Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in the collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long (2001). It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 7 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

A variety of unusual voices ranges from Malaysia to Moscow and beyond in a collection of magical, otherworldly fiction from a preeminent, imaginative force in the genre.

Table of Contents:

• Short Stories (poem)
• A Tupolev Too Far
• Ratbird
• FOAM
• Summertime Was Nearly Over
• Better Morphosis
• Three Degrees Over
• A Life of Matter and Death
• A Day in the Life of a Galactic Empire
• Confluence
• Confluence Revisited
• North of the Abyss
• Alphabet of Ameliorating Hope (poem)

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Moon Shots (1999), edited by Peter Crowther. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 5 (2000), edited by David G. Hartwell.

'Everyone's touched! Don't be taken in by appearances here. Believe me, the old world has gone, but its shell remains in place. One day soon, there will come a breath of wind, a new messiah, the shell will crumple, and the kids will run, screaming, barefoot in the head, through lush new imaginary meadows. What a time to be young!' Barefoot in the Head is a tale of a future world recovering from a holocaust of hallucinogenic chemical weapons. For the victims, reality is a fluid mixture of the real, the imaginary and the nightmarish, the past, present and future. Colin Charteris, the hero and anti-hero on this continually disintegrating stage, has not himself survived the cataclysm unscathed, and his gradual descent into fantastic and paranoid visions will have drastic consequences for civilization. Brian Aldiss, in a psychedelic tour de force of inventive, playful narrative, owing as much to the methods of James Joyce and the experimentalism of William S. Burroughs as to H. G. Wells, goes light-years beyond the conventions of the genre to tell his story.

This is the third edition of this collection. Earlier editions appeared in 1965 and 1971, containing a different selection of stories.

Table of Contents:

• Outside - (1955) - short story
• All the World's Tears - (1957) - short story
• Poor Little Warrior! - (1958) - short story
• Who Can Replace a Man? - (1958) - short story
• Man on Bridge - (1964) - short story
• The Girl and the Robot with Flowers - (1965) - short story
• The Saliva Tree - (1965) - novella
• Man in His Time - (1965) - short story
• Heresies of the Huge God - (1966) - short story
• Confluence - (1967) - short story
• Working in the Spaceship Yards - (1969) - short story
• Super-Toys Last All Summer Long - (1969) - short story
• Sober Noises of Morning in a Marginal Land - (1971) - novelette
• The Dark Soul of the Night - (1976) - short story
• Appearance of Life - (1976) - short story by
• Last Orders - (1976) - short story
• Door Slams in Fourth World - (1982) - short story
• The Gods in Flight - (1984) - short story
• My Country 'Tis Not Only of Thee - (1986) - novelette
• Infestation - (1986) - short story
• The Difficulties Involved in Photographing Nix Olympica - (1986) - short story

"Mr. Aldiss has written a scholarly and enjoyable examination of the genre from the seminal works such as FRANKENSTEIN to the current new wave."---Chattaqnooga Times

Billion Year Spree was subsequently updated and expanded into Trillion Year Spree (1986).

Siamese twins, Barry and Tom, have a dormant but sinister third head growing out of Barry's left shoulder. Plucked from the untamed Norfolk coastline by showbiz entrepreneurs cashing in on their demonically violent and freakish relationship, they form a rock band, The Bang Bang, and taste superstardom. Throughout their jealous battles over the woman in their life and their brutal existence, they are forever accompanied by their ominous companion, who makes increasing demands for its right to life.

Autobiography of the writer's life including his experiences as an author, journalist, scriptwriter and bookseller in the world of publishing and bookselling. Aldiss describes his lifelong fascination with science fiction and examines the nature of creative writing.

In the year 2093, human consciousness has expanded to the point where man can now travel to the past using a technique called "mind-travelling." 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 excellent ability to mind-travel, he is recruited by the regime to track down and assassinate a scientist whose ideas threaten to topple everything they've built

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.

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.

'My final Science Fiction novel' - Brian Aldiss

Brian Aldiss has announced that this book, Finches of Mars, will be his final science fiction novel. And what a way to end one of the most illustrious careers in the genre.

Set on the Red Planet, it follows a group of colonists and the problems they have in setting up a new society. Life can be sustained but new life will not prosper - the women on the planet only ever give birth to stillborn children.

Exploring many of the author's classic themes, this is a landmark novel in any genre.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology New Worlds 1 (1991), edited by David Garnett. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection A Tupolev Too Far and Other Stories (1993).

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology New Worlds 3 (1993), edited by David Garnett. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection (1994), edited by Gardner Dozois.

The sombre story of a group of people in their fifties who face the fact that there is no younger generation coming to replace them; instead nature is rushing back to obliterate the disaster they have brought on theselves.

The time is today or tomorrow - or perhaps the day after tomorrow. Paul Fadhil Abbas Ali, a young British citizen of Muslim descent, has written a satirical novel in which two characters joke about the assassination of the prime minister. Arrested by agents of HARM - the Hostile Activities Research Ministry - Paul is thrown into a nameless Abu Ghraib-like prison, possibly located in Syria, where he is held incommunicado and brutally interrogated by jailers to whom his Muslim heritage is itself a crime meriting the harshest punishment. Under this sadistic regime, Paul's personality begins to show signs of radical fragmentation....

On the remote planet of Stygia, a man named Fremant, haunted by memories of torture that seem drawn from Paul's mind, is one of a small group of colonists struggling for survival on a harsh but weirdly beautiful world whose dominant life-forms are insects. The sole humanoid race on the planet has been hunted to extinction by the human settlers, whose long journey to Stygia has left them unable to understand their own history and technology.

Thrown back to a more primitive state, they seem destined to repeat all the sins of the world they fled to Stygia to escape.

Is Paul dreaming Fremant as a way of escaping the horrors of his imprisonment? Or is there a stronger - and far stranger - connection between the two men, whose very different circumstances begin to take on uncanny parallels?

As aspects of their identities blur and, finally, merge, astonishing answers take shape - and profound new questions arise.

The personal histories of science fiction writers: Alfred Bester, Damon Knight, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Harry Harrison, Brian W Aldiss.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1975) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Sounding Brass, Tinkling Cymbal - (1975) - essay by Robert Silverberg
• My Affair With Science Fiction - (1974) - essay by Alfred Bester
• The Beginning of the Affair - (1975) - essay by Harry Harrison
• Knight Piece - (1975) - essay by Damon Knight
• Ragged Claws - (1975) - essay by Frederik Pohl
• Magic and Bare Boards - (1974) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• How We Work - (1975) - essay by Robert Silverberg
• How We Work - (1975) - essay by Alfred Bester
• How We Work - (1975) - essay by Harry Harrison
• How We Work - (1975) - essay by Damon Knight
• How We Work - (1975) - essay by Frederik Pohl
• How We Work - (1975) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Selected Bibliographies: Robert Silverberg
• Selected Bibliographies: Alfred Bester
• Selected Bibliographies: Harry Harrison
• Selected Bibliographies: Damon Knight
• Selected Bibliographies: Frederik Pohl
• Selected Bibliographies: Brian W. Aldiss

An early collection of stories from a GrandMaster.

Contents:

• 7 - Neanderthal Planet - (1960) - novelette
• 55 - Randy's Syndrome - (1967) - novelette
• 83 - Send Her Victorious - (1968) - novelette
• 119 - Intangibles Inc. - (1959) - novelette (variant of Intangibles, Inc.)
• 143 - Since the Assassination - (1969) - novella

Originally appeared as "The Captain's Analysis" in The Quarto, Jul/Aug 1982.

Working in his study with his record player on loudly, William Frayser doesn't know anyone else is in the room until someone strikes him on the skull. When he wakes, he doubts everything, including his alien visitor and his own consciousness.

Brian Aldiss, who has won numerous awards for stories such as "The Saliva Tree", has surpassed himseld in this mind-bending tale that yields to intuition as much as logic.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Science Fantasy, April 1965. The first US publication was in the collection Who Can Replace Man (1966). The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories Two (1967), edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, The Traps of Time (1968), edited by Michael Moorcock and Beyond Reality (1979), edited by Terry Carr.

A castaway government official is stranded on an island of man-made monsters in this bold reimagining of the H. G. Wells science fiction classic

War is hell, and the conflict tearing the world apart may be humankind's last. Set adrift on a makeshift raft in the middle of the South Pacific, the sole survivor of a sabotaged space-shuttle flight, undersecretary of state Calvert Roberts is certain his life is coming to an end. But fate intervenes, depositing him dehydrated and half starved on the beach of an uncharted island with a giant M etched into a cliff wall. At first it appears to be paradise, but Eden has a dark side: Here, Dr. Mortimer Dart is playing God. A genius geneticist who is certifiably mad, he is called Master by the unspeakable creations of his predecessor--monstrous creatures, neither human nor animal but some nightmarish hybrid. Yet as horrible as the stranded government official finds these abominations, it is the truth behind Dart's experiments that chill Roberts's blood--for it will open wide a window onto an inescapable future of emptiness, ashes, and death.

One of twentieth-century science fiction's brightest luminaries, Grand Master Brian W. Aldiss pays homage to one of the genre's most beloved progenitors, the great H. G. Wells, author of The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and other science fiction classics. An Island Called Moreau is a gripping near-future tale of inhuman experimentation, dystopia, morality, war, and mad science that honors and ingeniously updates Wells's brilliant, dark masterwork, The Island of Doctor Moreau.

A monster travels back in time to destroy a race called Man on a planet called Earth...

A mild-mannered husband is stranded centuries ahead in a world of peep-show barbarism...

A jaded sportsman returns to the prehistoric past to hunt a gigantic brontosaurus...

The governor of a penal space settlement makes the supreme sacrifice for the colony he loves...

Here are startling stories of the future – adventures that soar beyond the barriers of time and space, yet remain perilously close to the boundaries of reality.

Table of Contents:

• T (1956) - short story
• Not for an Age (1955) - short story
• Poor Little Warrior! (1958) - short story
• The Failed Men (1956) - short story
• Carrion Country (1958) - short story
• Judas Danced (1958) - short story
• Psyclops (1956) - short story
• Outside (1955) - short story
• Gesture of Farewell (1957) - novelette
• The New Father Christmas (1958) - short story
• Blighted Profile (1958) - short story
• Our Kind of Knowledge (1955) - short story

Contents:

• 9 - Introduction (Perilous Planets) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• 13 - "How Are They All on Deneb IV?" - (1965) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss [as by C. C. Shackleton]
• 17 - Uninhabited Planets: "... Because They're There" - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• 23 - Mouth of Hell - (1966) - short story by David I. Masson
• 35 - Brightside Crossing - (1956) - novelette by Alan E. Nourse
• 57 - The Sack - (1950) - short story by William Morrison
• 79 - Inhabited Planets: Whatever Answers the Door... - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• 85 - The Monster - (1948) - short story by A. E. van Vogt
• 104 - The Monsters - (1953) - short story by Robert Sheckley
• 115 - Grenville's Planet - (1952) - short story by Michael Shaara
• 128 - Beachhead - (1951) - short story by Clifford D. Simak
• 149 - A Dash of Symbols: No Names to the Rivers - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• 155 - The Ark of James Carlyle - (1974) - short story by Cherry Wilder
• 173 - On the River - (1965) - short story by Robert F. Young
• 186 - Goddess in Granite - (1957) - novelette by Robert F. Young
• 211 - The Seekers - (1965) - short story by E. C. Tubb
• 219 - Mars and Venus: Love and War - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• 223 - When the People Fell - [The Instrumentality of Mankind] - (1959) - short story by Cordwainer Smith
• 236 - The Titan - (1952) - novella by P. Schuyler Miller
• 293 - Becoming More Alien: A Universal Home Truth - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• 297 - Four in One - (1953) - novelette by Damon Knight
• 331 - The Age of Invention - (1966) - short story by Norman Spinrad
• 337 - The Snowmen - (1959) - short story by Frederik Pohl
• 345 - Schwartz Between the Galaxies - (1974) - novelette by Robert Silverberg
• 366 - Afterword (Perilous Planets) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

One afternoon in early January, the weather showed a lack of character. There was no frost nor wind: the trees in the garden did not stir. Within the house moved a woman, the strangely fascinating Mrs. Mary: without, a black and white cat stalked the pigeon known as X. The characters G, S, and C watched from various outbuildings. Others watched tham and yet others watched those watchers. An enigmatic engraving hung in each outbuilding and as the early dusk fell C gazed at a representation of two snakes, each swallowing the other's tail. Brian Aldiss's new novel, a tense and engrossing study of relative phenomena, is a dazzling tour-de-force in which his wit, intelligence and invention are displayed at full stretch.

A compendium of science fiction magazine cover and interior art, with almost all of the old magazines, both American and English, being represented. The oversized format of the book often permits large-scale reproduction in colour of the work of artists who were too little appreciated in their time.

The scope and intensity of Aldiss' imagination is once again revealed in this collection of powerful and evocative stories in which he explores central issues by contemplating the personal problems experienced by ordinary people - a fisherman who crosses a lake that divides two villages and thereby challenges the taboos which separate him from the girl he loves; a young prince whose attempts to liberate his slaves fails because of his failure to understand human nature. The austere conclusions Aldiss draws are counterbalanced by a spark of optimism and humour and by a sense of survival.

Table of Contents:

• The Gods in Flight
• A Romance of the Equator
• The Blue Background
• The Girl Who Sang
• Igur and the Mountain
• The O in José
• The Other Side of the Lake
• The Plain, the Endless Plain
• Incident in a Far Country

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• T - (1956)
• Our Kind of Knowledge - (1955)
• Psyclops - (1956)
• Conviction - (1956)
• Not for an Age - (1955)
• The Shubshub Race - (1957)
• Criminal Record - (1954)
• The Failed Men - (1956)
• Supercity - (1957)
• There Is a Tide - (1956)
• Pogsmith - (1955)
• Outside - (1955)
• Panel Game - (1955)
• Dumb Show - (1956)

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2000. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long: and Other Stories of Future Time (2001).

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.

"Supertoys Last All Summer Long" is the haunting tale of a young boy unable to please his mother, a boy who is not a boy at all, a boy whose intelligence is artificial . . .

This tale, which was taken up by the late Stanley Kubrick, and is soon to be turned into a major motion picture by Steven Spielberg, is the title story of Brian Aldiss' formidable collection of futuristic fables. It is typical of the writer's humane power of prophesy and his unerring sense of how technology and intelligence could work together. From the pessimism of "III", where corporate greed controls natural resources, to the optimism of "The Pause Button", where medical advances lead to a more thoughtful society, Aldiss' questioning is subtle yet simple — has humanity the wit and empathetic strength to keep up with the irresistible progress of technology?

Table of Contents

• Foreword: Attempting to Please - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Supertoys Last All Summer Long - (1969)
• Supertoys When Winter Comes - (2001)
• Supertoys in Other Seasons - (2001)
• Apogee Again - (1999)
• III - (2001)
• The Old Mythyology - (2001)
• Headless - (1994) - (2001)
• Beef - (2001)
• Nothing in Life is Ever Enough - (1999)
• A Matter of Mathematics - (2001)
• The Pause Button - (1997) - (2001)
• Three Types of Solitude - (2001)
• Steppenpferd - (2000)
• Cognitive Ability and the Light Bulb - (2000)
• Dark Society - (1996)
• Galaxy Zee - (2001)
• Marvells of Utopia - (2001)
• Becoming the Full Butterfly - (1995)
• A Whiter Mars: A Socratic Dialogue of Times to Come - (1995)

AKA: The Comic Inferno

Contents:

• The Comic Inferno
• The Underprivileged
• Cardiac Arrest
• In the Arena
• All the World's Tear
• Amen and Out
• The Soft Predicament
• As for Our Fatal Continuity...
• Send Her Victorious

Table of Contents

• Three's a Cloud - (1959)
• All the World's Tears - (1957)
• Who Can Replace a Man? - (1958)
• Blighted Profile - (1958)
• Judas Danced - (1958)
• O Ishrail! - (1957)
• Incentive - (1958)
• Gene-Hive - (1958)
• Secret of a Mighty City - (1958)
• They Shall Inherit - (1958)
• Visiting Amoeba - (1957)

A Space Opera. 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.

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 1994. The story is included in the collection The Secret of This Book (1995).

Appeared in Ace Double D-443 (1960).

When Earthman Gary Towler is off work, he is a pariah. For his task as chief interpreter for the corrupt and tyrannical nuls makes other humans avoid him as a traitor.

Nor is he trusted by the three-armed mammoth rulers themselves, especially when they learned than an envoy was on the way from their distant planetary headquarters to investigate charges of corruption on Earth. For the leaders realized that Gary knew too much.

When the humans leading the underground rebellion demanded Gary's aid or his life, he was caught between two untrustful forces. And his only way out was to make himself into a one-man third force against two worlds' plotters.

A GREAT SCIENCE-FICTION NOVEL BY THE AUTHOR OF STARSHIP.

In the timeless city of Malacia, a place swathed in magic and on the brink of war, lives a young man named Perian de Chirolo – a free-spirit, a fearless lover – who embarks on a harrowing odyssey with dramatic consequences for himself and all Malacians. This is a gripping tale of wonder, lust and destiny.

The fourteen stories in this mind-blowing collection range from outrageous satire to evocative fantasy, revealing the future with an alarming intensity.

Table of Contents:

• Poem at a Lunar Eclipse - poem by Thomas Hardy
• The Moment of Eclipse - (1969)
• The Day We Embarked for Cythera... - (1970)
• Orgy of the Living and the Dying - (1970)
• Super-Toys Last All Summer Long - (1969)
• The Village Swindler - (1968)
• Down the Up Escalation - (1967)
• That Uncomfortable Pause Between Life and Art... - (1969)
• Confluence - (1967)
• Heresies of the Huge God - (1966)
• The Circulation of the Blood... - (1966)
• ...And the Stagnation of the Heart - (1968)
• The Worm That Flies - (1968)
• Working in the Spaceship Yards - (1969)
• Swastika! - (1970)

Table in Contents

• Introductory Note - essay
• Preparation for What? - essay
• Long Cut to Burma - essay
• Old Bessie - essay
• Science Fiction's Mother Figure - essay
• The Immanent Will Returns - essay
• The Downward Journey: Orwell's 1984 - essay
• A Whole New Can of Worms - essay
• Peep - essay
• A Transatlantic Harrison, Yippee! - essay
• The Atheist's Tragedy Revisited - essay
• The Pale Shadow of Science - essay
• A Monster for All Seasons - (1982) - essay
• Helliconia: How and Why - essay

A satire on sexual reserve, it explores the effects on society of a forehead-mounted Emotion Register that glows when the wearer experiences sexual attraction.

The book was banned in Ireland.

(from Wikipedia.com)

Nebula Award winning novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1965. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories 1965, edited by Damon Knight, and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume III (1981), edited by Arthur C. Clarke and George W. Proctor. It is half of Tor Double #3: Born With The Dead/The Saliva Tree (1988, with Robert Silverberg) and is included in the collections The Saliva Tree and Other Strange Growths (1966) and Best Science Fiction Stories of Brian W. Aldiss (1988).

A collection of inter-related short stories with the themes of life, death and transformation. The stories are sometimes domestic, sometimes startling or horrifying and sometimes telling of the disastrous human traits which make life hell.

Contents:

• Common Clay
• The Mistakes, Miseries and Misfortunes of Mankind
• How the Gates Opened and Closed
• Headless
• Travelling Towards Humbris
• If Hamlet's Uncle Had Been a Nicer Guy
• Else the Isle with Calibans
• A Swedish Birthday Present
• His Seventieth Heaven
• Rose in the Evening
• On the Inland Sea
• A Dream of Antigone
• The God Who Slept With Women
• Evans in His Moment of Glory
• Horse Meat
• An Unwritten Love Note
• Making My Father Read Revered Writings
• Sitting With Sick Wasps
• Becoming the Full Butterfly
• Traveller, Traveller, Seek Your Wife in the Forests of This Life
• Another Way Than Death
• That Particular Green of Obsequies
• The Ancestral Home of Thought

"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.

"All my past is accepted."

Science fiction's most eloquent creator of visions of tomorrow, Brian Aldiss, spins out his most fascinating story yet: his own.

Born in 1925, Aldiss is representative of the unique generation that reached adolescence in the era of World War II. Growing up in the rural hells of Norfolk and Devon, the son of a department store owner, he was formed and altered by wartime, serving three years in Burma and Asia with the Forgotten Army. Intrigued by science fiction and the near-apocalyptic imagery of the London Blitz, Aldiss became intoxicated by the beautiful lands, tropical climate, and horrific brutality he discovered in Burma and Sumatra, an "enchanted zone" that later provided the catalyst for much of his work.

Poignantly and passionately, Aldiss recalls the camaraderie of the army and the sobriety of postwar England; bookselling in Oxford; marital breakdown and financial impoverishment; life as a struggling novelist and literary editor; his seminal role in the science fiction's New Wave in the 1960s; and his friendships with Kingsley Amis, J.G. Ballard, Doris Lessing, and Michael Moorcock, among others.

Versatile, prolific, and outspoken, Aldiss writes revealingly on many issues and experiences, from literary inspiration to childhood illness, from mental breakdown to the critical attitudes toward science fiction.

For most of his life, Brian Aldiss has concerned himself with re-creating our present. In this moving, candid, and compelling autobiography, he reflects on a future that, in the twinkling of an eye, has become the past.

All over the world corrupt distatorships and fascist regimes have seized power - except in the Scandinavian countries. Here, in obscurity, an enclave of freedom still survives. But which Scandinavia are we talking about, and in which world?

In TheYear Before Yesterday, Brian Aldiss playfully takes the predictive visions of yesterday and transplants them into a disturbingly realistic global future. Alternate worlds are woven into the everyday life of a man faced with a personal crisis, and as fiction and reality intersect, nothing is exactly as it seems.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, February 1968. The story can also be found in the anthologies World's Best Science Fiction: 1969, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, Alpha 3 (1972), edited by Robert Silverberg, and Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction (1994) edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Cultural Breaks (2005)

Trillion Year Spree is the first book ever to present a comprehensive history of science fiction. Since an earlier version was published in 1973 (Billion Year Spree), science fiction has gained enormous popularity, not only in book and magazine form but in other media, most vividly on wide screen. From the earliest showing of Star Wars onwards, there has just been no stopping SF. This new version, twice the size of the old one, is virtually a new book. Every chapter has been revised. The whole story has been brought up-to-date.

A 21st-Century Utopia

Two of England's most distinguished thinkers have created a bold and startling vision of a new society escaping the ashes of the old.

In the not-so-distant future, Man will have begun to colonize our planetary neighbor, Mars. Entrenched corporate and national interests have footed the bill, but a few visionary people attempt to keep Mars free of the hidebound ideologies that have plagued the Earth and turned it into a polluted wasteland of war and hunger.

The colony has barely begun to take root in the Martian soil when all communication with EUPACUS--as the industrialized nations of Earth are known--is cut off completely. Environmental and economic stresses have finally spun out of control, and civilization as we know it has collapsed. With no hope of escape or support from Earth, the Martians must overcome the dire obstacles that face them and forge a new alliance for survival.

Led by the brave Tom Jefferies, the colonists struggle to build a new way of living based on the search for knowledge, the improvement of human conditions, and the elimination of the hatreds and delusions that lead to misery in the past.

Included in an appendix is the complete text of the Charter for an Independent Mars, written by Dr. Laurence Lustgarten, a renowned expert on international law.

Bow Down to Nul

When Earthman Gary Towler is off work, he is a pariah. For his task as chief interpreter for the corrupt and tyrannical nuls makes other humans avoid him as a traitor.

Nor is he trusted by the three-armed mammoth rulers themselves, especially when they learned than an envoy was on the way from their distant planetary headquarters to investigate charges of corruption on Earth. For the leaders realized that Gary knew too much.

When the humans leading the underground rebellion demanded Gary's aid or his life, he was caught between two untrustful forces. And his only way out was to make himself into a one-man third force against two worlds' plotters.

The Dark Destroyers

They brought a new ice age.

In Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, Brian W. Aldiss tells the tale of mankind's future over the course of forty million years. Each of these nine connected short stories highlights a different millennia in which man has adapted to new environments and hardships.

Table of Contents:

• Sector Vermilion - (1964)
• A Kind of Artistry - (1962)
• Sector Gray - (1964)
• Hearts and Engines - (1964)
• Sector Violet - (1964)
• The Underprivileged - (1963)
• Sector Diamond - (1964)
• The Game of God - (1964)
• Sector Green - (1964)
• Shards - (1962)
• Sector Yellow - (1964)
• Legends of Smith's Burst - (1959)
• Sector Azure - (1964)
• O Moon of My Delight - (1961)
• The Rift - (1964)
• Old Hundredth - (1960)

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 and themes include a letter to Salvador Dali... Mary Shelley and Frankenstein... the Immanent Will and Olaf Stapledon... the work of Philip K. Dick... Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon... Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four... James Blish ... Culture: Is it worth losing your balls for?... Wells and the Leopard Lady... H. P. Lovecraft's 'The Music of Erich Zann'... Jekyll... the differences between US and UK fantasy... Anna Kavan as 'Kafka's Sister'... Campbell's Soup (Astounding Science Fiction under the editorship of John Wood Campbell)... SF's relationship to science and literature in general.

Brian Aldiss is that rare phenomenon among writers, a critic as well as a major creative force, whose contemporary novels as well as his science fiction have met with great success. This present volume may be considered as a continuation of the discourse presented in Billion Year Spree and Trillion Year Spree (written with David Wingrove). Its scope is wide, its tone humane rather than academic.

Contents:

• The Saliva Tree
• Danger: Religion!
• Day of the Doomed King
• Legends of Smith's Burst
• The Lonely Habit
• One Role With Relish
• Paternal Care
• A Pleasure Shared
• The Source
• Girl and Robot with Flowers

Vanguard from Alpha

The spy team from Earth knew they were looking for trouble when they secretly landed in Luna Area 101 - dangerous Rosk territory. But the fearless trio got more than they bargained for at the hands of these hostile guests of Earth. Tyne and Murray escaped with their lives. The third man was dead, and Tyne suspected that Murray had murdered him in cold blood.

Ready to confront him with his charge, Tyne discovered that Murray had disappeared somewhere in the banned area. But when he followed him, he discovered something vastly more dangerous than Murray's guilt or innocence--the Rosks threatened imminent invasion of Earth. And only Tyne now held the secret that could deflect their hordes of death.

The Changeling Worlds

On the gold-symbol world of Beresford's Planet, Richard Kirby lived in total luxury. As a member of "The Set" his life was a never-ending round of planetary party-hopping. The only restriction imposed on him - that he never put down on any world marked with a red or black symbol - was something that he had always accepted without question.

That is until his brother Alec was murdered in cold blood! Alec had been an undercover agent to these forbidden planets, and in order to avenge him, Kirby had to find out for himself what was really happening there.

But with the start of his investigation, Kirby found out quickly that the authorities meant business when they said "Hands off!" The secret they were protecting was of vital importance, and it now became a matter of life and death, not only to Kirby, but to all the inhabitants of the Changeling Worlds.

Table of Contents:

• Credo - essay by James Blish
• Introduction (Best SF: 1967) - essay by Harry Harrison
• Hawksbill Station - (1967) - novella by Robert Silverberg
• Ultimate Construction - (1967) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• 1937 A.D.! - (1967) - shortstory by John Sladek
• Fifteen Miles - (1967) - shortstory by Ben Bova
• Blackmail - (1967) - shortstory by Fred Hoyle
• The Vine - (1967) - shortstory by Kit Reed
• Interview With a Lemming - (1941) - shortstory by James Thurber
• The Wreck of the Ship John B. - (1967) - novelette by Frank M. Robinson
• The Left-Hand Way - (1967) - shortstory by A. Bertram Chandler
• The Forest of Zil - (1967) - shortstory by Kris Neville
• The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race - (1966) - shortstory by J. G. Ballard
• Answering Service - (1967) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• The Last Command - (1967) - shortstory by Keith Laumer
• Mirror of Ice - (1967) - shortstory by Gary Wright
• Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes - (1967) - novelette by Harlan Ellison
• Knights of the Paper Spaceship: A Retrospective Glance at Science Fiction - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1969) - essay by Harry Harrison
• Budget Planet - (1968) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Appointment on Prila - (1968) - shortstory by Bob Shaw
• Lost Ground - (1966) - novelette by David I. Masson
• The Rime of the Ancient SF Author, or Conventions and Recollections - (1968) - poem by John R. Pierce
• The Annex - (1968) - shortstory by John D. MacDonald
• Segregationist - (1967) - shortstory by Isaac Asimov
• Final War - (1968) - novelette by Barry N. Malzberg
• 2001: A Space Odyssey - (1968) - essay by Lester del Rey
• 2001: A Space Odyssey - (1968) - essay by Samuel R. Delany
• 2001: A Space Odyssey - (1968) - essay by Ed Emshwiller
• 2001: A Space Odyssey - (1969) - essay by Leon E. Stover
• Golden Acres - (1967) - novelette by Kit Reed
• Criminal in Utopia - (1968) - novelette by Mack Reynolds
• One Station of the Way - (1968) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• Sweet Dreams, Melissa - (1968) - shortstory by Stephen Goldin
• To the Dark Star - (1968) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• Like Young - (1960) - shortstory by Theodore Sturgeon
• Afterword: The House That Jules Built - (1969) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1970) - essay by Harry Harrison
• The Muse - (1968) - shortstory by Anthony Burgess
• Working in the Spaceship Yards - (1969) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Schematic Man - (1969) - shortstory by Frederik Pohl
• The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone - (1969) - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Hospital of Transplanted Hearts - (1969) - poem by D. M. Thomas
• Eco-Catastrophe! - (1969) - shortstory by Paul R. Ehrlich
• The Castle on the Crag - (1969) - shortstory by Pg Wyal
• Nine Lives - (1969) - novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Progression of the Species - (1967) - poem by Brian W. Aldiss
• Report Back - (1969) - poem by John Cotton (poet)
• The Killing Ground - (1969) - shortstory by J. G. Ballard
• The Dannold Cheque - (1969) - shortstory by Ken W. Purdy
• Womb to Tomb - (1969) - shortstory by Joseph Wesley
• Like Father - (1969) - shortstory by Jon Hartridge
• The Electric Ant - (1969) - shortstory by Philip K. Dick
• The Man Inside - (1969) - shortstory by Bruce McAllister
• Now Hear the Word of the Lord - (1969) - shortstory by Algis Budrys
• Afterword - An Awful Lot of Copy - (1970) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Harry Harrison
• Gone Fishin' - (1970) - shortstory by Robin Scott Wilson
• The Ugupu Bird - (1959) - shortstory by Slawomir Mrozek
• Black Is Beautiful - (1970) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• The Lost Face - (1964) - novelette by Josef Nesvadba
• Gorman - (1969) - shortstory by Jerry Farber
• Mary and Joe - (1962) - shortstory by Naomi Mitchison
• Oil-Mad Bug-Eyed Monsters - (1970) - shortstory by Hayden Howard
• A Pedestrian Accident - (1969) - shortstory by Robert Coover
• The Asian Shore - (1970) - novelette by Thomas M. Disch
• Traffic Problem - (1970) - shortstory by Bill Earls
• Erem - (1963) - shortstory by Gleb Anfilov (trans. of ???? 1962)
• Car Sinister - (1970) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• "Franz Kafka" by Jorge Luís Borges - (1970) - shortstory by Alvin Greenberg
• Pacem Est - (1970) - shortstory by Kris Neville and Barry N. Malzberg
• The Day Equality Broke Out - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1972) - essay by Harry Harrison
• Doctor Zombie and His Furry Little Friends - (1971) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Conquest - (1971) - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• Gehenna - (1971) - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• A Meeting With Medusa - (1971) - novelette by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Genius - (1971) - shortstory by Donald Barthelme
• Angouleme - (1971) - shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
• If "Hair" Were Revived in 2016 - (1971) - shortstory by Arnold M. Auerbach
• Statistician's Day - (1970) - shortstory by James Blish
• The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer - (1971) - shortstory by Gahan Wilson
• The Hunter at His Ease - (1970) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Cohen Dog Exclusion Act - (1971) - shortstory by Steven Schrader
• Gauntlet - (1972) - shortstory by Richard E. Peck
• Report - (1971) - poem by Kingsley Amis
• Fisherman - (1971) - poem by Lawrence Sail
• The Ideal Police State - (1971) - poem by Charles Baxter
• The Pagan Rabbi - (1966) - novelette by Cynthia Ozick
• An Uneven Evening - (1971) - shortstory by Steve Herbst
• Ornithanthropus - (1971) - shortstory by B. Alan Burhoe
• No Direction Home - (1971) - shortstory by Norman Spinrad
• Afterword: A Day in the Life-Style of... - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

THE MOST EXCITING FICTION OF OUR TIME! -- The most dynamic fiction of out time, science fiction is also the fastest-expanding, both in readership and in the range of authors who employ it. The established masters - mostly Americans, a few Englishmen -- continue to show the way. The established outlets -- American s-f magazines mostly, some original anthologies -- continue to provide most of its nurture. But faithful reading of a handful of American publications is no longer sufficient to keep up with the most exciting work being done.

Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss have established this series as definitive in the field by looking much further afield. This year's selection is built around the established sources, but includes also a brilliant take by the Brazillian Andre Carneiro; and astonishing and delightful story by a young Ghanaian, Victor Sabah; and other unexpected pleasures.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1973) - essay by Harry Harrison
• In the Matter of the Assassin Merefirs - (1972) - shortstory by Ken W. Purdy
• As for Our Fatal Continuity... - (1972) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Old Folks - (1972) - shortstory by James E. Gunn
• From Sea to Shining Sea - (1972) - shortstory by Jonathan Ela
• Weihnachtabend - (1972) - novelette by Keith Roberts
• Cartoon: "Invisibility Competition" - (1973) - interior artwork by Y. Aratovsky
• Cartoon: no caption - (1973) - interior artwork by O. Tesler
• Cartoon: "Grin and Bear It" - (1973) - interior artwork by Lichty
• Cartoon: no caption - (1973) - interior artwork by William Rotsler
• The Years - (1972) - shortstory by Robert F. Young
• Darkness - (1972) - shortstory by André Carneiro
• Cymbal Player - (1972) - poem by Lawrence Sail
• Report from the Planet Proteus - (1972) - poem by Lawrence Sail
• Columbus on St. Domenica - (1972) - poem by John Cotton (poet)
• After Death - (1972) - poem by Patricia Beer
• Faex Delenda Est - (1972) - poem by Theodore R. Cogswell
• Words of Warning - (1972) - shortstory by Alex Hamilton
• Out, Wit! - (1972) - shortstory by Howard L. Myers
• An Imaginary Journey to the Moon - (1972) - shortstory by Victor Sabah
• The Head and the Hand - (1972) - shortstory by Christopher Priest
• Hero - (1972) - novella by Joe Haldeman
• Afterword: The Year of the Big Spring Clean - (1973) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

The definitive "Year's Best" selection featuring works by Thomas M. Disch, Robert Sheckley, Kingsley Amis, Joesf Nesvadba, R. A. Lafferty, and other American and international masters. Edited by Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss. With stories from the traditional science fiction sources - magazines and orignal anthologies - and from international SF and literary periodicals, Harrison and Aldiss have produced their biggest and best annual selection ever.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1974) - essay by Harry Harrison
• Roller Ball Murder - (1973) - shortstory by William Harrison
• Mason's Life - (1972) - shortstory by Kingsley Amis
• Welcome to the Standard Nightmare - (1973) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Serpent Burning on an Altar - (1973) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• We Are Very Happy Here - (1973) - novelette by Joe Haldeman
• The Birds - (1973) - shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
• The Wind and the Rain - (1973) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• Ten Years Ago ... - (1972) - shortstory by Max Beerbohm
• Parthen - (1973) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The Man Who Collected the First of September 1973 - (1973) - shortstory by Tor Åge Bringsvaerd
• Captain Nemo's Last Adventure - (1973) - novelette by Josef Nesvadba
• La Befana - (1973) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• A Curse - (1972) - poem by W. H. Auden
• Auto-Apotheosis - (1972) - poem by Anthony Haden-Guest
• Two Poems - (1973) - poem by William John Watkins
• Sport - (1973) - poem by Steven Utley
• The Window in Dante's Hell - (1973) - shortstory by Michael Bishop
• Sister Francetta and Pig Baby - (1973) - shortstory by Kenneth Bernard
• Escape - (1973) - shortstory by Ilya Varshavsky
• Early Bird - (1973) - shortstory by Theodore R. Cogswell and Theodore L. Thomas
• Afterword: The Wizard and the Plumber - (1974) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Editorial - (1975) - essay by Harry Harrison
• After King Kong Fell - (1973) - shortstory by Philip José Farmer
• When Petals Fall - (1973) - novelette by Sydney J. Van Scyoc
• Paleontology: An Experimental Science - (1974) - shortstory by Robert R. Olsen
• The Women Men Don't See - (1973) - novelette by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Listen with Big Brother - (1974) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Rise of Airstrip One - (1974) - shortstory by Clive James
• Owing to Circumstances Beyond Our Control 1984 Has Been Unavoidably Detained... - (1974) - shortstory by Alan Coren
• Lost and Found - (1974) - shortstory by Thomas Baum
• The Four-Hour Fugue - (1974) - shortstory by Alfred Bester
• The Scream - (1974) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• The Gahan Wilson Horror Movie Pocket Computer - (1974) - essay by Gahan Wilson
• The Executioner's Beautiful Daughter - (1974) - shortstory by Angela Carter
• After Weightlessness - (1974) - poem by Lawrence Sail
• A Picture by Klee - (1974) - poem by Lawrence Sail
• Science Fiction Story - (1973) - poem by Duane Ackerson
• DNA - (1974) - poem by Duane Ackerson
• Eyes of a Woman-from a Portrait by Picasso - (1975) - poem by Lisa Conesa
• Songs of War - (1974) - novelette by Kit Reed
• Time Deer - (1974) - shortstory by Craig Strete
• A Typical Day - (1974) - shortstory by Doris Piserchia
• Programmed Love Story - (1974) - shortstory by Ian Watson
• Afterword: The Galaxy Begins at Home - (1975) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Harry Harrison
• A Scraping at the Bones - (1975) - shortstory by Algis Budrys
• Changelings - (1975) - shortstory by Lisa Tuttle
• The Santa Claus Compromise - (1974) - shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
• A Galaxy Called Rome - (1975) - novelette by Barry N. Malzberg
• A Twelvemonth - (1975) - poem by Peter Redgrove
• The Custodians - (1975) - novelette by Richard Cowper
• The Linguist - (1975) - shortstory by Stephen Robinett
• Settling the World - (1975) - shortstory by M. John Harrison
• The Chaste Planet - (1975) - shortstory by John Updike
• End Game - (1975) - novelette by Joe Haldeman
• The Lop-Eared Cat that Devoured Philadelphia - (1975) - poem by Louis Phillips
• A Dead Singer - (1974) - novelette by Michael Moorcock
• Afterword: Science Fiction on the Titanic - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Dracula sends assassins to kill Bram Stoker before he can write his novel about vampires. Joe Bodenland hijacks a time train from the vampires and rides it to London in 1896, where he teams up with Stoker. Together they set off to save humanity from the undead, with assistance from Stoker's gardener and Bodenland's family.

Joe Bodenland, a 21st century American, passes through a timeslip and finds himself with Byron and Shelley in the famous villa on the shore of Lake Geneva. More fantastically, he finds himself face to face with a real Frankenstein, a doppelganger inhabiting a complex world where fact and fiction may as easily have congress as Bodenland himself manages to make love to Mary Shelley. This title was made into a film, starring John Hurt, Raul Julia, Bridget Fonda, Jason Patric and Michael Hutchence.

Omnibus edtion of Galactic Empires Volume One and Galactic Empires Volume Two, originally published in 1976.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• A Sense of Perspective - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Been a Long, Long Time - (1970) - short story by R. A. Lafferty
• The Possessed - (1953) - short story by Arthur C. Clarke
• Protected Species - (1951) - short story by H. B. Fyfe
• All the Way Back - (1952) - short story by Michael Shaara
• 'Wider Still and Wider...' - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Star Plunderer - (1952) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Foundation - (1942) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• We're Civilized! - (1953) - short story by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides
• Horses in the Starship Hold - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal - (1964) - short story by Cordwainer Smith
• The Rebel of Valkyr - (1950) - novella by Alfred Coppel
• Brightness Falls from the Air - (1951) - short story by Margaret St. Clair
• Immigrant - (1954) - novella by Clifford D. Simak
• The Health Service in the Skies - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Resident Physician - (1961) - novelette by James White
• Age of Retirement - (1954) - short story by Hal Lynch
• Planting Time - (1975) - short story by Pete Adams and Charles Nightingale

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• "You Can't Impose Civilization by Force" - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Escape to Chaos - (1951) - novella by John D. MacDonald
• Concealment - (1943) - short story by A. E. van Vogt
• To Civilize - (1954) - short story by Algis Budrys
• Beep - (1954) - novelette by James Blish
• The Other End of the Stick - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Down the River - (1950) - short story by Mack Reynolds
• The Bounty Hunter - (1958) - short story by Avram Davidson
• Not Yet the End - (1941) - short story by Fredric Brown
• All Things Are Cyclic - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Tonight the Stars Revolt! - (1952) - novella by Gardner F. Fox
• Final Encounter - (1964) - novelette by Harry Harrison
• Big Ancestors and Descendants - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Lord of a Thousand Suns - (1951) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Big Ancestor - (1954) - novelette by F. L. Wallace
• The Interlopers - (1954) - short story by Roger Dee
• Epilogue - (1976) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Events move fast in Umbalathorp, the capital city of the new African republic of Goya. When Soames Noyes, a young Englishman of the old school (public, of course) arrives, he finds himself caught in more than one stream of conflicting ideas - and more than one bed of conflicting women... An incisive and current investigation of sexual response, politics, and the drives which govern men.

In the future, when the Sun has expanded and is ready to go nova, few animal species remain while plants have adapted to fill animal niches. One of the few species to survive are humans, but in much-altered forms. It is here where young tribal Gren finds himself captured by an intelligent fungus with plans to colonize humans to control the world! Hothouse tells the story of a remarkable journey of discovery that will alter your perceptions about the true nature of the world today... and the world to come!

This is an omnibus edition of The Heliconia Trilogy.

A planet orbiting binary suns, Helliconia has a Great Year spanning three millennia of Earth time: cultures are born in spring, flourish in summer, then die with the onset of the generations-long winter.

Helliconia is emerging from its centuries-long winter. The tribes of the equatorial continent emerge from their hiding places and are again able to dispute possession of the planet with the ferocious phagors. In Oldorando, love, trade and coinage are being redisovered,

This is the first volume of the Helliconia Trilogy -- a monumental saga that goes beyond anything yet created by this master among today's imaginative writers.

A planet orbiting binary suns, Helliconia has a Great Year spanning three millennia of Earth time: cultures are born in spring, flourish in summer, then die with the onset of the generations-long winter.

It is the summer of the Great Year on Helliconia. The humans are involved with their own affairs. Their old enemies, the phagors, are comparatively docile at this time of year, yet they can afford to wait, to take advantage of human weakness?and the king?s weakness. How they do so brings to a climax this powerfully compelling novel, in which the tortuous unwindings of circumstance enmesh royalty and commoners alike, and involve the Helliconia continents.

This is the second volume of the Helliconia Trilogy?a monumental saga that goes beyond anything yet created by this master among today?s imaginative writers.

A planet orbiting binary suns, Helliconia has a Great Year spanning three millennia of Earth time: cultures are born in spring, flourish in summer, then die with the onset of the generations-long winter.

The centuries-long winter of the Great Year on Helliconia is upon us, and the Oligarch is taking harsh measures to ensure the survival of the people of the bleak Northern continent of Sibornal. Behind the battle with which the novel opens lies an act of unparalleled treachery. But the plague is coming on the wings of winter and the Oligarch's will is set against it-and against the phagors, humanity's ancient enemies, who carry the plague with them.

This is the concluding volume of the Helliconia Trilogy-a monumental saga that goes beyond anything yet created by this master among today's imaginative writers.

Hugo Award winning story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1961. The story can also be found in the anthologies Mutants: Eleven Stories of Science Fiction (1974) edited by Robert Silverberg, Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder (1987), and The Great SF Stories 23 (1961) (1991), edited by Isaac Asimov and Harry H. Greenberg. The story incorporated in the fixup novel Hothouse (1962).

Curiosity was discouraged in the Greene tribe. Its members lived out their lives in cramped Quarters, hacking away at the encroaching ponics. As to where they were - that was forgotten.

Roy Complain decides to find out. With the renegade priest Marapper, he moves into unmapped territory, where they make a series of discoveries which turn their universe upside-down...

Non-Stop is the classic SF novel of discovery and exploration; a brilliant evocation of a familiar setting seen through the eyes of a primitive.

A careful selection of what the author considered was his most telling short work from the mid-Seventies.

Table of Contents:

• Author's Note - (1977) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• Last Orders - (1976)
• Creatures of Apogee - (1977)
• Within the Black Circle - (1975)
• Killing Off the Big Animals - (1975)
• What Are You Doing? Why Are You Doing It? - (1975)
• Enigma 2: Diagrams For Three Stories - (1974) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Girl in the Tau-Dream - (1974)
• The Immobility Crew - (1974)
• A Cultural Side-Effect - (1974)
• Live? Our Computers Will Do That for Us - (1974)
• The Monsters of Ingratitude IV - (1974)
• Waiting for the Universe to Begin - (1975)
• But Without Orifices - (1975)
• Aimez-Vous Holman Hunt? - (1975)
• Backwater - (1977)
• The Eternal Theme of Exile - (1973)
• All Those Enduring Old Charms - (1973)
• Nobody Spoke Or Waved Goodbye - (1973)
• The Expensive Delicate Ship - (1973)
• Carefully Observed Women - (1975)
• The Daffodil Returns the Smile - (1975)
• The Year of the Quiet Computer - (1975)
• Appearance of Life - (1976)
• Wired for Sound - (1974)
• Journey to the Heartland - (1976)

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."

With a New Introduction from the Author!

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1967) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison
• The Secret Place - (1966) - short story by Richard McKenna
• Light of Other Days - (1966) - short story by Bob Shaw
• Who Needs Insurance? - (1966) - novelette by Robin Scott Wilson
• Among the Hairy Earthmen - (1966) - short story by R. A. Lafferty
• The Last Castle - (1966) - novella by Jack Vance
• Day Million - (1966) - short story by Frederik Pohl
• When I Was Miss Dow - (1966) - short story by Sonya Dorman
• Call Him Lord - (1966) - novelette by Gordon R. Dickson
• In the Imagicon - (1966) - short story by George H. Smith
• We Can Remember It for You Wholesale - (1966) - novelette by Philip K. Dick
• Man in His Time - (1965) - short story by Brian W. Aldiss
• Afterword: The Year in Science Fiction - (1967) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison
• Nebula Awards 1966 and Roll of Honor - (1967) - essay by uncredited

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.

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.

Russian-born Dominic and his British-born wife are having marital problems. Ray was involved in a bankruptcy in the mid-80s, and ekes out a poor living working in a garden centre. The lifelines of these and others converge towards the finality of an IRA bomb episode in Great Yarmouth.

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, is 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.

This short story originally appeared in the UK edition of Harper's Bazaar in 1969. It was included in the anthology The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, edited by Arthur B. Evans et al. It has also been included in the collections The Moment of Eclipse and Supertoys Last All Summer Long.

The short story was used as the basis for the first act of the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Born With The Dead:

His wife was among the rekindled dead now. He'd heard that she was on a plane to Zanzibar with five other rekindled dead. As a "warm" he was not really allowed to make contact with her. The dead liked to stay in their cold-cities. But he'd loved her so much when she was alive, he just had to try.

The Saliva Tree:

In the late nineteenth century, a modern-thinking young man and friend of H. G. Wells's resides in the old-fashioned town of Cottersall. When a meteor lands in a pond in the neighbouring farming district, the man decides to investigate the odd occurrences in the area, where the farmer family of his beloved comes into danger courtesy of the stranded alien(s).