Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss was born in Dereham, Norfolk, England on August 18, 1925.
As a child he attended several schools, one of which served him as the model for the
ghastly institution memorialized in The Hand-Reared Boy. (1970) As a result of dislocations
caused by World War II, he was switched to West Buckland School. He later served in the
British Army during World War II which threw him into a crowd of men from all walks of life,
and the experience broadened his background and certainly was beneficial as far as the
British class system was concerned. He was mustered out of the British Army in 1947 and
began selling books at Oxford shortly thereafter. He has been married twice, has four
children and now lives in Boars Hill outside of Oxford.
He has won all of science fiction's highest awards: the Nebula, voted by his peers of the
Science Fiction Writers of America; the Hugo, awarded by sf fans during their annual
convention (even British Customs officers have been known to smile admiringly when his
name is mentioned) and the John W. Campbell Award for the "Best Science Fiction Novel of the
Year," awarded by a select group of scholars and critics. Moreover, his superb history of
sf, Billion Year Spree (1973) won him the coveted Pilgrim Award for science fiction
criticism awarded by the Science Fiction Research Association. His own incisive comments on
literature, film, politics, current affairs, society's fads and foibles as well as science
fiction have been collected in a number of anthologies, most notably This World and Nearer
Ones (1979), or The Pale Shadow of Science (1985). This latter volume was followed by ...
And the Lurid Glare of the Comet (1986). All of these, including the 1985 Trillion Year
Spree (with David Wingrove), a major revision and updating of the earlier book, are written
with good humor, insight, and brio.
Aldiss maintains that science fiction has gone far beyond a simplistic attempt to predict
the future or signpost the way to technological utopia. At its best, it is an exploration of
the human condition. He has pursued the exploration of inner space: using his perspective
that science fiction is outsider's literature, Aldiss is able to dissect human life as a
reality full of contradictions and the unpredictable.
In the public eye because of Spielberg's AI, Aldiss' work trawls the possible effects of
the future on the future mind. If the mind is an organ pursuing pleasure, where might that
take us? Can intelligence be separated from consciousness, and are we conscious of where
our intelligence is leading?
| Awards |
Hugo Best Short story winner (1962) : Hothouse
Nebula Best Novella winner (1965) : The Saliva Tree
Nebula Best Short story nominee (1966) : Man in His Time
Hugo Best Short story nominee (1967) : Man in His Time
Nebula Best Novellette nominee (1968) : Total Environment
Hugo Best Novellette nominee (1969) : Total Environment
Hugo Best Novella nominee (1979) : Enemies of the System
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1982) : Helliconia Spring
Nebula Best Novel nominee (1985) : Helliconia Winter
World Fantasy Best Novella nominee (1995) : The God Who Slept with Women
World Fantasy Best Collection nominee (1996) : The Secret of This Book
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| Collections |
But Who Can Replace Man? (1958)
The Canopy of Time (1959)
Galaxies Like Grains of Sand (1960)
The Airs of Earth (1963)
Best Science Fiction Stories of Brian Aldiss (1965)
The Saliva Tree: And Other Strange Growths (1966)
Who Can Replace a Man? (1966)
A Brian Aldiss Omnibus (1969)
Intangibles Inc.: And Other Stories (1969)
The Moment of Eclipse (1970)
The Book of Brian Aldiss (1972)
Brothers of the head: And, Where the lines converge (1977)
Last Orders: And other stories (1977)
New Arrivals, Old Encounters (1979)
Foreign bodies: Stories (1981)
Seasons in Flight (1984)
Helliconia Trilogy (1985)
A Tupolev Too Far (1986)
Man in His Time: The Best SF stories of Brian Aldiss (1988)
Science Fiction Blues (1988)
Equator: Best Fantasy Stories (1989)
At the Caligula Hotel: And other poems (1995)
The Secret of This Book (1995)
Supertoys Last All Summer Long: And Other Stories of Future Time (2001)
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| Non Fiction |
And the Lurid Glare of the Comet: Articles and Autobiography
Farewell, fantastic Venus! a history of the planet Venus in fact and fiction (1968)
The shape of further things: speculations on change (1970)
Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction (1973)
Hell's Cartographers: Some Personal Histories of Science Fiction Writers (1975)
Science Fiction Art (1975)
Science Fiction as Science Fiction (1979)
This World And Nearer Ones: essays exploring the familiar (1979)
Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (1986) (with David Wingrove)
The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy (1988)
Bury My Heart at WH Smithsss: A Writing Life (1990)
Home Life with Cats (1992)
When The Feast is Finished: Reflections on Terminal Illness (1994) (with Margaret Aldiss)
Songs from the Steppes of Central Asia Selected Poems of Makhtumkuli (1995)
The Twinkling of an Eye or My Life as an Englishman: Autobiography (1998)
Art After Apogee The Relationships Between an Idea, a Story, and Painting (2000)
Plutonian Monologue On His Wife's Death (2000)
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| Novels |
Starswarm (1954)
The Brightfount Diaries (1955)
Space, Time and Nathaniel (1957)
Non-Stop (1958)
Starship (1958)
No Time Like Tomorrow (1959)
Vanguard from Alpha (1959)
Bow Down to Nul (1960)
The Long Afternoon of Earth (1961)
The Male Response (1961)
The Primal Urge (1961)
Hothouse (1962)
The Dark Light Years (1964)
Greybeard (1964)
Earthworks (1965)
An Age (1967)
Cryptozoic! (1967)
Report on Probability A (1968)
Barefoot in the Head (1969)
The Inner Landscape (1969)
Neanderthal Planet (1969)
The Hand-Reared Boy (1970)
A Soldier Erect (1971)
Comic Inferno (1973)
Equator (1973)
Frankenstein Unbound (1973)
The Eighty-minute Hour (1974)
The Malacia Tapestry (1976)
Enemies of the System: A Tale of Homo Uniformis (1978)
A Rude Awakening (1978)
Pile: Petals from St. Klaed's Computer (1979)
Moreau's Other Island (1980)
An Island Called Moreau (1981)
Farewell to a Child (1983)
The Horatio Stubbs Saga (1985)
Tales from the Planet Earth: A Novel with 19 Authors (1986)
Cracken at Critical (1987)
The Magic of the Past (1987)
Ruins (1987)
The Year before Yesterday (1987)
Sex and the Black Machine (1988)
Dracula Unbound (1990)
White Mars (1999) (with Roger Penrose)
Cretan Teat (2001)
Vanguard (2001)
Super-State (2002)
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| Series |
Helliconia Trilogy
Helliconia Spring (1982)
Helliconia Summer (1983)
Helliconia Winter (1985)
Squire Quartet
Life in the West (1980)
Forgotten Life (1988)
Remembrance Day (1993)
Somewhere East of Life (1994)
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| Short Stories |
There is a Tide (1956)
All the World's Tears (1957)
The Flowers of the Forest (1957)
Let's Be Frank (1957)
O Ishrail! (1957)
Out of Reach (1957)
Visiting Amoeba (1957)
Blighted Profile (1958)
But Who Can Replace a Man? (1958)
Equator (1958)
Gene-Hive (1958)
Incentive (1958)
The New Father Christmas (1958)
Poor Little Warrior! (1958)
Secret of a Mighty City (1958)
Intangibles Inc. (1959)
Neanderthal Planet (1960)
Old Hundredth (1960)
A Touch of Neanderthal (1960)
Hothouse (1961)
A Kind of Artistry (1962)
Comic Inferno (1963)
The Thing Under the Glacier (1963)
Man on Bridge (1964)
The Day of the Doomed King (1965)
Man in His Time (1965)
The Saliva Tree (1965)
The Source (1965)
Amen and Out (1966)
Burning Question (1966)
The Circulation of the Blood... (1966)
Heresies of the Huge God (1966)
The O in Jose (1966)
A Pleasure Shared (1966)
A Taste for Dostoevsky (1966)
Confluence (1967)
Full Sun (1967)
The Night That All Time Broke Out (1967)
Randy's Syndrome (1967)
...And the Stagnation of the Heart (1968)
Send Her Victorius (1968)
Total Environment (1968)
The Village Swindler (1968)
The Worm That Flies (1968)
The Moment of Eclipse (1969)
Since the Assassination (1969)
So Far from Prague (1969)
The Soft Predicament (1969)
Working in the Spaceship Yards (1969)
The Hunter at His Ease (1970)
As for Our Fatal Continuity... (1972)
The Ergot Show (1972)
Castle Scene with Penitents (1973)
The Expensive Delicate Ship (1973)
Serpent Burning on an Altar (1973)
Three Enigmas I (1973)
Three Enigmas II: The Eternal Theme of Exile (1973)
A Cultural Side-Effect (1974)
The Girl in the Tau-Dream (1974)
The Immobility Crew (1974)
Live? Our Computers Will Do That for Us (1974)
The Monster of Ingratitude IV (1974)
The Secret of Holman Hunt and the Crude Death Rate (1974)
Three Enigmas III: All in God's Mind (1974)
Wired for Sound (1974)
Patagonia's Delicious Filling Station (1975)
Three Enigmas IV: Three Coins in Enigmatic Fountains (1975)
Year by Year the Evil Gains (1975)
An Appearance of Life (1976)
The Bang-Bang (1976)
The Bones of Bertrand Russell (1976)
The Dark Soul of the Night (1976)
Journey to the Heartland (1976)
Last Orders (1976)
A Space for Reflection (1976)
Creatures of Apogee (1977)
The Game with the Big Heavy Ball (1977)
My Lady of the Psychiatric Sorrows (1977)
A Chinese Perspective (1978)
Enemies of the System (1978)
The Small Stones of Tu Fu (1978)
Bill Carter Takes Over (1979)
Her Toes Were Beautiful on the Mountains (1980)
Just Back From Java (1980)
A Romance of the Equator (1980)
The Blue Background (1983)
Consolations of Age (1983)
The Girl Who Sang (1983)
Igur and the Mountain (1983)
The Gods in Flight (1984)
Incident in a Far Country (1984)
Journey to the Goat Star (1984)
The Other Side of the Lake (1984)
The Plain, the Endless Plain (1984)
You Never Asked My Name (1985)
The Big Question (1986)
The Difficulties Involved in Photographing Nix Olympica (1986)
Lies! (1986)
North Scarning (1986)
The Ascent of Humbelstein (1987)
Traveller, Traveller, Seek Your Wife in the Forests of This Life (1987)
Confluence Revisited (1988)
Forgotten Life (1988)
How an Inner Door Opened to My Heart (1988)
A Day in the Life of a Galactic Empire (1989)
North of the Abyss (1989)
Three Degrees Over (1989)
A Tupolev Too Far (1989)
Better Morphosis (1990)
A Life of Matter and Death (1990)
FOAM (1991)
Summertime Was Nearly Over (1991)
Common Clay (1992)
Horse Meat (1992)
Ratbird (1992)
Alphabet of Ameliorating Hope (1993)
Else the Isle with Calibans (1993)
Friendship Bridge (1993)
Short Stories (1993)
A Dream of Antigone (1994)
The God Who Slept with Women (1994)
Headless (1994)
The Madonna of Futurity (1994)
The Mistakes, Miseries and Misfortunes of Mankind (1994)
The Servant Problem (1994)
Becoming the Full Butterfly (1995)
Evans in His Moment of Glory (1995)
The Eye-Opener (1995)
How the Gates Opened and Closed (1995)
If Hamlet's Uncle Had Been a Nicer Guy (1995)
Making My Father Read Revered Writings (1995)
Sitting With Sick Wasps (1995)
A Swedish Birthday Present (1995)
Three Moon Enigmas (1995)
Travelling Towards Humbris (1995)
An Unwritten Love Note (1995)
Dark Society (1996)
Death, Shit, Love, Transfiguration (1997)
Aimez-Vouz Holman Hunt?
All Those Enduring Old Charms
Backwater
Basis for Negotiation
But Without Orifices
Carefully Observed Women
The Daffodil Returns the Smile
Danger: Religion!
The Day We Embarked for Cythera...
Down the Up Escalation
Faceless Card
The Game of God
The Girl and the Robot with Flowers
How to Be a Soldier
The International Smile
Judas Danced
Killing Off the Big Animals
Legends of Smith's Burst
The Lonely Habit
Nobody Spoke Or Waved Goodbye
'O Moon of My Delight!'
One Role with Relish
Orgy of the Living and the Dying
Outside
Paternal Care
The Serpent of Kundalini
Shards
Super-Toys Last All Summer Long
Swastika!
That Uncomfortable Pause Between Life and Art...
There's a Cloud
They Shall Inherit
Waiting for the Universe to Begin
What Are You Doing? Why Are You Doing It?
Within the Black Circle
The Year of the Quiet Computer
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