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Private Notes
The first programme in this series about the history of British science fiction looks at our relationship with aliens – from Wells' invading Martians to the Daleks, via 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Midwich Cuckoos, and the Mekon – and the genre's preoccupation with the big questions of evolution. Where did we come from? Where are we going? And will we get eaten along the way? Interviewees include the grand old man of British Sci-Fi, Arthur C Clarke along with Brian Aldiss, Doris Lessing and Steve Jones.
Welcome to the future: the utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares of British science fiction. Two of the most famous works of science fiction ever are British: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and 1984 by George Orwell - books so important they've entered the language. One is a vision of the future full of sex and shopping; the other is a story of oppression and violence. But why have the British been better than anyone at imagining these future heavens and hells? And what do they reveal about us and our deepest fears? Contributors include Margaret Atwood and Iain M. Banks.
The last programme in this history of British science fiction looks at the great British genre of destruction. Catastrophe stories are the bad boys of science fiction: where the writers abandon time travel and alien invasion and declare the end of the world as we know it. We've been repeatedly swamped and flooded, killed off by plagues, poisonous clouds and walking plants – from late Victorian disasters like The Purple Cloud, through Day of the Triffids and TV series like Survivors. But is there life in the post-apocalyptic after Hitchhikers?
