Colin and Phil return, buoyed by the news that Science Fiction 101 has risen to number 6 in Feedspot 's league table of Best UK Sci-Fi Podcasts ! Our main discussion topic the contentious issue of the "canon" of science fiction, triggered by a blog post by Dr Shaun Duke. We also have a movie quiz, and the usual round-up of past/present/future SF. Here are links to the items we discuss: Shaun Duke's blog post on the SF canon, and why it doesn't exist Duke's follow-up post, including a draft SF canon from 1961 ! The full sci-fi movie quiz, from Triviawell Stephen King's Firestarter , basis of a new (and old) movie Short film based on Arthur C. Clarke's " The Nine Billion Names of God " The LA Times Ray Bradbury Prize-winning short story collection Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho A new Doctor Who ! The new Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award honours writers with disabilities and writers who depict disability in SF.   We hope you enjoy the episode:    

Colin and Phil dig in to Martha Wells' multi-award-winning Murderbot series, reviewing the first story of that series, "All Systems Red". What could explain the huge popularity of the series? What will Murderbot novice Phil make of it? What will Murderbot fiend Colin reveal about how the whole series fits together? Also in this episode, Colin surprises Phil with a devilishly difficult robot/AI quiz. Do you know your M5 from your Johnny 5? And the usual run through of past/present/future happenings in SF. Martha Wells' Murderbot books can be found everywhere, but a good place to get started is with the author's website . Phil mentioned a couple of other podcasts he's guested on recently. Find them here: Words to Write By and Continuum Drag .  Colin mentioned his other podcast, which looks at adapted science fiction: Take Me To Your Reader .  Viewing recommendations: On the Beach , the 1950s BBC Nineteen Eighty-Four , Parallels . Books (derived from PhD t

Colin and Phil recently found themselves reviewing Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama (1973) on another podcast - and were intrigued by a quote from author Mike Resnick, who said that James White 's All Judgement Fled (1968) was " Rama done right". What is this other book, and why would one repsected author (Resnick) suggest that another respected author (White) had bested yet another respected author (Clarke)? We decided to investigate - and in this episode of Science Fiction 101 we tell you everything we learned. All Judgment Fled was first published in serialised form in the science fiction magazine Worlds of IF , edited by Fred Pohl, in 1967/8. IF was a sister magazine to Galaxy Science Fiction . The magazine appearance has some nifty line drawings by Morrow to illustrate the story:    Also in this episode:  Clarkesworld publisher Neil Clarke responds to our review of his magazine! a science fiction character quiz Brandon Sanderson's record-breaking

Time for a new episode of Science Fiction 101! Following our trip to the past to review a 70-year-old issue of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, this time we come bang up to date (well, near enough) by reviewing the December 2021 issue of Clarkesworld . If you're not familiar with it, Clarkesworld is one of the most successful current science fiction magazines, and has produced many award-winning stories in recent times. And: it is free. Entirely free. You can view and read the issue we're reviewing right here: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/issue_183/ Also in this episode, Colin springs a fiendish 1950s sci-fi movie quiz on Phil. Join us to test your own knowledge of those shaky, flickery SF movies of yore! We took the quiz from here: https://play.howstuffworks.com/quiz/1950s-scifi-movie-quiz -  but we only used the first 15 questions, and there are plenty more where that came from. Finally, Colin's report of a Sleestak attack is validated on Facebook . This even

We had some serious technical issues with this episode, so what you're about to hear is a bit of a patchwork, with variable technical quality and some parts we had to re-record. However, we think the information content makes it a good listen...   In this latest episode of Science Fiction 101 , we travel back in time to review the Christmas 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine.   Galaxy was the magazine which led the science fiction field in the 1950s, bringing to the genre a greater concern for humanist themes, sociology, psychology and social satire. Among its successes were the first publication of Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman" (soon expanded into Fahrenheit 451 ) and the first appearance of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man . We review the December 1951 issue from cover to cover - we even review the book reviews and the ads!   If you want to read along with us, you can find the whole issue online at the Internet Archive , here .  The stories we revie

An eclectic episode this time, as we consider Steven Paul Leiva's new book Extraordinary Voyages which pairs Cyrano de Bergerac with Baron Munchausen for a trip to Mars; offer up a film adaptation quiz; discuss science fiction museums such as the UK's new Museum of Film and Sci-Fi ; reflect on short-lived sci-fi TV shows ; and revisit the short stories of Robert Silverberg . And we announce our plan for our next episode: we're going to do a cover-to-cover review of a seventy-year-old science fiction magazine! For Christmas 2021, we're going to read the December 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction , and we invite you to join us. You can view or download the entire issue here: https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1951-12 Here's the podcast episode. Enjoy!     Other podcast platforms carrying Science Fiction 101 include:   Amazon Music - Anchor - Apple Podcasts/iTunes - Audible - Breaker - Bullhorn - Castbox - Deezer - Google Podcasts - Listen N