But Aldiss's basic frame of understanding is pessimistic, in the sense that an awareness of the inherent Entropy of existence necessarily shapes the tone of his shortest work, and governs his most elaborate visions of human destiny, as in the Helliconia sequence from the 1980s. These early stories were ingeniously dark, lyrically exuberant, and intermittently laced with humour. No Time Like Tomorrow (coll 1959) reprints six stories from the fourteen in Space, Time and Nathaniel and adds another six. There followed such notable tales as 'Outside' (January 1955 New Worlds), 'Not for an Age' (9 January 1955 Observer) as by Arch Mendicant, which was the third-prize winner in an Observer sf competition whose stories appeared pseudonymously and were voted on by readers, 'There is a Tide' (February 1956 New Worlds) and 'Psyclops' (July 1956 New Worlds), all of which appeared in his first collection, Space, Time and Nathaniel (Presciences) (coll 1957).

At about the same time, he began to write fiction, most of it sf or fantasy, remaining over the next 60 years or more a dominant figure in British and world sf.Īldiss began publishing work of genre interest with 'Criminal Record' in Science Fantasy for July 1954.

He then worked as an assistant in Oxford bookshops, an experience he transformed into a series of fictionalized sketches about bookselling as by Peter Pica in the trade magazine The Bookseller these were later assembled as his first book, The Brightfount Diaries (coll 1955). He served from 1943 through World War Two in the Royal Corps of Signals in India, Burma and Sumatra, being demobilized in 1947 these four years provided him with background material throughout his career, and are specifically recreated in the nonfantastic Horatio Stubbs sequence (see below). (1925-2017) UK anthologist, editor, artist, critic and author, married to Margaret Aldiss, whose early death he commemorated in When the Feast Is Finished: Reflections on Terminal Illness ( 1999) educated at private schools, which he conspicuously disliked.

Hothouse by brian w aldiss