The British writer Brian W. Aldiss had published
some minor mainstream fiction before turning to
2 Aldiss, Brian W.
science fiction in 1954. The bulk of his fiction
thereafter has been within the genre, although he
also enjoyed some success with mainstream fiction,
and wrote drama, poetry, and a considerable body
of nonfiction. A prolific short story writer, he was
mildly controversial during the first few years of his
career in the genre because of his use of mainstream literary techniques and frank sexual
themes, and because of his avoidance of the engineering and scientific jargon and emphasis that
were prevalent at that time. It was the genre and
not the author who changed, and Aldiss’s stature
has remained high throughout the upheavals that
have altered the field dramatically during the last
few decades. Aldiss also wrote an influential critique of the genre, The Billion Year Spree, later revised as The Trillion Year Spree.
His first few novels were competent but unmemorable—with the exception of his NON-STOP,
which first appeared in 1958 and which was published in the United States as Starship. The story
takes place aboard an enormous starship whose occupants have evolved into a variant form of humanity after several generations of isolation, with
changes both physical and psychological. The Long
Afternoon of Earth (1962, also published as Hothouse) also explored the possibility of further
human evolution, in this case on a distant future
Earth whose ecology has evolved into that of a
planet-wide jungle after the Earth ceased to rotate
normally. Although the science is open to question, the story itself is effective, and the image of
humans overwhelmed by natural forces remains
provocative. Aldiss continued to speculate about
the possible evolution of present humanity into another form.
During the 1960s, Aldiss turned to more immediate and serious themes, not always completely
successfully, and used settings closer to the present
day. The Dark Light Years (1964) dealt with xenophobia and the way in which technologically superior cultures deal with supposed inferiors, in this
case an intelligent alien species on a distant world
whose personal habits humans find intensely repulsive. In sharp contrast to his previous novels, the
results are tragic, and humanity is not depicted in
a favorable light. Greybeard (1964), which some
critics consider his most successful novel, describes
a future in which universal sterility leads to the imminent extinction of the human race, and members of an aging population reflect on their
individual and cultural shortcomings. Other work
from this period was equally introspective and critical, tackling such subjects as the consequences of
overpopulation, the erosion of individual freedom
in an increasingly technological world, the nature
of human responsibility to both society and the environment, and the question of what it really
means to be human. Titles like “But Who Can Replace a Man?” and “All the World’s Tears” accurately reflected the somber tones of these stories.
When the “New Wave” movement in the late
1960s challenged science fiction’s disparagement
of strong characterization, experimental prose
styling, and other traditions that seemed to limit
the growth of the field, Aldiss was an obvious recruit. The influence of mainstream literary techniques and experimentation became more obvious
in his fiction. His novels Barefoot in the Head
(1969) and Report on Probability A (1968) were
clearly inspired by this new freedom, dealing in
the former case with surrealistic imagery and in
the latter with the multiple viewpoint narration
made popular by Alain Robbe-Grillet and other
non-genre writers. Aldiss’s subsequent novels reverted to more conservative narrative techniques
but his willingness to vary his prose in innovative
ways has continued in much of his short fiction up
through the present.
Although his short stories continued to command considerable respect, the novels during the
1970s were not widely popular, although The Malacia Tapestry (1976) is a powerful and underrated
work set in an alternate world where artists have a
much more prominent role than in ours and
Frankenstein Unbound (1973), which was adapted
as an uneven but interesting motion picture, contains some of his most evocative prose. The threevolume Helliconia series, published in the
mid-1980s, marked a return to more traditional
genre themes. Describing the development of a
human society on a distant world that is slowly
emerging from a lengthy ice age, it garnered both
popular and critical acclaim and reestablished Aldiss as a major figure, certainly one of the half-dozen
most popular British science fiction writers of all
Aldiss, Brian W. 3
time, with the most respectable literary credentials
since H. G. WELLS and a considerable following
outside the traditional science fiction readership.
The Helliconia trilogy reprises a common feature
of the author’s work: a set of characters caught up
in events so completely beyond their power that
they can do little, if anything, to affect the outcome. For the most part, Aldiss’s characters accept
their powerlessness with dignity and refuse to be
cowed by their relative insignificance in the
scheme of things.
With well over 300 published short stories,
Aldiss is easily one of the genre’s most productive
writers at that length. The quality of his short fiction is surprisingly high given the volume, and includes numerous memorable stories. His single
most famous short is “The SALIVA TREE,” which
merges the styles of H. G. Wells and H. P. LOVECRAFT to produce a chillingly evocative but highly
literate story of deadly alien menace. “Super Toys
Last All Summer Long,” which was the basis for
Steven Spielberg’s film A.I. (2001), is a poignant
examination of the relationship of parent to child.
Another recurring theme in Aldiss’s short fiction is
the tendency of humans to abdicate personal responsibility—notably to machines, as in “But Who
Can Replace a Man?” Occasionally he displays a
dark sense of humor, as in “Let’s Be Frank,” in
which a single personality inhabits a geometrically
increasing number of bodies. Aldiss also has an eye
for irony. In his very first genre story, “Poor Little
Warrior,” a hunter singlehandedly fells a gigantic
alien life form, only to die when attacked by the
parasites that live on the creature’s body.
Aldiss has also demonstrated a fondness for
reexamining work by classic authors and placing
them in a new context. “The Saliva Tree” was a
stylistic homage to H. G. Wells, but An Island
Called Moreau (1981) is a straightforward update
of Wells’s The ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU. In this
case, the genetic manipulation of lower animals is
being performed as part of a government project to
develop more viable forms of life. As in the original, this novel examines the morality of human intervention in the normal process of evolution. In
Frankenstein Unbound (1973), time travel allows
the protagonist to return to the time of Victor
Frankenstein, who turns out to be more than just a
fictional character, and Aldiss reprises another recurring theme as he examines the morality of using
scientific knowledge to alter normal processes of
life. His third major nod to classic writers was the
less successful Dracula Unbound (1991), in which
Bram Stoker discovers that humans have evolved
into a vampiric race in the distant future and have
sent an emissary back through time to ensure that
human history proceeds properly, from their point
of view.
It is more difficult for a writer who works primarily at shorter length to hold the attention of
the reading public in any genre, and science fiction
is only slightly exceptional in that regard. Despite
the fact that he has written relatively few novels
after the mid-1980s, Brian Aldiss has maintained
his reputation as one of the foremost writers in the
genre, and—along with Arthur C. Clarke—is one
of the best-known British science fiction writers
working today.