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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 21h

Another welcome acquisition. The quirky irony of the title has always raised a smile - no wonder it’s been lodged in the memory for years. Read the title story today - and then happily reread, knowing I’d missed a few things first time around… And of course, it’s all beautifully written. #booksky

Copy of the Orb Paperback edition of the Gene Wolfe collection ‘The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Revisited Bradbury’s ‘Mars is Heaven’ today. Although I generally recollected where the story was heading, this familiarity still didn’t blunt the impact of that ending. Superbly crafted. And that’s why I love Bradbury - a sense of horror created purely by suggestion & oblique description. #booksky

Copy of the 1970 anthology ‘The Science Fiction Hall of Fame’ which contains Bradbury’s 1948 story ‘Mars is Heaven’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My sequential sojourn through Aldiss’s ‘Barefoot in the Head’ tales has brought me to ‘Multi-Value Motorway’. Certainly challenging given the wealth of playful wordplay, but entirely engaging when read in context, with imagery as striking as the accompanying 1967 illustration in New Worlds👇 #booksky

Uncredited illustration from the August 1967 issue of the British magazine New Worlds (the Contents page credits internal illustrations to three artists: Cawthorn, Zoline and Young) which accompanied the first appearance of the Brian Aldiss story ‘Multi-value Motorway’. Image depicts a snake with bared fangs, whilst in the foreground the snake’s body merges into the curving shape of a busy motorway.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Finished Wolfe’s ‘The Sword of the Lictor’ today. Captivating and satisfyingly unpredictable, in a way that sometimes brought to mind what someone once described as the ‘unhinged theatrical nightmare’ of John Boorman’s splendid ‘Zardoz’. And yes, I’m a long term admirer of the latter too 🙂 #booksky

Copies of the two Gollancz SF Masterworks volumes which together make up the original quartet of novels in Gene Wolfe’s ‘The Book of the New Sun’ series.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

John Brunner, born OTD 1934. Would love to see more of his extensive output in print. Now and again though, it’s heartening to find nice vintage items like this Fontana paperback in the wild, virtually unread judging by the condition. Beautiful cover by Peter Goodfellow too. #booksky

Copy of the Fontana release of the John Brunner novel ‘The Squares of the City’, with a cover credited to Peter Goodfellow (shows a man in a cityscape laid out like a chessboard with giant chess pieces). Machinery is visible in an exposed section of the Knight Chesspiece.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Currently halfway into the 3rd book of Wolfe’s ‘Book of the New Sun’ series. I feared I’d be flagging a little at this point, but there’s a fine momentum to the narrative that still has me entirely involved. And this one in particular boasts some gripping ‘edge-of-your-seat’ set-pieces… #booksky

A copy of the Gollancz SF Masterworks edition of the 3rd and 4th books (combined in one volume) of Gene Wolfe’s ‘Book of the New Sun’ series.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Celebrating the enduring legacy of H.G. Wells, born OTD 1866. Every time I discover or revisit the likes of The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau or The War of the Worlds, I’m truly astonished at the fact that they were written at the turn of the 19th century. Simply timeless works. #booksky

Copies of Penguin paperback editions of The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau and The War of the Worlds.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Celebrated author Keith Roberts was born OTD 1935. Still best known for his superb alternative history novel ‘Pavane‘ - although I was delighted to discover that there’s a whole body of work that‘s equally captivating. One of the few authors to have ignited the ‘completist’ gene in me.📚📖📚🙂 #booksky

Four recent editions of books by British author Keith Roberts - ‘Pavane’, ‘The Furies’, ‘The Grain Kings’, and ‘Kiteworld’.

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arn @arn99.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

(Broke my current rule as a reread) . #booksky #SF An utterly wonderful book, one of his best, his elegant style of writing makes a multi-layered complex story about identity, memories and illness, so easy to read, and a real joy to do so.

The Affirmation, hardback book by Christopher Priest.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My chronological readthrough of J.G. Ballard has brought me to 1963’s ‘The Time-Tombs’. One of the few stories to be set on another planet, it plays effectively with those tropes immortalised by Tomb-raiding adventure tales. Virgil Finlay’s striking cover certainly ramps up the drama too. #booksky

Virgil Finlay’s cover art for the J.G. Ballard story ‘The Time-tombs’ from the March 1963 issue of the SF magazine Worlds of IF. Cover shows two men rushing towards the materialising image of a woman seen between banks of scientific apparatus.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The latest pick from the Selected Stories tome was one of Philip K. Dick’s last tales, ‘I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon’ from 1980. A sombre affair involving the attempts of a computer to preserve a man’s sanity, when he is accidentally awoken from cryogenic sleep during an interstellar voyage. #booksky

Cover of The Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (cover image composed on the titles of the short stories overlayed onto a simple circular graphic)

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I found this fascinating - an exceptionally well informed commentary on the 1966 film adaptation of Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’. A real treasure trove of information courtesy of Bradbury Scholar Phil Nichols. Easy to follow too, even if you haven’t seen the film 👍 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/b...

podcasts.apple.com

Bradbury 100 - episode 80 - Fahrenheit 451 Movie Commentary

Podcast Episode · Bradbury 100 - Celebrating the Life and Work of American Writer Ray Bradbury · 11 September · 1hr 58min

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Rarely discussed nowadays, but I’ve a soft spot for the playfulness of David I. Masson’s mind-bending tales. This 1974 story centres on a means of ‘hopping’ between parallel Earths, allowing travellers to meet their doppleganger counterparts. Frequently off-the-wall, I’m delighted to say 🙂 #booksky

Copy of the collection ‘The Caltraps of Time’ by David I. Masson, which includes his last story ‘Doctor Fausta’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Noted that Norman Spinrad is 86 today. So an apt time to revisit his 1969 tale ‘The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde’, one of the best stories to utilise Michael Moorcock’s ubiquitous anti-hero Jerry Cornelius. Striking Mal Dean cover here for the story’s first appearance in New Worlds. #booksky

Cover by artist Mal Dean for the July 1969 issue of the magazine New Worlds (stylised image of an archetypal Mongol warrior astride a horse facing a large Jumbo Jet Airliner).

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

On to this fine short tale from 1967. Pohl’s breezy conversational style always draws me in & this unpredictable story will resonate with anyone who has felt that the best laid plans *never* truly work out as anticipated. There are hints that the causes may be ‘otherworldly’ after all… 🙂 #booksky

Copy of the Frederik Pohl collection ‘Platinum Pohl’, which contains the short story ‘Speed Trap’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Finished ’The Island of Doctor Moreau’ today. An extraordinary novel - horrific in ways that still took me by surprise (despite a loose familiarity with its overall theme & setting) & brilliantly staged throughout. Even the narrator‘s darker philosophical musings are beautifully written! #booksky

Quote from H.G. Well’s The Island of Doctor Moreau: “ "I must confess I lost faith in the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering the painful
disorder of this island. A blind fate, a vast pitiless mechanism, seemed to cut and shape the fabric of
existence...“

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

After over 60 years, still one of the finest and most thought-provoking ‘first contact’ novels. Celebrating Stanislaw Lem, born OTD 1921. #booksky

Copy of the Faber edition of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel ‘Solaris’, with a quote from the novel:
“How do you expect to communicate with the ocean, when you can’t even understand one another?”

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I love a film that respects its source material… Noted that celebrated director Robert Wise was born OTD 1914. Multiple credits to his name of course, but for this viewer he’s principally remembered for the astonishingly effective 1963 adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’.

Film poster for the 1963 release ‘The Haunting’, directed by Robert Wise. Montage of a woman’s face (with an expression of fear), the shadowy outline of a house, and three figures (three key characters in the movie) looking up towards the viewer.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Back to 1896 now and immersing myself in an absolute classic piece of work. There’s always a vibrancy about H.G. Wells‘s writing that makes me forget I’m reading something that was written some 130 years ago… And these Penguin editions are an absolute goldmine of biographical and background info 👍

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SciFiScavenger @scifiscavenger.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

This one next, a collection of his writings on various topics including one on the making of the movie adaptation of his book The Prestige, and another on the New Wave. #scifibooks #sciencefiction #nowreading

The Recollections by Christopher Priest.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

21st century Hells-Angels riding ‘Pteracycles’… Yes, Delany’s 1968 novella certainly delivers a few surprises. The dense, baroque style sometimes takes a little getting used to, but after a few pages I’m always happily immersed in the story. And how could I resist such a striking title? #booksky

Copy of the Penguin edition of the 1971 collection ‘Driftglass’ by Samuel R. Delany, which contains the novella ‘We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Finally caught up with this superb short tale from 1969. Having never seen Spielberg’s ‘A.I’, I’ve little idea what elements were retained or expanded upon, but suffice to say the little twist at the end of Aldiss’s original tale caught me nicely by surprise. Thoroughly deserves its reputation.

Copy of the collected short stories of Brian Aldiss (Volume 4 of the 1960s collection), which contains his 1969 short story ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Listened to so many good podcasts this week. Another find was this fine interview with Nina Allan, who provides a fascinating insight into the co-authoring of the J. G. Ballard biography ‘The Illuminated Man’ with her late husband Christopher Priest. Recommended 👍 podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/h...

podcasts.apple.com

Nina Allan - The Many Worlds of JG Ballard

Podcast Episode · How To Academy Podcast · 1 May · 50min

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

With the Booker Prize being announced later this month, I thought I’d go right back to the beginning of M. John Harrison’s career & revisit ‘The Bait Principle’ from 1970, his surreal take on ailurophobia - a pathological fear of felines. Wonderful ‘New Worlds’ illustration here by Ivor Latto.

Stylised image of two giants cats alongside a figure sat with folded arms and downcast head. Illustration by Ivor Latto to accompany M. John Harrison’s ‘The Bait Principle’ from New Worlds magazine No 198 (1970)

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

At the halfway mark in Ballard’s ‘Concrete Island’. The premise of a man ‘marooned’ on a traffic island has intrigued me for years & suffice to say our protagonist’s attempts to escape his predicament are by turns gripping & harrowing. And just now things have taken an unexpected turn… Captivating.

Copy of the most recent Fourth Estate (Harper Collins) paperback edition of J. G. Ballard’s 1974 novel ‘Concrete Island’.

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SciFiScavenger @scifiscavenger.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This one first out the gate for September. Strong start, some phenomenal world building in the first two pages, achieved solely by listing the notables attending the state funeral of the King of England. Think I'm going to like this. #scifibooks #sciencefiction #nowreading

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Caught up with this fine podcast interview with M. John Harrison today - some wonderful observations on his current Booker-nominated ‘The End of Everything’, along with reflections on three influential works by J.G. Ballard, John Wyndham & Robert Aickman. Perfect 🙂

Title graphic for the BBC Radio 4 Podcast ‘Take Four Books’ featuring an interview with M. John Harrison. Link as folllws:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030c1f

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Joachim Boaz @joachimboaz.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Keith Roberts' cover art detail for SF Impulse (September 1966) #scifi #sciencefiction

An oil rig in the distance. A lotus-like flower with long tentacle-like leaves reaches towards the rig.

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Bob Fry @bobfry.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

A rather good radio adaptation of Christopher Priest’s The Glamour (done by the author) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

The Glamour by Christopher Priest - BBC Sounds

BBC cameraman Richard Grey fights to get his memory back after a bad accident.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Well this tale was my favourite of the ‘Warm Worlds and Otherwise’ collection to date. Such an intriguing premise as the survivors of a light plane crash on a remote Mexican coast take stock of their surroundings, and a central mystery that takes completely unexpected turns. Absolute page-turner.

Copy of the Penguin edition of the SF collection ‘Warm Worlds and Otherwise’ by James Tiptree Jnr (Alice Sheldon).

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

My staggered trawl through the ‘sprawl’ stories in Gibson’s ‘Burning Chrome’ collection has brought me to the quite fabulous ‘New Rose Hotel’. Another winner - feels like an entire novel economically realised in the space of barely 15 pages. Marvellous painting by ‘Hideki’ for OMNI magazine too.

Painting by ‘Hideki’ for the original publication of William Gibson’s ‘New Rose Hotel’ in the July 1984 issue of OMNI magazine.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

There are several tales which I find wonderfully inexplicable - I’ve no idea what they ‘mean’ but I’m so caught up in the quality of the writing that it ceases to matter. A case in point is Keith Roberts’ enigmatic ‘I Lose Medea’, in which a couple’s camping trip is beset by several bizarre events…

Copy of the 1975 collection The Grain Kings by Keith Roberts, which includes his 1972 short story ‘I Lose Medea’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Just read Robert Sheckley’s ‘Warm’, which was today’s pick from this 1954 collection. It’s an exemplar of how to articulate a complex idea (the nature of human perception) with unforced humour, whilst eliciting sympathy for its bewildered protagonist, all in the space of a few pages. Masterful. 🙂

Copy of the 1954 Robert Sheckley collection ‘Untouched By Human Hands’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Brian Aldiss quoting J. G. Ballard in his introduction to the 1979 SF anthology ‘Decade: The 1960s’. You just have to admire Ballard’s wry sense of humour…

Text from the introduction to the SF anthology ‘Decade: The 1960s’ written by Brian Aldiss:
“The ‘space race’ eased an emergence from the Cold War which had dominated the fifties […] and yet….had the aggressiveness of mankind merely stumbled on a new arena for its working out? Commenting on man’s arrival on Luna, J. G. Ballard said, “If I were a Martian, I’d start running now’”

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

On to Silverberg’s novella ‘Hawksbill Station’, from this very fine ‘Decades’ collection. A neat character study from the outset of his famed 1967-76 period, complemented by some economically realised world building. Later expanded to novel length - I shall one day track it down methinks… 🙂 (1/3)

Copy of the SF anthology ‘Decades: The 1960s’, edited by Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Back to my staggered re-reading of ‘Barefoot in the Head’ with ‘Drake-Man Route’ from 1968. By this stage, the language has become overtly experimental to increasingly mirror the psychotropic effects of the aerosols with which Europe has been ‘bombed’. A challenging but rewarding read.

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Bob Fry @bobfry.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

#WyrdWednesdsy Wyrd things from the sea. The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham (1953). Aliens land in the depths of the oceans & begin to alter the planet Humans resist but seem helpless as the aliens melt the ice caps. Eventually an effective weapon is created but the world is changed for ever.

An early edition of the book showing alien machines brutally harvesting humans using tentacle-like devices.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Always heartening to see a classic work by Keith Roberts displayed as a ‘Staff Pick’ in the bookstores. No argument with this one. And the Cordwainer Smith volume too come to think of it… 🙂

Copy of Keith Roberts ‘Pavane’ and Cordwainer Smith’s ‘The Rediscovery of Man’ displayed as staff picks in a bookstore in Amsterdam (specifically ‘The American Bookstore’).

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Bob Fry @bobfry.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Brian Aldiss was born #OTD 1925 “Report on Probability A” consists entirely of reports of various entities watching other entities, watching a suburban house.All are watched in turn by Mrs M in the attic.The Hireling Shepherd by Holman Hunt also features. A painting deserving a post all to itself.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Well there I was, browsing the SF section of a nearby bookshop, and my eye was caught by the familiar yellow-tinged spines of the Masterworks series… And I picked up a title that’s piqued my interest for many years - and with so little of John Brunner currently in print, it was an easy decision. 🙂

Copy of the Gollancz SF Masterworks edition of the 1975 John Brunner novel ‘The Shockwave Rider’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Currently a quarter of the way into Christopher Priest’s ‘The Separation’. I’ve dived into this with as little advance information as possible, even avoiding the back cover blurb & the introduction. 🙂 As ever, the unfolding narrative with an ambiguous mystery at its heart is a joy to discover.

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Copy of the Gollancz SF Masterworks edition of Christopher Priest’s 2002 novel ‘The Separation’.

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Classic SF with Andy Johnson @andyjohnson.xyz · 05/08/2026

Political prisoners are sent hundreds of millions of years back in time, in Robert Silverberg's excellent short novel Hawksbill Station (1968). New essay and podcast ep now up.

andyjohnson.xyz

Prisoners of the past: Hawksbill Station (1968) by Robert Silverberg

A swift tale of political radicals trapped in the late Cambrian period

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Both these titles have been on my radar for eons now, so when I saw both at a bargain price yesterday I couldn’t resist snapping them up. Very timely too - I‘ve recently been resisting the urge to watch Nicolas Roeg’s ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ until I’d had a chance to read Tevis’s fine novel… 🙂

Copies of 2 ‘SF Masterworks’ paperbacks - ‘The Stars My Destination’ by Alfred Bester and ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ by Walter Tevis.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Celebrating the legacy of author and scholar M.R. James, born OTD 1862. I first encountered the likes of ‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad’ and ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ in these now cherished Penguin paperbacks. Such archetypal works - little wonder he’s never been out of print…

Penguin paperback editions of the M.R. James’ collections ‘Ghost Stories of an Antiquary’ and ‘More Ghost Stories’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Currently halfway through this extraordinary & captivating novel. As many have already pointed out, ‘hallucinatory‘ is certainly an apt description. A personal quest set against the backdrop of an ambiguous global disaster, with shades of Kafka & Ballard thrown into the mix. Beautifully written.

Cooy of the 1967 novel ‘Ice’ by Anna Kavan.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Next in line was one of Philip K. Dick‘s darkest stories, ‘A Little Something for us Tempunauts’, in which a failed time travel experiment results in its beleaguered travellers becoming trapped in a ‘closed time loop’. Certainly more ‘existential horror’ than your standard SF time-paradox tale…

Portrait photo of author Philip K. Dick, overlayed with the title of his 1974 short story ‘A Little Something for us Tempunauts’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Now & again I come across a story that takes me completely by surprise - today’s case in point was Frederik Pohl’s rather chilling ‘Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair‘, in which the dark nature of a family‘s visit to the titular Fair is gradually revealed. One that’s sure to lodge in the memory…

Copy of the collection ‘Platinum Pohl’, which contains Frederik Pohl’s 1983 story ‘Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair’.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

After a spate of reading more ‘boundary-pushing‘ stories, its a curious thing to revisit the more traditional fringes of the genre - including today’s reading of this 1974 Asimov tale, in which he outlined a challenge to the longstanding 3 laws of robotics. But then I‘ve always enjoyed variety… 🙂

Copy of the Harper-Collins paperback edition of the collection ‘The Bicentennial Man and other stories’ by Isaac Asimov.

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Celebrating M. John Harrison, who is 81 today. Here’s the great man himself in the 1979 series ‘Time Out of Mind’, in an edition focused on the work of his friend & fellow author Michael Moorcock. Shortly after this I read his superb short story ‘Running Down’ and the rest, as they say, is history…

Titles of the 1979 BBC TV series ‘Time out of Mind’, with screenshots of Michael John Harrison with fellow author Michael Moorcock, along with shots of Harrison rock climbing

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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Just read this extraordinary tale from the ‘Warm Worlds and Otherwise‘ collection. Like ‘The Girl Who Was Plugged In‘, the story’s first person narrative voice makes few compromises, but is nonetheless wholly engaging all the way through to a rather grim ending. Arachnophiles will love this too. 🙂

Copy of the Penguin edition of the Collection ‘Warm Worlds and Otherwise’ by James Tiptree Jnr (Alice Sheldon).

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