, recordings of 2014 shows in which they played The Holy Bible in full. My book is my own take on every Manics song to date, including the ones on that harrowing 1994 masterpiece.

The upcoming Manic Street Preachers album, The Holy Bible Live.

Numerous hardcover copies of Manic Street Preachers: Song by Song by Andy Johnson, on a table at the launch event

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 11/09/2026

Six months ago today (is that a thing?) was the launch event for my first book - great memories of sharing the experience of writing MANIC STREET PREACHERS: SONG BY SONG with a receptive audience!

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 11/09/2026

I'll most likely rewatch S1 as well; I guess that's a consolation for Netflix. Their dwindling audiences will at least often have to rewatch seasons to jog their memories!

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 11/09/2026

There's still time, apparently, as this seems to have been extended for another 20 days.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 11/09/2026

The wait for 3 Body Problem series 2 is getting ridiculous at this point - very nearly two and half years and counting.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 10/09/2026

Less than nine hours left to pick up the Greg Bear bundle.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 10/09/2026

The threat that LLMs represent is that they are fuel on the fire of several contemporary crises - disinformation, illiteracy, water scarcity, democratic backsliding, institutional capture, etc. The worst possible technology at the worst possible time.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 10/09/2026

"AI" execs are pushing a transparent con based on a bit of half-remembered print SF, invocations of The Terminator, and their own delusions of grandeur reinforced by the chatbots they made.

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Scifi Art @scifiart.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Art by David B. Mattingly for Manshape by John Brunner (1982)

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 09/09/2026

Despite all this, and Cletus' smug infallibility, I found myself enjoying this - to an extent.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 09/09/2026

This is military SF, with the emphasis squarely on the military part - Dickson explores no novel or interesting science fictional ideas here. He does include a very stupid and bad romantic subplot, presumably out of a sense of obligation.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 09/09/2026

This is either the first, second, or fourth (!) novel in the Childe or Dorsai cycle, depending on your perspective. It was my first, and I was only mildly confused.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 09/09/2026

Tactics of Mistake (1971) by Gordon R. Dickson ✅ - the brilliant military hypergenius Cletus Grahame outsmarts ally and enemy alike across multiple worlds. Not surprisingly, this was serialised in Analog.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 07/09/2026

The manga / SF / fantasy / boardgames one seems to do a good trade as well.

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