Classic SF with Andy Johnson
Exploring classic science fiction, with a focus on the 1950s to the 1990s.
Classic SF with Andy Johnson
#192 Mind, body, spirit, space: Alien Embassy (1977) by Ian Watson
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A challenging novel of mysticism, power, and alien contact
This week brought the news that the British science fiction writer Ian Waton had passed away in Spain, where he had lived for some time. Coincidentally, I was reading Watson's 1977 novel Alien Embassy, the subject of this week's episode.
Watson wrote numerous challenging SF novels, including The Embedding (1973) and The Jonah Kit (1975), both previously covered here in episodes 131 and 163, respectively. Watson was also the writer of the very first novels to tie in with the Warhammer 40,000 setting, and so helped to set the stage for the vast and growing body of writing set in the grim future of the 41st millennium.
Alien Embassy is something very different, an idea-packed look at a post-disaster future in which humanity is reaching out to the stars - but with the mind, not with spacecraft. I will certainly be reading more of Watson's work and in the meantime, I hope you find this look at one of his early novels to be interesting.
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