When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults.
Brian Aldiss
I just can’t Not Love an author quoted to say things like that.
Brian Aldiss is a character, as you can see from the interviews I linked below. He likes to provoke a reaction, and has been known to openly criticise the British literary establishment and its disdain for ‘genre’ – but Aldiss also doesn’t approve of genre-only readers.
…”I [the interviewer] quote to him something he wrote in 1990: “Just as the [literary] establishment is philistine about science, the bulk of the science-fiction readership is philistine about literature.” “Ha!” he cries gleefully, “offends both parties.”…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/brian-aldiss-pioneer-of-british-sci-fi-
And he has always known the value of the what-ifs and speculative fiction and how vast and fruitful the scifi genre could be. It’s more than just space ships and flights of fancy, new world with new creatures: more a mirror of what could be, or should be, if norms were challenged, or refused.
…”while it [science fiction] may take place in an alternate or future world, it deals with the present.”…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/The-World-Of-Brian-Aldiss/interview/
Brian Aldiss’ website is here, with all the information you can wish for, journals extracts, blog, latest publications and snippets of past and new work.
You can also find a detailed list of his work in the ISFDB, here.
What do you think?
Suggestions for reading*:
The Moment of Eclipse – short stories collection, this one from the 70s, but any of his collections, really.
Hothouse – symbiosis! With fungi!
NonStop – familiar seen by primitive eyes…