Brian Aldiss has died

https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/news/announcement-of-the-death-of-brian-aldiss-obe

by sohkamyung • 9 years ago

161 53 9 years ago

curtisbrown.co.uk

Sad to hear this - last of a magnificent cohort of SF writers, for my money. The genre's moved on for sure, but there's a certain style and mode to that era that appeals to me enormously.

When I was a kid I used to think of an ABC of truly great SF - Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke - but I never really entirely felt sure that A was for Asimov, and not for Aldiss. Perhaps there was a second team - Aldiss, Ballard... Chilton, maybe?

jhbadger2• 9 years ago

Yeah, Aldiss was more like Ballard in that he wasn't interested in spaceships and galactic empires but rather society itself.

SeanDav• 9 years ago

"Sad to hear this - last of a magnificent cohort of SF writers, for my money."

This prompted me to look at how many of my favourite SF authors are still alive - and the vast majority are dead. I honestly think that the era of true Science Fiction is over (as opposed to Science Fantasy which is still going strong).

eropple• 9 years ago

When it comes to media/entertainment, people say "the era of X" is dead all over the place. Not to pick on you, but they're usually wrong. The democratization of fiction publishing has made it so that any X where there are consumers can exist.

Go look at the Kindle Store and how many "true Science Fiction" books are published every month. They're there. You just have to look for it, same as every other catered niche.

tgb• 9 years ago

On the contrary, I have been getting into modern science fiction after being raised on my dad's collection of Asimov/Clarke/Heinlein/etc. and the modern stuff is great. Check out Vernor Vinge, Greg Egan, Kim Stanley Robinson. None of that is science fantasy. If anything, I'd say that science fantasy is less popular now than it was two or three decades ago. Look at the popularity of modern TV and movies: Arrival, The Martian, Gravity, The Expanse, Interstellar. Three of those are complete hard science fiction and the others are more in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Contact than Star Wars.

FuriouslyAdrift• 9 years ago

Gregory Benford is still around (even though he is 76). I don't know if he is still writing but his body of work is quite good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford

netaustin• 9 years ago

This is an interesting point. The near future must look far more vivid to the current crop of SF writers than it did to Aldiss's generation, and no wonder since VR, social media, and robotics are so much more advanced. Even Non-Stop, which took place in one relatively short narrative timeframe, I'd put further into the future than, say The Martian or any Stephenson novel... would be intensely curious to know of modern SF that ponders far-future questions.

optimuspaul• 9 years ago

I had no idea that Science Fantasy was even a thing. Now much to my dismay I have discovered I don't actually like Sci-Fi, I only like Science Fantasy... but I'm actually not going to make the distinction. It's all fiction.

aarghh• 9 years ago

I would contend that the genre has moved on in a stylistic sense, but is still pretty robust:

Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach trilogy, Finch); Ann Leckie (The Imperial Radch trilogy); China Miéville (Embassytown)

are three I can think of immediately.

glangdale2• 9 years ago

I feel similarly, although Asimov/Bradbury/Clark never really did it for me as compared to Aldiss/Ballard/? (I'm drawing a blank for the C's; perhaps we move on to Dick?).

Many of the suggestions down-thread don't really do it for me, either. There's something about that 70s-era stuff. I can't help but feel that the original wave had more original non-genre influences and feel fresher. There was also a more reasonable approach to page count and padding (although I suppose Aldiss eventually wrote Helliconia) and mercifully few "look, this is a story that ping-pongs between 18 different viewpoints" structures.

As a side note, I also could go my whole life without having to read increasingly edgy stuff where it's revealed that the real purpose of science fiction is to dream up gross new torture scenes, etc.

5054• 9 years ago

Upvoting your comment. I hope you won't minding me suggest you update the first line to read Clarke rather than Clark. Perhaps I'm tired, but it took me a minute to figure out who you meant.

5054• 9 years ago

Obituary by Christopher Priest.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/21/brian-aldiss-o...

IIRC Priest and Aldiss were friends.

5054• 9 years ago

Priest, like Aldiss, is a favourite writer of mine. I especially enjoyed reading Inverted World as a teenager.

daviddavis• 9 years ago

Never read Aldiss. Any recommendations on which book(s) to start with?

eponeponepon3• 9 years ago

Honestly, pick one at random - there're no complete duds in my opinion.

Hothouse always stuck with me the most, but that's just my own personal experience.

ASlave2Gravity• 9 years ago

Greybeard was the story that first came to mind. It was totally absorbing and I ended up reading it over a weekend.

justin662• 9 years ago

Avoid the Helliconia books, they're a grim, hard slog. Sorry I can't give a positive recommendation, I avoided his novels after trying to make it through those. Always enjoyed his short stories that appeared in the popular anthologies, though, and he's got some story collections that are probably good.

cabalamat• 9 years ago

Avoid the Helliconia books, they're a grim, hard slog.

Another data point: I enjoyed them.

JetSetWilly• 9 years ago

I thought they were brilliant and I greatly enjoyed them. Certainly they are not optimistic American-style SF but I wouldn't call them "grim" - they are grand novels about the cycle of civilisations, "deep time" and the impact of individuals (or not) upon those.

e12e3• 9 years ago

My favourite is probably "Supertoys last all summer long" (later changed into the screenplay for "A.I.").

drhayes9• 9 years ago

I really liked Non-Stop. I would write more, but I don't want to give anything away.

vidarh• 9 years ago

Second that... Non-Stop is one of my all time favourite SF novels. I'm not so sure that learning some of the details would spoil much - in fact the novel was in some edition published with a name that gave a lot away. But I'll avoid it anyway.

lmm• 9 years ago

IMO he may have been a good author but he was an even better editor/anthologist. I'd recommend A Science Fiction Omnibus.

davidgerard• 9 years ago

Two that don't get enough attention these days: "Billion Year Spree", his history of SF, and "Hell's Cartographers", six writers writing about how they write.

sbisson• 9 years ago

The update to "Billion Year Spree", "Trillion Year Spree" is highly recommended.

iainmerrick• 9 years ago

I recommend starting with short stories. "Space, Time and Nathaniel" and "Moment of Eclipse" are both great collections. Or just "Best SF Stories of Brian W Aldiss", which I think was updated several times -- that's how I first found him.

His novels are mostly excellent but I think there's a good chance you'll bounce off them if you don't happen to like the Aldiss vibe. He can appear very cold and dry until you realize how funny he (usually) is.

levosmetalo• 9 years ago

I liked his novels. Intangibles was interesting, though not really SF. Also liked Neanderthal Planet. Few short stories where he played with the alternative history, like The Day of the Doomed King.

noisy_boy• 9 years ago

His first work that I remember reading was the short story "But who can replace a Man?" in the Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories (AFAIK) along with Ursula Le Guin and other authors. I was very impressed by the simplicity of his narrative, ability to paint a detailed picture and raw story-telling ability. A grave loss to the sci-fi world.

adamc• 9 years ago

He wrote "The Malacia Tapestry", a book I really liked. The Helliconia trilogy was not so compelling, though.

erikb• 9 years ago

Please edit the topic to summarize what he did, or what kind of topic he's relevant to. I never heard this name and therefore guess many others didn't either.

Isamu• 9 years ago

Brian Aldiss speaks of his admiration for and troubles with Stanley Kubrick:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/featur...

https://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/clippings.an...

https://www.webofstories.com/play/brian.aldiss/67;jsessionid...

fundabulousrIII• 9 years ago

Was never a big fan. Don't remember that I read anything other than a short story. More Jack Vance & Gene Wolfe. For fun Moorcock & Ellison.

RIP.

danidiaz• 9 years ago

I distinctly remember some of his stories, in particular "Heresies of the Huge God" https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v24n06_1966-08 and "Confluence", which is structured as a glossary for an alien culture.

"Hothouse" is quite a fun read as well.

keithpeter• 9 years ago

Report on Probability A was a novel I never finished as a teenager. Might track a copy down again - it is a formalist experiment as far as I can find out.

Getting your head around it could be seen as a challenge.

clort• 9 years ago

The only book I put aside without finishing (Downbelow Station by C.J.Cherryh) was recommended to me again years later and when I did pick it up I found it gripping.

I really recommend you try Report on Probability A again, it was one of the best books I ever read!

Brian Aldiss has died

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