Remembering J.G. Ballard, born OTD 1930. I’ve been reading his work for many years & I can readily appreciate why many qualify his writing as ‘timeless’. And I can think of no better imagery to accompany this post than the equally timeless appeal of David Pelham’s superlative cover art 🙂

Embarked on ‘Inverted World’ over the last few days & it had me hooked from the opening chapters. I’ve still some way to go of course, but I’m already thinking that it’s likely to end up as one of my top 5 reads of the year. My first novel by this fine author - & I’ll certainly be seeking out more…

ACD Q/A: We'd love your help with our December show - a Question and Answer episode on any (ACD-related!) topic you like. If you've got a burning question about Conan Doyle's life and work, drop us a comment and we'll get through as many as we can this December. Thanks!

The hiatus is over, and the self-replicating machines are on the loose - this week's article and podcast ep cover John Sladek's anarchic, comic debut SF novel The Reproductive System, AKA Mechasm (1968).

Ending a week of fine short stories with Samuel R. Delany’s ‘Driftglass’, a tale concerning humans who have been biologically modified to live & work in the ocean depths. A fine character study & all rather beautifully written - amazing to think that this story ranks amongst his earliest work.

Remembering author & curator/librarian David I. Masson, born OTD 1915. A frequent contributor to New Worlds magazine, Masson’s stories were later assembled in the 1968 volume ‘The Caltraps of Time’. His 1965 debut ‘Travellers Rest’ was a huge influence on a young & aspiring Christopher Priest.

Next up in ‘The Illustrated Man‘ was the enigmatic & unsettling ‘The Last Night of the World’. It’s a finely crafted mood piece, as a couple consider their final actions before the world is extinguished, an event mysteriously foreshadowed in a dream that they had both experienced the night before…

David Masson’s ’A Two-Timer’, one of this year’s best reading surprises. First published in New Worlds, it’s an engaging first-person account of a man accidentally brought forward in time from 1678 to 1964. Told entirely in 17th century English dialect, it’s a fantastic conceit, brilliantly told.

BBC2's remarkable adult science fiction anthology Out of the Unknown deserves to be talked about more. I'd actually want the missing episodes to be found over Doctor Who ones. I went on a deep dive with Stephen Hatcher and Dylan Rees for the Very British Futures podcast goodpods.com/podcasts/ver...

Today’s selected story was archetypal PKD. ‘The Electric Ant’ concerns an android who only realises it’s non-human status when being treated after a traffic accident. It’s sense of identity lost, it then sets about establishing whether anything else is truly ‘real‘. The ending is suitably unnerving!

There's still time, but the survey will close late tomorrow, so get your thinking cap on and get your top 10 science fiction books in, and your top 5 science fiction book series too. 📚🪐💙 #scifibooks #sciencefiction forms.gle/8UkmKn7VQRsb...

Today‘s All Hallows' Eve reading pleasure will be a choice M. R. James story. There’s something particularly fitting about reading James from a faded & dusty Penguin Paperback from the late 50s - they now seem to mirror the antiquarian books whose discovery bodes ill in many of his best loved tales!

Today’s SF Hall of Fame selection, part of Blish’s ’pantropy’ series, in which humans are adapted in order to survive diverse planetary environments. Here our microscopic protagonists, who have only known life underwater, undertake a journey that involves a life-changing conceptual breakthrough…

Remembering author and scriptwriter Nigel Kneale, who we lost on this day in 2006. Such an enduring legacy, as frequently revisited and admired as these cherished Penguin paperbacks. Timeless works.

Today’s pick from the ’Platinum Pohl’ tome was ‘The Meeting’ from 1972, a Hugo award-winning collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth. A decidedly bleak tale, involving a couple beset with some particularly problematic decision making regarding the future of their only child... No satirical edges here!

Another recent acquisition, keen to sample Asimov’s later work. Having vastly enjoyed his earlier robot novels, my first pick from the collection was ’Mirror Image’ (1972), which reunites the characters of Detective Lije Baley & his robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw. A neat ‘mini-episode’ of a tale 🙂

A trio of welcome acquisitions today whilst perusing the secondhand bookshops. Shaw, Bayley & Cowper are three authors whom I’ve heard many good things about (particularly these three titles). Very nostalgic to pick up a Fontana, Pan & Corgi paperback too - all in very decent condition 👍

Continuing with J.G. Ballard this week & currently halfway through this gem of a book. Enthralling evocation of a submerged London, the rise of landscapes that echo the primordial jungles of the Triassic era, & global temperatures threatening to expand beyond human tolerance. A captivating novel.

Working my way through Ballard’s ‘collected stories’ tome has brought me to this little 1962 masterpiece. Elegiac without sliding into bleakness (the imagery is beautifully realised), it’s another standout from his early years. Notably, Ballard’s name is absent from the initial MF&SF cover feature 👇

It‘s always a pleasure to dip into a broad ‘collected stories’ volume & come across a hidden gem. A case in point is Aldiss’s ’The Small Betraying Detail’, a story which cleverly plays with the ambiguity of human perception & the concept of parallel worlds, & all in prose that never wastes a word.

Back to ‘The Illustrated Man‘ & the next in line was Bradbury’s entertaining homage to the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. A breezy read with plenty of well crafted twists, but what struck me most was the references to book burning policies, predating ‘The Fireman’ (’Fahrenheit 451‘) by a good year or so.

The latest ‘SF Hall of Fame’ pick was A.E. van Vogt’s ‘The Weapon Shop’. Setting aside some curious social philosophy, I can see why he was such an influence on Philip K. Dick - rapid dreamlike shifts of setting & a generous share of ‘cognitive dissonance’. First printed in Astounding SF in 1942 👇

Just finished ‘Psychosmosis’, another tale from David Masson’s ‘The Caltraps of Time’ collection. In this curious story, uttering the name of a deceased person subjects the speaker to ‘vanishment’ - an otherworldly ‘crossing over’ to another plane of existence. Beautifully written & very enigmatic.

I‘m sure many here will be familiar with the ‘Outlaw Bookseller’ channel, but if not here‘s a wonderful place to start - a heartfelt and very erudite reflection on 25 books which have brought many hours of reading joy… m.youtube.com/watch?v=b9nT...

OTD 1966. The start of second season of the BBC SF anthology series ‘Out of the Unknown’. 1. Image shown is the cover of the BBC Enterprises document used to promote copies of the episodes for overseas sales - thankfully, some of these copies survived & were subsequently returned to the archives.

Currently halfway through this gem of a book, marvelling at how PKD manages so many disparate plot elements whilst keeping the main narrative anchored. At this point, a key character has found himself in a virtual landscape with a talking suitcase for company… This reader is having a great time 🙂

OTD 1965. The television SF anthology series ‘Out of the Unknown’ is shown for the first time. 1. A critical & popular success, the show would run for several seasons on BBC2, creatively adapting the works of many well-known SF authors for the small screen.

My favourite ‘Hall of Fame’ tale so far, ’It’s a Good Life’ brilliantly utilises a focused ‘show not tell’ approach. Although we quickly surmise that something is *very* wrong indeed in the story’s pastoral setting, the way in which the tension is held until the unnerving climax is just masterful.

The 2025 SciFiScavenger Viewer Survey is now OPEN! NEW this year, I'm also asking for your Top 5 SF series. I'll leave the survey open for the whole of October so there's plenty of time to have a think and get your responses in, Here is the link for the survey: forms.gle/4Z5Sjx1sJAgb...

Two more tales read for the first time from these books - Pohl’s ‘Day Million’ & Delany’s ‘Aye, and Gommorah’. Some shared themes around ‘personal identity’, albeit the treatments are worlds apart - one somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the other more sobering & understated (and deservedly an award winner!)

On to Aldiss’s oft-anthologised ‘Who Can Replace a Man?’ I thought this was wonderful - Aldiss at his playful best as we follow the efforts of several machines in determining their new status after the demise of humankind. John Martinez‘s fine illustration hails from ‘Infinity‘ (June 1958)

On to ‘Corfe Gate’, the climactic last novella of Keith Robert’s extraordinary novel ‘Pavane’. So a fitting moment to also celebrate Robert’s talents as an illustrator, including contributing many striking covers to SF Impulse, in which the majority of these superlative tales first appeared.

Remembering (& very fondly too, given the impact this book had on me as a youngster) the SF & film critic Philip Strick, born OTD 1939. This wonderful book hails from 1976, just before cinema SF hit new heights of popularity. A treasure trove of images indelibly ingrained on the memory to this day 🙂

Noted that H. G. Wells was born on this day 1866. An author of many well known titles of course, but familiarity with his name & reputation still didn’t fully prepare me for how astonishing ’The War of the Worlds’ remains after over 125 years. An extraordinary achievement.

Remembering the superlative writer and editor Keith Roberts, who was born on this day 1935. A fitting day therefore to be embarking on his 1968 book ‘Pavane’, which many still regard as not only his masterpiece but also one of the genre’s finest ‘alternative history’ novels.

On to two striking tales from these books - Fritz Leiber’s ‘Coming Attraction’ & Bester’s ‘The Pi Man’. Both unsettling & challenging in their own ways - reminding me again that the 50s gave rise to a fair share of material that was already stretching the genre’s limits well before the New Wave era.

Back to 1962 & J.G. Ballard‘s ‘The Insane Ones’. A short tale which presents glimpses of a future ‘dystopian’ society in which psychiatrists are outlawed. The premise (and ending) is notably dark, but you can’t help but feel Ballard is casting a very satirical eye over proceedings too.

On to this much-loved tale by PKD from 1966. I can appreciate why this had caught the attention of the blockbuster film industry back in the 80s - plenty of plot twists & opportunities for pursuit & capture to keep audiences happy. Pacy & often playful, PKD has rarely disappointed this reader.

Just read David Masson’s ‘Lost Ground’ from 1966, another inventively offbeat tale from his ‘Caltraps of Time’ collection. A story that weaves together the concept of weather fronts that physically engender emotions with the disappearance of people in ‘time displacement’ zones. Curious & engaging.

“How do you expect to communicate with the ocean, when you can’t even understand one another?” Stanislaw Lem, born OTD 1921. ‘Solaris’, with its enigmatic depiction of a planet whose ‘sentient’ ocean remains ultimately inscrutable, must easily rank as one of the finest ‘first contact’ stories.

Now reading the opening stories from Bradbury’s ‘The Illustrated Man’. I can see why ’The Veldt’ often ranks amongst the most popular tales. It brought to mind the impact of the old Amicus anthology films - tight, economical storytelling that propels the narrative to an abrupt & horrific conclusion.

This weekend‘s pick from the ‘Masterpieces’ SF anthology was Terry Bisson’s 1991 Hugo & Nebula award winning ‘Bears Discover Fire’. By turns sharply funny & sadly poignant, this has to be one of the most original short stories I’ve read this year. One of those tales that’ll deserve revisiting…

Our own @drmjones.bsky.social did a thing. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

OTD 1972. The last UK broadcast of Nigel Kneale’s TV ghost story ‘The Chopper’ (now sadly missing). Here’s a section of the script, displaying Kneale’s skill in delineating the inner & outer facets of his key characters, in this instance the taciturn mechanic Jimmy Reed, played by Patrick Troughton.

Platinum Pohl - a much anticipated acquisition this week. Quite a substantial selection too, which will allow me to finally catch up with the likes of ‘Day Million’ & the award-winning ‘Fermi and Frost’. To kick things off though, I’ve opted for the superb novella ‘The Gold at the Starbow’s End’.

Enjoyed reading Fredric Brown’s ‘Arena’ in tandem with watching the Star Trek episode of the same title (with Brown receiving a screen credit). I can see why the original is often anthologised - no malevolent humanoid lizards here of course, but for 1944 it’s a very polished piece of storytelling.

Finished Aldiss’s ‘Greybeard’ today - easily one of my top 3 novels of the year to date. I thought that ‘Hothouse’ & ‘Non-stop’ would be hard to beat, but I can see why many class this as his best realised novel. Beautifully structured with an engaging cast of finely drawn characters. Superb book.

Remembering author Arkady Strugatsky, born OTD 1925. In collaboration with his brother Boris, they produced a host of well received & often challenging works, the best known of which remains ‘Roadside Picnic’. As Ursula K. Le Guin once put it, a ‘first contact’ story of quite a different kind…

Currently half-way through Brian Aldiss’ wonderful novel ‘Greybeard’, which is rapidly shaping up to be one of my favourite books of the year so far. For those interested, there’s also this 2013 edition of the ‘World Book Club’ podcast, featuring Aldiss himself answering questions on the novel 👇