Helliconia Summer

The best of the 3 Helliconia stories follows the intrigues of hapless Kings and their entourages as they vie for position during the Great Summer when life is at its easiest for humans on Helliconia.

And hapless these Kings are - even the one who appears to be pulling the strings decides that all he can do is go for a bath when his plans fall over.

This book is the only one of the three that actually uses the presence of the space station and the earthlings onboard as an input into the main storyline. Although, technology wise, we are told that there are "squadrons of auxiliary satellites" observing Helliconia, I'm still at a loss as to how this output could possibly be used to produce images of the detail described as being sent back to Earth.

The book also describes more of the cycle of life on Helliconia and the relationship between the humans, phagors and other sentient beings on planet, which is interesting. Although the phagors play less of a role in this book, being just used as slaves or soldiers, they are still there, waiting.

There are a couple of bits where Aldiss messes up the progression of time, but in some places his hints of the future do leave you wanting to find out how exactly we will get there. And it does include Aldiss's usual sexism, including one King pondering leaving his queen in order to "rip into the pubescent body" of a 10 year old princess.

But overall, it's an OK read.