Brian Aldiss – författare

The first book in the acclaimed Squire Quartet.Thomas C. Squire, popular presenter of television documentaries, one time secret agent, a hedonist whose worldly success and self-confidence overshadow the lives of his family and friends, faces a mid-life crisis which undermines the stability of his ancient house. This brilliant and sometimes violent novel moves from England to Sicily, Singapore and Jugoslavia.Brian says: ‘A complex and argumentative drama built about the axes of Thomas Squire’s attendance at an imaginary contemporary ARTS symposium in Sicily, his extramarital and marital relationships, and his past as a secret agent in Jugoslavia, a land caught between East and West. Includes several humorous portraits of national types.’First published in 1980 and unavailable for some time.

The second volume in the acclaimed Squire Quartet.Spanning fifty years and three continents – from pre-war Suffolk, to the Far East in the 1940s, to Oxford and America in the present day – Forgotten Life is a novel of immense scope, encompassing comedy and tragedy, joy and grief, as its three main characters try to work out the most difficult problem of all – the meaning of their own lives.Brian says: ‘This novel, which in retrospect can be seen to have a similar ground plan to Non-Stop, written thirty years earlier, was more warmly received than any other Aldiss novel, not simply by its reviewers but by readers.’Features a new introduction by the author.

The third book in the Squire Quartet.Russian born Dominic is one of the success stories of the eighties, when yuppies made fortunes on the stock market .Ray Tebbutt is among the unlucky ones. He was involved in a bankruptcy in the mid-eighties .Peter Petrik, a dissident Czech film director, lives in Prague, dreaming of making more films when times improve .The lifelines of these people and others – comic and sad by turns in true Aldiss fashion – converge towards the finality of an IRA bomb episode in Great Yarmouth.

The final volume of the critically acclaimed Squire Quartet.Having abandoned Britain to its recession, architectural historian Roy Burnell operates out of Germany, attempting to hold the world together culturally. Moving around the more outrageous parts of the globe, his task is to list architectural gems threatened by war, history and human awfulness.Such is man’s ingenuity, however, that Burnell’s mind is also threatened. Someone has stolen a chunk of his memory – ten years in fact. This chunk, and in particular the more salacious bits, such as his marriage to Stephanie, has been chopped up, recorded in e-mnemonicvision and sold to lovers of soft porn everywhere.First published in 1994 and unavailable for some time. Features a new introduction by the author.

Sci-fi legend Brian Aldiss’ dark and compelling story of Siamese twin boys with a third dormant head.Tom and Barry are Siamese twins with a third head growing out of Barry’s shoulder. They are plucked from their deprived home by showbiz entrepreneurs and form a rock band, The Bang Bang.But the twins have a violent relationship and jealousies arise over their shared lover. Can a band split up when the singers are permanently joined together?

How would you like to have a disc set in the middle of your forehead which glowed pink whenever you felt sexually aroused?This is the basis of Brian Aldiss’ amazingly funny and original novel, first published in 1961 and set in a near-future Britain where the discs are to be made compulsory – but not before a lot of hilarious and even frightening events occur, suggesting that perhaps it’s not such a good idea to wear one’s, er, ‘heart’ on one’s forehead.

In a major publishing project, all of Brian Aldiss’ 300+ short stories are being collected together for the first time.In a major publishing project, all of Brian Aldiss’ 300+ short stories are being collected together for the first time.Volume one takes us from his very first story – A Book in Time, published in The Bookseller in 1954 and never seen again until now – right up to his establishment as a major new voice in science fiction by the end of that decade.As he enters his 89th year this is a long-overdue retrospective of the career of one of the most acclaimed science fiction writers of all time, and a true literary legend.

Aldiss’ first novel republished after many years out of print.In a small provincial city, Peter lives with his long-suffering Aunt Anne and his eccentric Uncle Leo, and works in a bookshop called Brightfount’s, which he describes as a ‘shabby outpost of literacy’. Cutting the apron strings, he moves into a bed-sit and composes these witty diaries, in which he includes amusing remarks about publishers, authors, booksellers and customers, a revelation about his dotty uncle, and his efforts to find a suitable girl.First published as a weekly serial in The Bookseller, these fictional diaries became a sensation, prompting fanmail from across the globe and resulting in the author’s first book deal.

A most entertaining volume of memoir from a legend of science fiction.A writer’s life can be exciting, unexpected, routine, lonely – and sometimes all on the same day! Brian Aldiss recounts the highs and lows of his professional career in this entertaining and revealing book.Here are his adventures with publishers, booksellers, agents, other authors, and readers. Here are some of the complex questions of what makes and sustains a successful modern writer. The tales he tells are wry, witty, informative – beginning with his first job at the Oxford bookshop that was to be the setting for his first book of fiction, The Brightfount Diaries, and ending as he undergoes one of the most gruelling experiences of a writer’s life: the publication of a new novel, in this case his brilliant Forgotten Life.

A Theban adventure from the master of Science-Fiction, here proving himself adept at imagining historical worlds. Part of the Brian Aldiss Collection.In Jocasta, Aldiss brings vividly to life the ancient world of dreaming Thebes: a world of sun-drenched landscapes, golden dust, sphynxes, Furies, hermaphroditic philosophers, ghostly apparitions and ambivalent gods. Jocasta is also a strikingly effective contemplation of an older world order where the human mind is still struggling to understand itself and the nature of the world around it.

A dramatic reworking of the vampire myth in a way that only Brian Aldiss can…Available for the first time in eBook.When Bram Stoker was writing his famous novel, Dracula, at the end of the 19th century he received a visitor named Joe Bodenland. While the real Count Dracula came from the distant past, Joe arrived from Stoker’s future – on a desperate mission to save humanity from the undead.Following on from Frankenstein Unbound, this is a dramatic reworking of the vampire myth in a way that only Brian Aldiss can.

When Joe Bodenland is suddenly transported back in time to the year 1816, his first reaction is of eager curiosity rather than distress…This is Aldiss’ response to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, available for the first time in eBook.When Joe Bodenland is suddenly transported back in time to the year 1816, his first reaction is of eager curiosity rather than distress. Certainly the Switzerland in which he finds himself, with its charming country inns, breathtaking landscapes and gentle, unmechanised pace of life, is infinitely preferable to the America of 2020 where the games of politicians threaten total annihilation. But after meeting the brooding young Victor Frankenstein, Joe realises that this world is more complex than the one he left behind. Is Frankenstein real, or are both Joe and he living out fictional lives?BRIAN SAYS: Developed as a tribute to Mary Shelley’s work, following the writing of Billion Year Spree, with its proposal, since widely adopted, that Frankenstein is the first seminal work to which the label “SF” can be logically attached. Frankenstein makes a female monster to accompany the male; Bodenland, lost from our time, hunts down first Frankenstein and then the monsters, becoming monstrous himself in the process.

Welcome to Dr Moreau’s other island. Place of untold horros. Home of the Beast Men…Available for the first time in eBook.He stands very tall, long prosthetic limbs glistening in the harsh sun, withered body swaying, carbine and whip clasped in artificial hands. Man-beasts cower on the sand as he brandishes his gun in the air.He is Dr Moreau, ruler of the fabulous, grotesque island, where humans are as brutes and brutes as humans, where the future of the entire human race is being reprogrammed. The place of untold horrors. The place of the New Man.

A ribald tale from Britain’s best-love Science Fiction writer.The Cretan Teat is a bawdy novel, telling the extraordinary tale a Byzantine painting of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the infant Jesus.This false icon gets adopted by the people – and so becomes instrumental in the downfall of mankind.This is a story where the narrator – the author – is regularly caught with his trousers down.It is at once funny and important, a post-modern text reminiscent of Pirandello, where sexcapades brush shoulders with the end of the world.

A story charting the events of the twentieth century through the eyes of the Fielding family, whose fortunes are altered irrevocably…The Brian Aldiss collection includes over 50 books and spans the author’s entire career, from his debut in 1955 to his more recent work.On the glorious sands of the North Norfolk coast, Steve, the youngest member of the Fielding family, plays alone. But are these halcyon days?War is looming, and things will never be the same again. This book, described by Brian as his magnum opus, charts the fortunes of the Fielding family throughout the twentieth century.

Following on from the 1950s collection, this is the second collection of Brian Aldiss’ short stories, taken from the 1960s. A must-have for collectors. Part one of four.This collection gathers together, for the very first time, Brian Aldiss’ complete catalogue of short stories from the 1960s, in four parts.Taken from diverse and often rare sources, the works in this collection chart the blossoming career of one of Britain’s most beloved authors. From stories of high-tech hive minds hunting wild robots, to the story of Mr Meacher, who is given an injection which helps him gain a dimension, this book proves once again that Aldiss’ gifted prose and unparalleled imagination never fail to challenge and delight.The four books of the 1960s short story collection are must-have volumes for all Aldiss fans, and an excellent introduction to the work of a true master.

A collections of anecdotes, reviews and essays, written with the humour and warmth one associates with Brian Aldiss.In this fascinating collection of essays, one of the world’s pre-eminent SF writers explores a wide range of SF and fantasy writers and writings.The contents include a letter to Salvador Dali, Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, the work of Philip K. Dick, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, James Blish, Culture: Is it worth losing your balls for?and the differences between US and UK fantasy.

Two of Aldiss’ essay collections from the mid-1980s in one volume.In this warm, chatty, opinionated collection of essays, Brian Aldiss tells the reader a bit about his youth, holds forth on the position of science fiction within the literary and scientific worlds and reveals some of the processes at work in his own writing.This volume also includes the companion collection …And the Lurid Glare of the Comet.

Aldiss’ acclaimed 1979 essay collection reissued for the first time in over thirty years.Most of the arts – architecture, music, painting, cinema – come under review in this thought-provoking collection of essays first published in 1979.Aldiss writes here with characteristic humour the complex unity of art and science which forms the inner mystery of science fiction, and reveals new aspects whilst ‘exploring the familiar’.Brian says: ‘A collection of essays on a wide variety of subjects, including literature, film, politics, current affairs, art and the author’s own life.’

In Malacia, a city where change is forbidden and radical ideas are crushed, a war like no other is about to commence…The Brian Aldiss collection includes over 50 books and spans the author’s entire career, from his debut in 1955 to his more recent work.Struggling young actor Perian de Chirolo does as he pleases in the timeless city. He is a lover, a fighter and has no thought for consequence, until the magic of Malacia changes and reality begins to catch up with him.Now de Chirolo must make a choice between his old life, and joining the revolutionaries who will fight to ensure Malacia is never the same again.

Written at the peak of the swinging sixties, this is an ironic, hilarious and frank investigation of sexual politics and the male sex drive.The Brian Aldiss collection includes over 50 books and spans the author’s entire career, from his debut in 1955 to his more recent work.Events move fast in Umbalathorp, the capital city of the new African republic of Goya. When affable young PR man Soames Noyes arrives fresh off the boat from England to deliver the city’s first computer, he finds himself swept up in a current of women, witch-doctors and promiscuity.Soon the indecisive Soames is saying goodbye to inhibition and hello to a new sexual politics.

Controversial and brilliant, Report on Probability A is a claustrophobic and terrifying novel that examines the politics of surveillance and ownership.The Brian Aldiss collection includes over 50 books and spans the author’s entire career, from his debut in 1955 to his more recent work.Mr and Mrs Mary live a normal life in every way, except one. All day, every day, they are being watched by three men.Once employed by the Marys, the men now spend their time observing the couple’s every move. But Mrs Mary has her gun, and she’s been watching too.

Earthman Gary Towler is a pariah. He must interpret the will of the Nuls who rule his planet, Earth, and he’s running out of time to overthrow their plans…The time: thousands of years hence. The whole of the known universe is dominated by the Nuls, a huge, three-armed race, almost as old as time itself.A charge of Nul corruption on an insignificant planet called Earth sets off a dramatic chain of events.

An ambitious, incredible – Space Opera!A science-fiction story which occasionally breaks off into song – a genuine space opera.Quite possibly Aldiss’s strangest novel, and that is saying something.

An electrifying journey one millions years into the future: meet the Utopian race of Homo Uniformis – men logical, unemotional, and totally alike…In the future, mankind’s physiology has been improved. Utopia prevails throughout the solar system, in a communistic system of government. When six of its members are lost on an unregenerate planet, the stresses begin to show.This novel is part of the Brian Aldiss Collection. The Friday Project are reissuing many of Aldiss’s works, including over 300 short stories, in print and eBook.

A new novel from one of Britain’s best-loved writer, Brian Aldiss OBE, set in and around his home-town of Oxford.Set in contemporary Oxford, this incisive novel charts the breakdown of a community.A new mosque is to be built – on the site of a derelict pub – and gradually, half-hidden prejudices begin to surface, and relationships between the residents start to sour.Drawing closely on current affairs, this novel investigates what it means to live in a post 7/7 world, where paranoia, prejudice and fear compete with tolerance and diversity.

A masterful evocation of the future of nationhood and technology from the master of British science fiction. A stunning new edition of a modern classic. ‘The titan of science fiction.’– Telegraph Forty years has passed and ‘Europe’ now refers to vast swathes of the Earth: a unified super-state that has just enacted a successful space mission, landing people on Jupiter’s Moon and spurring the people at home to look at their lives and what they’ve made of the world.Global warming ravages the planet, where shrunken coasts endure huge tidal attacks while inland ideological wars continue. Technology has advanced to the point where androids assist with menial work – but are conscious enough to be baffled by humanity’s weaknesses. So much is different but very little has changed.Told through a network of relatives, lovers, friends, a president (and those sent to assassinate him), Super-State looks to the future while exploring the most timeless human challenges with huge wit and precision. A satire skewering best intentions and cynicism alike, written at the start of the new Millennium by the master of British Science Fiction.

Writer, soldier, bookseller, father: Brian Aldiss has earned many titles in his life. In the Twinkling of an Eye is a candid, vivid and charming look at the stories behind this distinctive writer of fiction.His life as a struggling novelist is unflinchingly laid bare. There are recollections of the beauty and freedoms of Sumatra, the camaraderie of the army and the sobriety of post-war England, bookselling in Oxford, marital breakdown and financial impoverishment. With insight and honesty, Aldiss delves into his role in the new wave of science fiction writing in the 1960s, and his friendships with his contemporaries: Anthony Storr, J. G. Ballard, Kingsley Amis, Doris Lessing, Michael Moorcock and William Boyd.This is Aldiss at his most-versatile, outspoken best.

A moving account of the death of Brian Aldiss’ wife Margaret.Margaret Aldiss, Brian’s wife of thirty years, passed away quickly after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Based on journals they both kept, When the Feast is Finished is a moving account of those last months of Margaret’s life.Alongside Margaret’s bravely honest journal entries, Aldiss draws a heartbreaking portrait of the sustaining force of love in the face of a devastating illness.As husband and wife describe those last few precious months, they give thanks for the thirty years of joy and happiness they shared, the children of whom they are so proud, and the chance to say goodbye.