The Culture is run by Minds - AI constructs of immense computing power, some of the greatest intelligences in the galaxy. But no amount of intelligence can prevent you from making mistakes.

The sixth novel in the Culture series by Iain M. Banks, Look to Windward was first published in 2000. It deals with effects of mistakes made by the Minds. As part of Banks' extended examination of the topic of intervention, it particularly focuses on an attempt to mould the future of a race of cat-like aliens, with resulted in disaster. The Chelgrians were plunged into a brief but appalling civil war. Now, the Culture may be about to feel the consequences.

Get in touch with a text message!

For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.

Answering listener questions about all things classic SF.

Can you believe it, it's episode 150! To mark this milestone, this episode is a special Q&A. Questions and answers take a tour of Ursula K. Le Guin, J. G. Ballard, Dune (1965), book collecting, getting started with Philip K. Dick, the "cosy catastrophes" of John Wyndham, and more.

Get in touch with a text message!

For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.

A shocking collision of warped sexuality and twisted metal

"I wanted to rub the human face in its own vomit - and force it to look in the mirror." With these words, J.G. Ballard described the aim of his 1973 novel Crash. A harrowing descent into a bizarre subculture of damaged outcasts whose sexual fetishes centre on the car crash, the novel is Ballard's disturbing diagnosis of the 20th century. The writer described it as a "deranging book to write", which made him hate himself because he felt he was "dealing in deadly things.. like a sort of arms salesman."

Welcome to a tour of an unsettling vision of the highways and byways of a concrete dystopia, and a novel which is science fiction of a unique kind - a deranged hellscape of the here and now.

Get in touch with a text message!

For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.