Results
A ROMANCE OF THE EQUATOR.
[Birmingham: The Birmingham Science Fiction Group, 1979]. Octavo, printed wrappers. First edition. Limited to 550 numbered copies. Signed by Aldiss on the limitation page. Booklet issued for Novacon 10 at which Aldiss was guest of honor. Prints the short story.
SOMEWHERE EAST OF LIFE.
New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., [1994]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First U. S. trade edition. The last volume in the author's "Squire Quartet." "Roy Burnell likes his job; he travels the globe for World Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, an agency that researches, registers, and attempts to protect fine architecture from the dangers of wars that have broken out in Europe and Asia. While inspecting a cathedral in Budapest, Burnell encounters another danger of the 21st century: memory pirates. Ten years of his architectural knowledge and sexual experiences have been stolen from him, packaged, and offered up for sale on the e-mnemonicvision black market; Burnell is left confused and bereft. In search of his career and his stolen memories, Burnell travels east, into the heart of ethnic warfare and human depravity. On his journeys he encounters a faithless priest concealing a priceless icon, a brutal conqueror, ruthless profiteers and apathetic prostitutes, and, perhaps most frightening of all, his ex-wife. He braves sandstorms, scorpions, cholera, terrorists, and government bureaucracy, trying to make sense of his own life and the lives of others. Intelligent, funny, and hopeful in spite of itself, Aldiss's (A Tupolev Too Far, 1994) latest fantasy serves as a powerful warning about the perils of the future and a rueful assessment of humanity's likely response." - Kirkus Review 1 June, 1994.
SOMEWHERE EAST OF LIFE.
Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, [1994]. Octavo, frontispiece by Frank Mayo, full leather, a.e.g. First limited edition. One of an unspecified number of copies signed by Aldiss. Introduction by James Gunn. "Roy Burnell likes his job; he travels the globe for World Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, an agency that researches, registers, and attempts to protect fine architecture from the dangers of wars that have broken out in Europe and Asia. While inspecting a cathedral in Budapest, Burnell encounters another danger of the 21st century: memory pirates. Ten years of his architectural knowledge and sexual experiences have been stolen from him, packaged, and offered up for sale on the e-mnemonicvision black market..." - Kirkus Review, 1 June, 1994. Part of the Easton press signed first edition series.
SPACE, TIME AND NATHANIEL.
London: Faber and Faber, [1957]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. The author's first SF book, a collection of fourteen short stories. Includes "The Shubshub Race," a satire set partly on Upotia, a destination planet for wealthy individuals. "Fourteen lyrical stories, comprising its author's first collection. Notable entries are 'Outside' (1955), 'Psyclops' (1956) and 'The Failed Men' (1957)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 338. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 264.
SPACE, TIME AND NATHANIEL.
London: Faber and Faber, [1957]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. The author's first SF book, a collection of fourteen short stories. Includes "The Shubshub Race," a satire set partly on Upotia, a destination planet for wealthy individuals. "Fourteen lyrical stories, comprising its author's first collection. Notable entries are 'Outside' (1955), 'Psyclops' (1956) and 'The Failed Men' (1957)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 338. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 264.
NEBULA AWARD STORIES TWO.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Collects eleven stories by Richard McKenna, Bob Shaw, R. A. Lafferty, Jack Vance, Frederik Pohl, Philip K. Dick, and others. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-1364.
BEST SF STORIES OF BRIAN W. ALDISS.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1988. Octavo, boards. First edition. Collects twenty-two stories, only nine of which appeared in earlier "best of" collections. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-6.
CRACKEN AT CRITICAL: A NOVEL IN THREE ACTS.
[Worcester Park, Surrey]: Kerosina Books, 1987. Octavo, cloth. First British edition. One of 250 numbered copies signed by Aldiss. Fix-up novel in which "the author has built a framing narrative, about an alternative Europe still under Nazi domination, around two old space adventure novellas from the 1950s ... The modern story is fine, but, unfortunately, it comprises less than a fifth of the whole book." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 80. Text revised from that of the earlier U.S. edition published as THE YEAR BEFORE YESTERDAY.
THE EIGHTY-MINUTE HOUR: A SPACE OPERA.
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1974. Octavo, cloth. First edition. "In this wild fantasy, the lavish use of nuclear weapons has caused distortions in the space-time continuum which bounce the characters from era to era. This effect is used mainly to create various incongruities after the manner of Aldiss's post-psychedelic war novel BAREFOOT IN THE HEAD (1972)." - Brains, Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984, p. 112. "An over-the-top comic romp which unfortunately fails to amuse. One of Aldiss's few duds." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 117. The Doubleday edition and the later Cape edition have minor textual differences.
ENEMIES OF THE SYSTEM...
New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London: Harper & Row, Publishers, [1978]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. "Authoritarian dystopia." - Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 384.
ENEMIES OF THE SYSTEM: A TALE OF HOMO UNIFORMIS.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1978]. Octavo, boards. First edition. "Authoritarian dystopia." - Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 384. Representatives of the highly evolved Homo uniformis are stranded on a backwater planet. A brief, dystopia satire on conformity and collectivism, and one of Aldiss's more forgettable works." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 121. Lewis, Utopian Literature, pp. 3-4.
FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND.
New York: Random House, [1974]. Octavo, cloth. First U.S. edition. A 1990 film directed by Roger Corman was based on this novel. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-9. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 4-10. Survey of Science Fiction Literature II, pp. 840-4.
THE HELLICONIA TRILOGY: HELLICONIA SPRING; HELLICONIA SUMMER; AND HELLICONIA WINTER.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1982-1985]. Octavo, three volumes, boards. First British editions. First two simultaneous, last preceded by the U.S. edition. The complete trilogy comprising HELLICONIA SPRING, HELLICONIA SUMMER, and HELLICONIA WINTER. A "massive attempt at world-creation: the evocation of an alien planet where 'winter' lasts many centuries. An epic narrative, impressively detailed. John W. Campbell award winner, 1983. The elaborate, brilliantly sustained sequels are HELLICONIA SUMMER (1983) and HELLICONIA WINTER (1985)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 170. "Though science fiction often has this scope, it has never had this grandeur." - The Times Literary Supplement. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-11.
THE HELLICONIA TRILOGY: HELLICONIA SPRING; HELLICONIA SUMMER; AND HELLICONIA WINTER.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1982-1985]. Octavo, three volumes, boards. First British editions. First two simultaneous, last preceded by the U.S. edition. The complete trilogy comprising HELLICONIA SPRING, HELLICONIA SUMMER, and HELLICONIA WINTER. A "massive attempt at world-creation: the evocation of an alien planet where 'winter' lasts many centuries. An epic narrative, impressively detailed. John W. Campbell award winner, 1983. The elaborate, brilliantly sustained sequels are HELLICONIA SUMMER (1983) and HELLICONIA WINTER (1985)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 170. "Though science fiction often has this scope, it has never had this grandeur." - The Times Literary Supplement. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-11.
THE HELLICONIA TRILOGY: HELLICONIA SPRING; HELLICONIA SUMMER; AND HELLICONIA WINTER.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1982-1985]. Octavo, three volumes, boards. First British editions. The first volume is signed by Aldiss on the title page. First two simultaneous, last preceded by the U.S. edition. The complete trilogy comprising HELLICONIA SPRING, HELLICONIA SUMMER, and HELLICONIA WINTER. A "massive attempt at world-creation: the evocation of an alien planet where 'winter' lasts many centuries. An epic narrative, impressively detailed. John W. Campbell award winner, 1983. The elaborate, brilliantly sustained sequels are HELLICONIA SUMMER (1983) and HELLICONIA WINTER (1985)." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 170. "Though science fiction often has this scope, it has never had this grandeur." - The Times Literary Supplement. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-11.
HOTHOUSE...
London: Faber and Faber, [1962]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Issued earlier in the U.S. in a shorter version as The Long Afternoon of Earth (1962). Novelization of five Hothouse stories that won the 1962 Hugo award for best short fiction published in 1961. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-3. Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels 34.
AN ISLAND CALLED MOREAU ...
New York: Simon and Schuster, [1981]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. "The crew of a downed space shuttle are washed up on a remote island where dreadful experiments are in progress. A retelling of H. G. Wells's classic THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU (1896), in late twentieth-century terms." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 245. Issued earlier in Britain as MOREAU'S OTHER ISLAND (1980).
THE MALACIA TAPESTRY.
New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London: Harper & Row, Publishers, [1977]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 3-9. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 4A-3. Pringle, Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels 59.
NEW ARRIVALS, OLD ENCOUNTERS: TWELVE STORIES.
New York, Cambridge, London, Hagerstown, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, Sydney: Harper & Row, Publishers, [1978]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First U.S. edition. Includes "New Arrivals, Old Encounters," which depicts a eutopia, and "Three Ways," which depicts a dystopia. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, pp. 379-80; 384.
FORGOTTEN LIFE.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1988. Octavo, stiff pictorial wrappers. Advance reading copy (from uncorrected proofs). A mainstream novel, part of the author's "Squire Quartet" series.
GALAXIES LIKE GRAINS OF SAND.
Boston: Gregg Press, 1977. Octavo, cloth. First hardcover edition, first printing. A collection of eight short stories with a significant amount of new material added to form a history from the near to the far future, issued earlier in the UK in a different format as THE CANOPY OF TIME (1959). Includes "All the World's Tears," a post-catastrophe authoritarian dystopia. Text offset from the 1960 Signet paperback edition. New introduction by Norman Spinrad. Anatomy of Wonder (2114) II-8. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 264.
HELLICONIA WINTER.
London: Jonathan Cape, [1985]. Octavo, boards. First edition. The final volume in the trilogy. A "massive attempt at world-creation: the evocation of an alien planet where 'winter' lasts many centuries. An epic narrative, impressively detailed. John W. Campbell award winner, 1983..." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 170. "Though science fiction often has this scope, it has never had this grandeur." - The Times Literary Supplement. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-11.
AN ISLAND CALLED MOREAU.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. Octavo, Hardcover. First U.S. edition.
THE SALIVA TREE: AND OTHER STRANGE GROWTHS
London: Faber and Faber, [1966]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Ten stories including "The Saliva Tree," winner of the 1965 Nebula award for best novella. The "notable" title piece, "a centenary tribute to H. G. Wells, reworks ideas from several of that great writer's novels." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1999), p. [312]. "Excellent collection." - Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-5. One of the major story collections of the 1960s.
THE SALIVA TREE: AND OTHER STRANGE GROWTHS
London: Faber and Faber, [1966]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. With compliments slip from the publisher laid in. Ten stories including "The Saliva Tree," winner of the 1965 Nebula award for best novella. The "notable" title piece, "a centenary tribute to H. G. Wells, reworks ideas from several of that great writer's novels." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1999), p. [312]. "Excellent collection." - Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-5. One of the major story collections of the 1960s.