New Releases by Brian W. Aldiss

A “brilliant . . . classic of the field” generation ship adventure from the Golden Age of Science Fiction by the author of the Helliconia Trilogy (Encyclopedia of Science Fiction). Non-Stop is Grand Master of Science Fiction and Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Brian W. Aldiss’s debut novel. Written in response to Robert Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky and published in the late 1950s, it is set in a primitive world, home to tribes of inhabitants who endure their harsh and stunted lives in a maze of corridors. Though legends exist that they’re actually on a ship traveling through the universe, no one really believes it. But that conviction doesn’t stop a group of people from embarking on a mission to find the rumored “Forwards” section and its control room. Through a tangled, hydroponic jungle, they’ll encounter telepathic animals, giants, outcasts, and mutants in an epic race to uncover the truth—and survive . . . “A breakneck ride filled with some truly disturbing and chaotic imagery . . . Aldiss’ world is visceral and powerful.” —Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations “Worth reading, and quite a significant contribution to the long SF history of generation ship novels.” —SF Site Praise for Brian W. Aldiss “A major figure in world SF . . . Whatever else Aldiss may be, predictable he is not.” —The Guardian “One of the most influential—and one of the best—SF writers Britain has ever produced.” —Iain M. Banks, award-winning author of the Culture series “One of the most important SF writers of the 20th century.” —Publishers Weekly

Helliconia ist eine Welt in einem Doppelsternsystem, auf dem ein Jahr über zweitausend irdische Jahre dauert. Nun, nach einem langen Frühling und einem zweihundert Jahre währenden Sommer, verblasst das Licht der lebensspendenden Sonne Freyr wieder. Die stierköpfigen Phagoren, die im Winter über Helliconia herrschen, werden immer aggressiver und greifen die Städte der Menschen an. Zudem grassiert unter den Nachfahren jener Forscher von der Erde, die Helliconia einst entdeckt haben, eine Seuche – eine Folge der sinnlosen Kriege des Sommers. Der Winter hält Einzug. Er dauert 16 Jahrhunderte ...

Viele Wissenschaftler hatten eindringlich davor gewarnt, doch die Militärs glaubten, nicht auf sie verzichten zu können, also wurden Atombombentests im Orbit, außerhalb der Atmosphäre, durchgeführt. Zunächst schienen die Befürchtungen grundlos gewesen zu sein. Doch dann stellte sich heraus, dass keine Kinder mehr geboren wurden. Die Menschheit hatte es fertiggebracht, sich selbst zu sterilisieren. Die Menschen wurden immer älter, die sozialen Strukturen wandelten sich den Erfordernissen entsprechend, die Zivilisation begann zu erlöschen. Nur eines blieb: Das zählebige Gerücht, es würden dann und wann doch noch Kinder geboren. Nur blieben sie unsichtbar ...

Die nahe Zukunft: Durch einen Anschlag wird das Spaceshuttle Leda bei seiner Rückkehr vom Mond zum Absturz gebracht. Nur eines der vier Besatzungsmitglieder überlebt: Unterstaatssekretär Calvert Madie Roberts. Nachdem er tagelang auf dem Pazifischen Ozean dahingetrieben ist, strandet er an einer Insel. Doch ihre Bewohner schockieren Roberts: Sie sind zwar von menschlicher Gestalt, zeigen aber tierhafte Züge. Nach und nach findet Roberts heraus, dass diese Kreaturen künstlich geschaffen wurden. Doch ihr Schöpfer ist nicht bereit, seine Kreationen kampflos aufzugeben ...

Der Planet Helliconia umkreist ein Doppelsternsystem, so langsam, dass die Jahreszeiten Tausende Jahre dauern. Nach einem langen, harten Winter ist die Welt nun wieder erwacht. Die Menschen sind an die Oberfläche zurückgekehrt und entdecken alte Fertigkeiten und Künste wieder, die lange vergessen waren. Mit überlegener Waffengewalt werden die einheimischen Pahgoren zurückgedrängt, die Meere und Kontinente erkundet – und schon bald brechen die erste Kämpfe zwischen den Menschen aus. Der kurze, heiße Sommer auf Helliconia hat begonnen. Er dauert 238 Jahre ...

Helliconia ist ein Planet in einem Doppelsternsystem, auf dem ein Jahr zweieinhalb Tausend irdische Jahre dauert. Nach mehr als tausend Jahren erbarmungslosem Winter beginnen die Gletscher auf Helliconia zurückzuweichen. Das erste Grün zeigt sich, die Tierwelt erwacht. Nun kehren auch die Menschen, Nachfahren der Forscher, die diese Welt einst entdeckten, an die Oberfläche ihres Planeten zurück – doch zuerst müssen sie die Fesseln der Barbarei abschütteln und sich von der Unterdrückung der einheimischen Phagoren befreien ...

Four loosely linked realistic novels from “one of Britain’s most accomplished and versatile writers” (The Guardian). A Hugo and Nebula Award–winning science fiction writer, British novelist Brian W. Aldiss also regularly “returned to earth with distinction,” penning realistic works, including the Squire Quartet (The New York Times). Comprised of “loosely interconnected novels following many characters through a twenty-first century landscape of insidious new technology and international political turmoil” (Booklist), here is the complete series from this “ambitious and gifted writer” (The Guardian). Life in the West: Thomas C. Squire, creator of the hit documentary series Frankenstein Among the Arts, one-time secret agent, and founder of the Society for Popular Aesthetics, is attending an international media symposium in Sicily. It is here that he becomes involved with the lovely but calculating Selina Ajdina. Alongside the drama of the conference is the story of Squire’s private life—the tale of his infidelity, the horrifying circumstances surrounding his father’s death, and the threatened future of his ancestral home in England. “[A] novel of ideas that is also eminently readable . . . a virtuoso performance.” —Publishers Weekly Forgotten Life: Analyst Clement Winters is trying to write a biography of his recently deceased older brother, Joseph. Through the writings Joseph left behind—letters, diaries, notes, and confessions—Clement realizes how vastly his perception of his sibling differs from reality. As Clement tries to make sense of Joseph’s life, he uncovers dark corners of his family history and even his own existence. “A realistic novel . . . imaginative richness . . . [a] many-layered venture into the extraordinariness of ordinary lives.” —The New York Times Remembrance Day: When four people are killed by a terrorist bombing in a small British seaside hotel, an American academic examines the details of the victims’ lives and histories to find the relationship between them and their fate. “Aldiss discovers fresh and arresting nuances in the dichotomy between blind chance and predestination in human affairs . . . original, disturbing, and memorable.” —Kirkus Reviews Somewhere East of Life: Architectural historian Roy Burnell has been tasked with traveling the globe and listing architectural gems in danger of being destroyed. But when Burnell is in Budapest, ten years of his memory, including his sexual experiences, are stolen. In this near future, where thieves sell memories on the black market, Burnell tries to resume his life, while also searching for the “bullet” that will restore his memory. “Intelligent, funny, and hopeful in spite of itself.” —Kirkus Reviews

From a Science Fiction Grand Master: The sweeping epic of a planet veering from one extreme atmosphere to another—and the humans trying to survive on it. Helliconia Spring introduces us to a tumultuous world that follows an eccentric orbit around a double-star system—and the satellite from Earth secretly monitoring it. Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Brian W. Aldiss then explores the social and religious divisions keeping the planet’s population in conflict even as they’re devastated by plague in Helliconia Summer, and concludes the trilogy with Helliconia Winter, which recounts both the threat of a looming, frigid age of decay and the hope of a new future. The Helliconia Trilogy is both a riveting story and a thought-provoking examination of how our destinies are shaped by the environment around us. Aldiss’s study of fields from astronomy to climatology to geobiology endow all three novels with rich details of the planet Helliconia. This riveting, century-spanning saga is a timely exploration of what climate change can mean for our own planet. “Brian Aldiss’s towering imagination places his Helliconia Trilogy far above standard science fiction” (Daily Mail).

The fifth collection of Brian Aldiss'' short stories, taken from the 1990s. A must-have for collectors. The complete short stories of the 1990s, drawn from sources such as previous anthologies and rare magazines.Capturing the imagination and skill of one of Sci-Fi''s Grand Masters.

Colonists on Mars fight to prevent their own extinction in “a suspenseful genre-bending combination of straight SF and mystery” (Booklist, starred review). Doomed by overpopulation, irreversible environmental degradation, and never-ending war, Earth has become a fetid swamp. For many, Mars represents humankind’s last hope. In six tightly clustered towers on the red planet’s surface, the colonists who have escaped their dying home world are attempting to make a new life unencumbered by the corrupting influences of politics, art, and religion. Unable ever to return, these pioneers have chosen an unalterable path that winds through a landscape as terrible as it is beautiful, often forcing them to compromise their beliefs—and sometimes their humanity—in order to survive. But the gravest threat to the future is not the settlement’s total dependence on foodstuffs sent from a distant and increasingly uncaring Earth, or the events that occur in the aftermath of the miraculous discovery of native life on Mars—it is the fact that in the ten years since colonization began, every new human baby has been born dead, or so tragically deformed that death comes within hours. The great Brian W. Aldiss has delivered a dark and provocative yet ultimately hopeful magnum opus rich in imagination and bold ideas. A novel of philosophy as much as science fiction, Finches of Mars is an exploration of intellectual history, evolution, technology, and the future by one of speculative fiction’s undisputed masters.

In the far future, a group of evolved utopians stranded on an inhospitable planet are unable to resist the reemergence of the human animal One million years in the future, the universe has become a utopia for the humans inhabiting it. Having evolved into the race homo uniformis—“man alike throughout”—they share a centralized nervous system and know nothing of war, disease, violence, emotion, or any of the ancient ills that plagued their ancestors. But while en route to a vacation that is light years from Earth, a small group of elite travelers find themselves marooned in the wilderness of the planet Lysenka. And they are not alone. Many millennia ago, during Earth’s darker days, human colonists came to this regenerate world, and the creatures their descendants became out of necessity bear little resemblance to the uniquely civilized beings now stranded in their midst. Here, in this place far removed from the protection of uniformity, there is only one rule: Adapt—or die. One of the twentieth century’s premier practitioners of the art of science fiction, Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss offers readers a startling look into the far future with a remarkable work of speculation that explores what it means to be human.

A Hugo Award–winning classic about a far-future Earth dominated by gargantuan plants and the few humans who remain Millions of years beyond our time, our Earth has long since stopped spinning—and giant flora have taken over the sunlit half of the motionless world. Here humans are among the very few animal species that still exist, struggling to survive against enormous odds, but they have become small and weak, and their numbers have dwindled to almost nothing. When the aging leader of Gren’s tribe decrees it is time for the old ones to go “Up,” the younger are left to make their own way below. Although the journey will not be an easy one for young Gren, he sets off on an odyssey across a perilous world populated by carnivorous plants and other evolved vegetation. But any knowledge to be gained at the terminator—the forbidding boundary between the day world and the night—might well prove worthless for the boy and the companions he amasses along the way when the expanding sun goes nova and their Earth is no more. A thrilling parable of courage, discovery, and survival, Hothouse is among Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss’s most beloved and enduring works. Ingeniously inventive, richly detailed, and breathtakingly lush and vibrant, the doomed world and people that Aldiss creates will live forever in the minds of all those who enter this remarkable realm.

An unending chain of surveillance crosses countless dimensions in this brilliant, disturbing, and groundbreaking “antinovel” by one of science fiction’s greatest practitioners Mr. Mary and his wife are being observed from at least three vantage points as they go about their mundane home lives. G, the former gardener, watches them from a garden shed. Mr. Mary’s dismissed secretary, S, watches them from the top room of a brick outhouse in the back. The chauffeur, C, who no longer drives, watches the Marys from the garage. Each observer must file a report with his superiors in another continuum, pausing in his surveillance only long enough to eat identical meals alone at the deserted café across the street. But the watchers are themselves being observed by others who are, in turn, being watched across vast and infinite dimensional planes in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of the world known as Probability A. This brilliant, experimental work by Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss is a perplexing and devastatingly haunting masterwork of speculative fiction, considered by many to be the greatest work in the long, prolific career of a true giant of the genre. Thought-provoking, confounding, and stylistically brilliant, Report on Probability A will burn its way into the reader’s mind and memory.

A breathtaking vision of a utopian future on Mars by one of science fiction’s most renowned authors In the middle decades of the twenty-first century, the corporate powers on Earth have established a thriving colony on Mars as an alternative to life on the overpopulated, war-torn, ecologically ravaged home planet. But when the economy of EUPACUS—Earth’s collective industrialized nations—collapses, all contact between the two worlds abruptly ceases, and the Martian pioneers are left to fend for themselves. Led by Tom Jeffries, a philosopher and a visionary, the colonists now face a twofold challenge: No longer supported and subsidized by Earthbound interests, they must somehow form a working planetary alliance to create a new society based firmly in freedom and fairness for all while at the same time eliminating war, hunger, hatred, environmental abuse, and other former scourges of humanity. But first and foremost, they must survive. Brian W. Aldiss, a Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Grand Master of Science Fiction, presents a vision for the future that is startling, uplifting, and endlessly exciting. Written in collaboration with noted mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose—and with essential input from international law expert Laurence Lustgarten—Aldiss’s remarkable White Mars opens a window onto a relentlessly thrilling and gloriously possible tomorrow.

In a grand medieval city where all change has been outlawed, a roguish young actor tempts fate and dinosaurs, all in the name of love By law, nothing can change in Malacia—a teeming, eternal city of dukes, players, wizards, merchants, beggars, ape-men, lizard-boys, and courtesans—but that is of no great consequence to Perian de Chirolo. An out-of-work actor and unabashed rogue, he is well satisfied with his lot as long as there’s coin, eager young women to bed, and the occasional adventure. Perhaps it is this thrill-seeking spirit—or simply the lure of noble beauty—that makes Perian imprudently agree to take part in a mad inventor’s illegal experiments, since such foolishness will never be tolerated in Malacia. But Perian’s rash actions will only lead him on to further indiscretions, winning him first fame and then notoriety, causing him to be hunted, hounded, martyred, and trapped in a fight to the death with a razor-toothed Ancestral Beast on the outskirts of the city. And perhaps most frightening of all, Perian de Chirolo will find himself in love. Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss, one of science fiction’s most able and ingenious creative artists, performs a truly astonishing feat of alternate-world building, immersing the reader in an unforgettable Medieval fantasy realm rich in color, incident, invention, and peril—and of course, giant lizards. Welcome to Malacia.

A wildly satirical look at life—and death—in the near-future, not-quite-unified superstate that was once the continent of Europe Welcome to the future European Super-State—one continent united into a not-quite-homogenous whole. Numerous historic happenings and technological advances have ushered us to this new age of solidarity and prosperity, though it’s true that some of the past’s annoying problems still linger: global warming, terrorism, war, rape, murder, Alzheimer’s disease, environmental catastrophe. Despite all the advances of this brave new tomorrow, it seems people haven’t changed one bit. The rich, beautiful, and celebrated still revel in their outrageous excesses. The government still stumbles about its business of governing while presidential assassins blithely go about theirs. As before, we gaze toward the stars with wonderment, and even now the brave crew of the spaceship Roddenberry is approaching Jupiter’s moon, Europa, ready to make first contact with members of a very tasty alien race. Back on Earth, the Insanatics, our digital conscience, attempt to keep us honest as we love, lie, covet, cheat, and watch our best-laid plans go predictably haywire—and the android slaves we keep locked away overnight in cupboards exchange perplexed reflections on the myriad foibles of their human masters. One of the most acclaimed and accomplished science fiction writers of the twentieth century, Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss offers a colorful tapestry of what’s to come in his thoughtful and savagely funny take on the shape of tomorrow. Aldiss has seen the future . . . and it is ridiculous.

A disruption of time and space sends a modern man back two hundred years to confront Dr. Frankenstein’s immortal monster in this brilliant reinvention of Mary Shelley’s classic tale Some years into the twenty-first century, a newly devised weapon of mass destruction will do far worse than kill; it will disrupt time and space. Suddenly, land, buildings, animals, and people are falling through “timeslips” and being transported briefly back to earlier eras. One of these inadvertent time travelers, Joe Bodenland, is shocked when he finds himself parked outside a villa on the shore of Lake Geneva—and soon after, unbelievably, in the presence of nineteenth-century literary luminaries Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, along with Shelley’s very enticing fiancée, budding author Mary. But when Joe comes face to face with a real, flesh-and-blood Victor Frankenstein and the monster the mad doctor brought into this world, the visitor from the future realizes that not only has time been disrupted, reality itself has been transmogrified. And this Frankenstein, it seems, is far from finished with his unholy endeavors, leaving it up to Joe to make it right for the sake of history—and for the bewitching lady novelist who has stolen his heart—before he is rudely thrust back to his own time. An absolutely stunning reinvention of a cherished literary classic, Frankenstein Unbound proves once more that there are no limits to the unparalleled creative genius of science fiction Grand Master W. Brian Aldiss, one of the most revered names in the field of speculative fiction.

Invisible aliens invade the bucolic English countryside in Brian W. Aldiss’s Nebula Award–winning science fiction novella, plus nine other stories of the fantastic and the odd A meteor shower in the skies above the rolling English countryside late in the nineteenth century fires the imagination of a young man with a penchant for science—especially when one of the falling rocks breaks off from the rest and lands at the bottom of a pond near the Benford farm. While the young man’s curiosity has been seriously aroused, Farmer Benford and his clan couldn’t be less interested—not even when there’s a sudden, curious rash of animal births, they notice odd, lingering, pervasive smells, and the family dog dies inexplicably. Still, the young man is not willing to abandon his investigation into these strange occurrences, even as it becomes increasingly apparent that to keep looking could prove injurious—and perhaps even fatal—not only to himself but to every Benford in the vicinity. Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss wrote his wonderfully strange and gripping novella “The Saliva Tree,” as a tribute to H. G. Wells, the immortal author of The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, and it was honored with a Nebula Award. Included alongside this classic tale of creeping alien terror are nine other sparkling gems of short fiction—from the grisly baby steps of a novice serial killer, to the travels of a history professor through alternate worlds, to the journey of a young widow who has both a murderer and a monster vying for her attention.

In a brilliant reimagining of Bram Stoker’s horror classic, an inventor travels back in time to save humankind from a nightmarish enslavement by vampires Joe Bodenland has figured out how to manipulate time—a discovery that leads him to Utah and an impossible sixty-five-million-year-old human gravesite. It is here that he learns of the existence of a monstrous race of intelligent predators as old as the dinosaur, and of the remarkable “train” the undead creatures use to travel back and forth from a Paleolithic past to a monstrous far future in which Homo sapiens are enslaved cattle. With the fate of all humanity at stake, Joe commandeers the ghostly transportation and rides it back to Victorian England, where he enlists the aid of a powerful ally, the author Bram Stoker, in the battle to secure Earth. But to prevent the coming apocalyptic nightmare, they must first confront and destroy the most cunning and deadly being the world has ever known: Lord Dracula, the immortal vampire. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, including multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and the Prix Jules Verne, Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss puts a bold new science ficion spin on Bram Stoker’s classic tale of vampiric horror. An ingenious reinvention of the Nosferatu myth, Dracula Unbound is a breakneck thrill ride from one of the most revered names in science fiction and fantasy.

A novel of time-traveling adventure from the author of the story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” the basis for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Winner of two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Brian W. Aldiss challenged readers’ minds for over fifty years with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive science fiction. In the year 2093, human consciousness has expanded to the point that man can now travel to the past using a technique called “mind-traveling.” Artist Edward Bush returns from a nearly three-year mind-travel to find that his government has crumbled and society is now under the leadership a new regime. Given Bush’s experience, he is recruited by the regime to track down and assassinate a scientist whose ideas threaten to topple everything they''ve built. This ebook includes an introduction by the author.

A new savior emerges from a drugged-out dystopia in “the most ambitious psychedelic sci-fi novel of the era” from the Science Fiction Grand Master (Conceptual Fiction). The earth is recovering from the Acid Head War, in which hallucinogenic chemicals were the primary weapon. Many humans are now suffering from delusions and are unable to tell the real from the imaginary. When a man named Colin Charteris tries to make sense of the drugged-out world, he is taken as the new messiah. As he descends into paranoid visions, he begins to believe this himself.

War is humanity’s only hope. “Aldiss’ dark vision of collapsing society and withering earth is poignant and brutal . . . [a] richly detailed world” (Science Fiction Ruminations). In a future where the Earth has been savaged by overpopulation and over‐farming, robots are considered more valuable than humans and sand must be altered to create artificially fertile soil. Ex‐convict Knowle Noland, the hallucinating sea captain of the Trieste Star, finds himself wrapped up in a plot to incite a global war that will wipe out millions. War, it seems, is the only way to drastically reduce the population and create a better world for those who survive.

Fourth in the acclaimed Squire Quartet—from the author of “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” the basis for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Architectural historian Roy Burnell has been tasked with traveling the globe and listing architectural gems in danger of being destroyed. But when Burnell is in Budapest, ten years of his memory, mostly his architectural knowledge and sexual experiences, are stolen. In this near-future, thieves using EMV (“e-mnemonicvision”) sell memories on the black market. In the wake of this event, Burnell tries to resume his life, while also searching for the “bullet” that will restore his memory. Winner of two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Brian W. Aldiss challenged readers’ minds for over fifty years with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive science fiction. “Aldiss weaves these thoughts into a delightful and sometimes harrowing story, proving once again that science fiction can illuminate vital matters of the present as effectively as any genre.” —Publishers Weekly This ebook includes an introduction by the author.

The sci-fi author behind Steven Spielberg’s A.I. shares his thoughts on the present, the future, and his own work and life. “We are infinitely rich, yet we mess about with penny-in-the-slot machines,” writes Brian W. Aldiss in this autobiographical work written over the course of one month. From his Oxfordshire home, he ruminates on dreams, education, the role of technology in our lives, the rise and function of science fiction, and a variety of other topics. The Shape of Further Things is a window into the life and mind of a Science Fiction Grand Master. Winner of two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Brian W. Aldiss challenged readers’ minds for over fifty years with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive science fiction. “This short book flows with large ideas, a time capsule now from the grandest of writers.” —SF Site

Second in the acclaimed Squire Quartet—from the author of “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” the basis for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Winner of two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Brian W. Aldiss challenged readers’ minds for over fifty years with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive science fiction. Analyst Clement Winters is trying to write a biography of his recently deceased older brother, Joseph. Through the writings Joseph left behind—letters, diaries, notes, and confessions—Clement realizes how little he actually knows his brother and how vastly his perception of him differs from reality. As Clement tries to make sense of the life of his deceased sibling, he uncovers “little dark corners” of his family history and even his own life. “Likable . . . solid and satisfying . . . Forgotten Life works as fiction—funny, human, tough, irresistibly lively.” —The Times (London) This ebook includes an introduction by the author.

Third in the acclaimed Squire Quartet—from the author of “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” the basis for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Winner of two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Brian W. Aldiss challenged readers’ minds for over fifty years with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive science fiction. Ray and Ruby Tebbutt are a Norfolk couple struggling to pay off a loan they could not afford. Peter Petrik, a small-time Czech film director, is involved with an Irish arms smuggler. Dominic Mayor, a British millionaire with a cold past, made his fortune by manipulating the stock market. All four people’s lives are taken by a terrorist bombing in a small British seaside hotel. In Remembrance Day, an American academic examines the details of the victims’ lives and histories to find the relationship between them and their fate. “In another significant mainstream outing, British science-fiction/fantasy grandmaster Aldiss discovers fresh and arresting nuances in the dichotomy between blind chance and predestination in human affairs…original, disturbing, and memorable.” —Kirkus Reviews This ebook includes an introduction by the author.

A strange alien species forces us to question our definition of civilization in this biting satire from the Grand Master of Science Fiction. What would intelligent life‐forms on another planet look like? Would they walk upright? Would they wear clothes? Or would they be hulking creatures on six legs that wallow in their own excrement? Upon first contact with the Utod— intelligent, pacifist beings who feel no pain—mankind instantly views these aliens as animals because of their unhygienic customs. This leads to the slaughter, capture, and dissection of the Utod. But when one explorer recognizes the intelligence behind their habits, he must reevaluate what it actually means to be “intelligent.”

Human reproduction has ceased and society slowly spirals in this “adult Lord of the Flies” by a Grand Master of Science Fiction (San Francisco Chronicle). After the “Accident,” all males on Earth become sterile. Society ages and falls apart bit by bit. First, toy companies go under. Then record companies. Then cities cease to function. Now Earth’s population lives in spread‐out, isolated villages, with its youngest members in their fifties. When the people of Sparcot begin to make claims of gnomes and man‐eating rodents lurking around their village, Greybeard and his wife set out for the coast with the hope of finding something better.

First in the acclaimed Squire Quartet—from the author of “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” the basis for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Thomas C. Squire, creator of the hit documentary series Frankenstein Among the Arts, one-time secret agent and founder of the Society for Popular aesthetics, is attending an international media symposium in Sicily. It is here that he becomes involved with lovely, but calculating Selina Ajdina. Alongside the drama of the conference is the story of Squire’s private life—the tale of his infidelity, the horrifying circumstances surrounding his father''s death, and the threatened future of his ancestral home in England. Winner of two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Brian W. Aldiss challenged readers’ minds for over fifty years with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive science fiction. “A complex, thoughtful and beguiling story by one of our best novelists.” —William Boyd This ebook includes an introduction by the author.

A civilization crumbles as its planet hurtles away from its star in the final chapter of this “monumental” epic from the Grand Master of Science Fiction (The Times, London). After many centuries, the flowering of human civilization has begun to dwindle again and the Great Year slowly progresses while the long, deadly cold winter looms—but a break in the long, repeating cycles of growth and decay may result from the long-ago visit of the Earthman. New legends of the spring and summer have evolved and a new future may be aborning. More than thirty years after the original publication of Helliconia Spring, the first volume of the Helliconia Trilogy, the series is newly available, now with a map, an afterword, and an introduction by the author.