The hugely prolific Michael Moorcock is credited with making a major contribution to New Wave science fiction, mainly due to his editorship of the pivotal British magazine New Worlds. Moorcock wrote relatively few science fiction novels, certainly compared to his huge output of fantasy work, which he used to help support New Worlds financially.

However, some of Moorcock's own SF novels are themselves significant contributions to the New Wave. The Black Corridor, written in uncredited collaboration with his then-wife Hilary Bailey, is one example. To catch up with my review of another classic Moorcock SF novel from 1969, listen back to episode 96 for Behold the Man.

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The time has come to continue exploring Iain M. Banks' Culture series. Inversions is the fifth of nine novels, and also the last to be published in the 1990s. This time, Banks stretched himself further than ever before, experimenting with a radically different view of his post-scarcity setting. What does the Culture look like, viewed from a medieval society that is unaware that other worlds even exist?

To catch up with my coverage of the series, listen to episode 90 for The State of the Art, 93 for Consider Phlebas, 99 for The Player of Games, 105 for Use of Weapons and 110 for Excession.

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No discussion of classic British science fiction could be complete without mentioning John Wyndham, and perhaps especially his 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids. A pioneer in the noble tradition of the British disaster novel, this influential classic piles not one, or two, but three catastrophes onto the world. The protagonist, Bill Masen, must navigate not only mass blindness and a mystery disease, but the iconic triffids themselves - mobile, venomous, and possibly intelligent plants with mysterious origins and a taste for human flesh.

Despite its pulpy premise, The Day of the Triffids is written in genteel prose that reflects its postwar British origins. But Wyndham's breakthrough novel is no "cosy catastrophe", a phrase coined by Brian Aldiss. It is an unsettling depiction of societal collapse, which probes the frailty and weakness of civilisation in the face of rapid change and technology that spirals out of control.

In this episode, walk the deserted streets of a fallen London to explore an enduring classic of British SF, one that casts a long shadow over the genre even after more than 70 years.

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For more classic SF reviews, visit andyjohnson.xyz