Classic SF with Andy Johnson

The 1991 collection The State of the Art serves an important function in the bibliography of revered Scottish author Iain M. Banks (1954 - 2013). It collects his short fiction from 1987 to 1989, crucially including the stories "A Gift From the Culture", "Descendant", and the title story. These are entries in Banks' Culture series, and good entry points into that sprawling, post-scarcity SF setting.
This episode is a whistlestop tour of The State of the Art, taking in skulls, alien waste disposal, a lovesick plant creature, and nuclear war.

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Can 2023 live up to the lofty hopes of a revival of real-time strategy games? We had the first major test of that thesis in February, with the releases of The Settlers: New Allies and Company of Heroes 3. I reviewed both of those games for Entertainium this month, and share some brief thoughts in this episode. The games covered this month are:

• The Settlers: New Allies (2023)
• Company of Heroes 3 (2023)
• Wanted: Dead (2023)
• Train Valley 2 (2019)
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (2004)

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The exploration and colonisation of Mars is a perennial subject in science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke's 1951 novel The Sands of Mars is a significant entry in that history, especially because it takes a realistic approach before the Mariner 4 flyby in 1965 - at least until the alien kangaroos show up.
This episode takes a look at the book, and how it fits in with the history of Mars-themed fiction and Clarke's wider career.

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Before The Handmaid's Tale (1985), there was Native Tongue (1984). Suzette Haden Elgin's feminist dystopia is an early precedent for this increasingly popular genre. Combining a powerful feminist message with a detailed exploration of the science of linguistics, this is an interesting curio of 1980s social SF. But why has Klingon proven to be so much more successful than Láadan, Elgin's own constructed language for women?

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On release, Rage 2 got the dreaded “mixed reviews”. It got a lot of 7 out of 10 scores, which in the demented world of video game scoring is generally taken to mean “this game sucks”. Three years on, though, I’ve played Rage 2 for the first time and have been very pleasantly surprised. In fact, there’s a plausible case to be made that this broadly unwanted and unloved sequel is one of the more worthy shooters of recent years. It may have hilariously convoluted upgrade menus, and a thin story, but its core features are very entertaining indeed and it really gets a lot right. This, then, is my case in support of Rage 2 in six easy steps.

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