Brian Aldiss has died | Hacker News Reader

Brian Aldiss has died

curtisbrown.co.uk

161 pointssohkamyung54 comments

Sad to hear this - last of a magnificent cohort of SF writers, for my money. The genre's moved on for sure, but there's a certain style and mode to that era that appeals to me enormously.

When I was a kid I used to think of an ABC of truly great SF - Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke - but I never really entirely felt sure that A was for Asimov, and not for Aldiss. Perhaps there was a second team - Aldiss, Ballard... Chilton, maybe?

> "Sad to hear this - last of a magnificent cohort of SF writers, for my money."

This prompted me to look at how many of my favourite SF authors are still alive - and the vast majority are dead. I honestly think that the era of true Science Fiction is over (as opposed to Science Fantasy which is still going strong).

On the contrary, I have been getting into modern science fiction after being raised on my dad's collection of Asimov/Clarke/Heinlein/etc. and the modern stuff is great. Check out Vernor Vinge, Greg Egan, Kim Stanley Robinson. None of that is science fantasy. If anything, I'd say that science fantasy is less popular now than it was two or three decades ago. Look at the popularity of modern TV and movies: Arrival, The Martian, Gravity, The Expanse, Interstellar. Three of those are complete hard science fiction and the others are more in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Contact than Star Wars.

Granted Vinge is some 20 odd years younger than Asimov, but I'm not sure I'd contrast either Vinge or Robinson as new or contemporary sci-fi (still great, though, no argument there).

Maybe Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross and Ian Banks could be singled out as being "new hard sci-fi"?

More in the same age as Vinge, I'd also mention Nancy Kress.

Even William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are approaching retirement age these days...

> Even William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are approaching retirement age these days...

Iain Banks has died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks

Oh dear, my apologies. Feels wrong to"up"-vote that, but thank you for pointing out my too hasty check of birthdates (only).

Hm, I was actually rather worried about ruining your day. No need to apologize.

I think he was pretty constructive about it, by HN standards.

If you go all the way to W. Then check out Peter Watts and Blindsight. Contemporary, interesting/challenging, fun and good.

Interstellar is solidly science fantasy. Arrival is arguably science fantasy since it's central conceit isn't very sciencey (amazing movie though).

The Expanse is borderline since there's basically a magic substance (the proto molecule), though everything _except_ that is very hard sci fi.

> Arrival is arguably science fantasy since it's central conceit isn't very sciencey

Read the original short story: the actual premise is actually very science-y, and completely "true sci-fi." Don't want to spoil it here though.

> though everything _except_ that is very hard sci fi.

Yeah, personally I think sci-fi (rather than sci-fantasy) is allowed to break a single physical law and still be considered sci-fi, as long as it's done consistently and the consequences properly explored.

> basically a magic substance

Is it though? Sufficiently advanced technology, after all, is indistinguishable from magic...

Personally I like James Nicoll's definition of hard science fiction: it's hard SF if the author gives enough details that the reader can be _certain_ it wouldn't work.

I unintentionally stayed up until dawn reading Seveneves (Neal Stephenson) at the weekend.

There's sufficient description of orbitals, metallurgy, robots and delta-v to make this science fiction. It's a little odd to see that together with social media, smartphones, and mentions of ESA: not much sci-fi I read is set in the present.

When it comes to media/entertainment, people say "the era of X" is dead all over the place. Not to pick on you, but they're usually wrong. The democratization of fiction publishing has made it so that any X where there are consumers can exist.

Go look at the Kindle Store and how many "true Science Fiction" books are published every month. They're there. You just have to look for it, same as every other catered niche.

Yeah, I think we're now in the era of curators. Since it's much harder to find good books in a particular niche, it would be really nice to find a good trusted curator to weed through.

If you're fiending for good hard sci-fi check "The Expanse" or the "Remembrance of Earth's past" trilogy. Vernor Vinge his "Zones of Thought" trilogy is also great :)

I had no idea that Science Fantasy was even a thing. Now much to my dismay I have discovered I don't actually like Sci-Fi, I only like Science Fantasy... but I'm actually not going to make the distinction. It's all fiction.

Gregory Benford is still around (even though he is 76). I don't know if he is still writing but his body of work is quite good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford

I would contend that the genre has moved on in a stylistic sense, but is still pretty robust:

Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach trilogy, Finch); Ann Leckie (The Imperial Radch trilogy); China Miéville (Embassytown)

are three I can think of immediately.

This is an interesting point. The near future must look far more vivid to the current crop of SF writers than it did to Aldiss's generation, and no wonder since VR, social media, and robotics are so much more advanced. Even Non-Stop, which took place in one relatively short narrative timeframe, I'd put further into the future than, say The Martian or any Stephenson novel... would be intensely curious to know of modern SF that ponders far-future questions.

> The near future must look far more vivid to the current crop of SF writers

I was a SF reader in the 1970s, and the near future as perceived then seemed intensively vivid, even if the subject matter (e.g. spaceflight, nuclear war, etc) now appears dated. NASA was launching astronauts to the moon while I was reading SF.

Read Iain Banks' Culture novels, starting with The Player of Games and going on with Excession

Yeah, Aldiss was more like Ballard in that he wasn't interested in spaceships and galactic empires but rather society itself.

I feel similarly, although Asimov/Bradbury/Clark never really did it for me as compared to Aldiss/Ballard/? (I'm drawing a blank for the C's; perhaps we move on to Dick?).

Many of the suggestions down-thread don't really do it for me, either. There's something about that 70s-era stuff. I can't help but feel that the original wave had more original non-genre influences and feel fresher. There was also a more reasonable approach to page count and padding (although I suppose Aldiss eventually wrote Helliconia) and mercifully few "look, this is a story that ping-pongs between 18 different viewpoints" structures.

As a side note, I also could go my whole life without having to read increasingly edgy stuff where it's revealed that the real purpose of science fiction is to dream up gross new torture scenes, etc.

Upvoting your comment. I hope you won't minding me suggest you update the first line to read Clarke rather than Clark. Perhaps I'm tired, but it took me a minute to figure out who you meant.

Obituary by Christopher Priest.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/21/brian-aldiss-o...

IIRC Priest and Aldiss were friends.

Priest, like Aldiss, is a favourite writer of mine. I especially enjoyed reading Inverted World as a teenager.

His first work that I remember reading was the short story "But who can replace a Man?" in the Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories (AFAIK) along with Ursula Le Guin and other authors. I was very impressed by the simplicity of his narrative, ability to paint a detailed picture and raw story-telling ability. A grave loss to the sci-fi world.

Brian Aldiss speaks of his admiration for and troubles with Stanley Kubrick:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/featur...

https://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/clippings.an...

https://www.webofstories.com/play/brian.aldiss/67;jsessionid...

Never read Aldiss. Any recommendations on which book(s) to start with?

I recommend starting with short stories. "Space, Time and Nathaniel" and "Moment of Eclipse" are both great collections. Or just "Best SF Stories of Brian W Aldiss", which I think was updated several times -- that's how I first found him.

His novels are mostly excellent but I think there's a good chance you'll bounce off them if you don't happen to like the Aldiss vibe. He can appear very cold and dry until you realize how funny he (usually) is.

My favourite is probably "Supertoys last all summer long" (later changed into the screenplay for "A.I.").

I really liked Non-Stop. I would write more, but I don't want to give anything away.

Second that... Non-Stop is one of my all time favourite SF novels. I'm not so sure that learning some of the details would spoil much - in fact the novel was in some edition published with a name that gave a lot away. But I'll avoid it anyway.

"Third" that. I loaned a copy to my wife with a hand drawn (ludicrous) cover that concealed the spoiler of the cover art. Ah, the Golden Age of SF, where the covers could be either completely irrelevant to the content or spoil plot twists... :-)

Greybeard was the story that first came to mind. It was totally absorbing and I ended up reading it over a weekend.

Two that don't get enough attention these days: "Billion Year Spree", his history of SF, and "Hell's Cartographers", six writers writing about how they write.

The update to "Billion Year Spree", "Trillion Year Spree" is highly recommended.

Honestly, pick one at random - there're no complete duds in my opinion.

Hothouse always stuck with me the most, but that's just my own personal experience.

Avoid the Helliconia books, they're a grim, hard slog. Sorry I can't give a positive recommendation, I avoided his novels after trying to make it through those. Always enjoyed his short stories that appeared in the popular anthologies, though, and he's got some story collections that are probably good.

I thought they were brilliant and I greatly enjoyed them. Certainly they are not optimistic American-style SF but I wouldn't call them "grim" - they are grand novels about the cycle of civilisations, "deep time" and the impact of individuals (or not) upon those.

> Avoid the Helliconia books, they're a grim, hard slog.

Another data point: I enjoyed them.

So did I. They are grim, but that's kind of the point -- it's a reflection on the tragedy of history and how people end up making the same mistakes over and over again.

When I said "grim, hard slog" I was referring to the experience of reading them, not the nature of their content. The experience of reading anything that monotonous would be pretty grim, even with a brighter theme and a happy ending. Of course, ymmv, etc.

I liked his novels. Intangibles was interesting, though not really SF. Also liked Neanderthal Planet. Few short stories where he played with the alternative history, like The Day of the Doomed King.

IMO he may have been a good author but he was an even better editor/anthologist. I'd recommend A Science Fiction Omnibus.

I distinctly remember some of his stories, in particular "Heresies of the Huge God" https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v24n06_1966-08 and "Confluence", which is structured as a glossary for an alien culture.

"Hothouse" is quite a fun read as well.

Report on Probability A was a novel I never finished as a teenager. Might track a copy down again - it is a formalist experiment as far as I can find out.

Getting your head around it could be seen as a challenge.

The only book I put aside without finishing (Downbelow Station by C.J.Cherryh) was recommended to me again years later and when I did pick it up I found it gripping.

I really recommend you try Report on Probability A again, it was one of the best books I ever read!

He wrote "The Malacia Tapestry", a book I really liked. The Helliconia trilogy was not so compelling, though.

Please edit the topic to summarize what he did, or what kind of topic he's relevant to. I never heard this name and therefore guess many others didn't either.

Was never a big fan. Don't remember that I read anything other than a short story. More Jack Vance & Gene Wolfe. For fun Moorcock & Ellison.

RIP.

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