Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Welcome home Horatio--where you been keepin' yourself
This delightful book,so much fun to read again, is about the growing up of Horatio Stubbs. And since much of growing up is about sex, that is what this book is about. Hand-reared means what you think. And there is much of it. There is also much about sexual exploration. About Beatrice, the prime seducer,the Victorian type maid, the kind Balthazar B. found such innocent fun with in J.P. Donleavy's novel, and the kind that introduced the priapic start of adventures for anonymous in the endless "My Secret Life."

Aldiss write with sweetness, and he chronicles his views on everything. He dallies with Ann and Beatrice, so blase they,and he is excited to death by what his older brother Nelson can suddenly do. He goes to boarding school, crying all the way, where they cane their students, but the nightly games of "Insurance Policy" make some of the hurt forgotten. The game makes sure everybody gets to participate. Egalitarianism among children. Something adults forget along the way. No attachments though, please. Something adults do not forget.


And then there is Virginia who brings him his first taste of pure love. Beatrice, the maid who seduced Horatio, not without his own increasing manipulation to be seduced far and wide, and the sexual Maginot lines, vanish when he meets the older Virgina. Who is somewhat sad, who is kind and filled with a passion Horatio had not known before. He falls deeply. And then like all great passions, in this case coupled with the beginnings of WW II, it has its longings and the sadness because it was all so good and right.

She is a problem to herself, and Horatio finally understands who she can only love and be with, and believes such delicacy should be treated tenderly and with respect.

The book is also about Horatio's somewhat flibbergibbit mother who always pines Horatio was not a girl, and though Ann is her daughter, another child was stillborn. Mother uses tricks to get her children to love her, and in spite of herself, eventually Horatio at least discovers that he does. Father's an all right guy too when you can get him away from the bloomin' telly tuned always to the blasted BBC.

Innocence and sexuality go together. Innocence, for much of the characters, starts as off handedness (no pun intended.) And it's stated here in unblushing, warm friendly insightful words that would make all the current day experts stand on their heads and count their diplomas, if they were to read the book, and if they could understand it, and remember, themselves.

Chances are they won't read it at all. They know everything already. Well, not by half, as my old friend Horatio Stubbs might have been wont to say.

semi-autobiography of a british teen-ager in world war II
Brian Aldis became a legendary science fiction writer. However, this story is what he describes as "autobiographical fiction". It chronicles the life of British teen-ager Horatio Stubbs, mostly through hisboarding-school years during the beginning of World War II.To use aBritish term, this book is basically a giant "wanking" fest.Young Horatio has an insatiable sex drive. He wanks it constantly. He wankshis brother, his friends, his enemies. He has relations with his sister andthe family maid.In boarding school, to make up for the lack of women, thestudents all wank each other.Despite all the furtive Pseudo-homosexual behavior, the book does have a central theme. It concerns youngHorati's love for a much older woman;sister Traven, the nurse aat hisboarding school. He persues her endlessly, even after she leaves theschool.As is predicable in such stories, his persuit ends in heartbreak. Written in the first person, "The Hand Reared Boy" is ahumorous view of the privations of life in and out of school in WartimeBitain. ... Read more

Product Description
Hampden Ferrars is an obscure country village, not too distant from Oxford. Its village church, St Clements, is 1,500 years old, and some of the villagers decide that this record of continuity and stability should be celebrated. Many are the difficulties in the way. Foreigners arrive - in particular, two Chinese students and an Italian TV celebrity - and love affairs break out, some suitable, some less suitable. The atmosphere of romance engenders miracles. Slowly, the village becomes involved in magic. Ordinary lives are transformed. Then a threat emanates from within the church itself. The atmosphere darkens as the celebration committee has to decide who is really in command of the world. Brian Aldiss' novel brims with comic and sinister invention. The celebration is not only for St Clements but for Englishness, for the love of the foreign and for love itself. ... Read more

Product Description
When a near-invincible army of artificially created soldiers - the flesh guard - falls into the hands of an untrustworthy power, continental Europe forms an alliance and invades Britain. The resulting carnage reduces whole cities and towns in Britain to smoking rubble. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Unknown classic mostly deserving of status.
Chadwick was an English author, and this represents his only published novel. He was a political thinker with socialist tendencies and a disciple of H.G. Wells. As such, he was most interested in his science fiction as a means to explore social and philosophical issues of the day. It would make an excellent movie, full of visual metaphor. This is an anti-war novel that came out jut as the Nazis were mobilizing for WW2, and is very prescient in many ways. . It paints a remarkable picture of a nation preparing for war they know to be inevitable, and this is not surprising, since it echoes events current at the time of the book's writing. For years it was considered a lost novel, but now it is merely undiscovered. It involves the creation of huge artificial soldiers with no more mind or nervous system than protozoa but with an insatiable instinct to kill.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part of this novel is great, chilling at times, funny and charming at times. We meet the inventors of the artificial life, to show us they were not madmen, through the eyes of our eventual hero's aunt. We follow their story from their first meeting after a conflict we take to be WW1, but was probably not intended to be, through the time when they relocate their lab to the Congo for its more conducive weather conditions. The first we hear of the matured Death Guard is via a radio broadcast that is ended prematurely by the hideous murder of the announcer watching.

Throughout this portion there is a sense of growing dread, and impending doom, as nationalist posturing and rumors of war spread. (The very act of preparing defense for war escalates the conflict; Chadwick would not have sided with 80's Star Wars policies.) We meet a girl we know will figure in more later; it is a contrived gambit to introduce a love interest, but it does help to add emotional stakes to the plot, and she is a well rendered character.

The next part is a smaller-scale tour of the process of making and growing the "pugs", as the protagonist "enlists" in one of factories and gets a firsthand look at what his uncle and grandfather had wrought. This section contains echoes of Wells and Dr. Moreau, as the factory chief reads from the "Word of Man" to keep the natives who do the majority of the work in "their place." (The book is quite racist, even for the era.) Meanwhile, nations continue to mass their forces.

As interesting as this section continues to be, giving insight into the narrator and the nearly-unstoppable Death Guard, it is a step down, slows the momentum considerably, steps away from the metaphor established, introduces a number of unlikable characters, and keeps the reader at a distance emotionally. We never really know why the protagonist "enlists" when he could have done more from a position of power. We lose some sense of scale regarding the war, and never hear from any "leaders." Perhaps that was by design, portraying the confused madness of a world gone mad. But we readers should have the luxury of clarity. Part 2 also simply goes on too long.

The third section is an improvement, recounting the war with continental Europe and the breakdown of infrastructure, and relating the horrors of combat in fine detail. There truly are some memorably horrific passages, involving poisonous electric gas, "humanite" bombs, and the unfeeling march of the Death Guard across the very land they were designed to protect. Later there is fine suspense as the Death Guard continues to wander unchecked across the broken landscape even after all the enemy has been killed, and commentary (prediction?) on what unforeseen changes occur after a new weapon is unveiled, as this new deadly life form multiplies. It is an unflinching account, and seems to be setting itself up for a movingly nihilistic conclusion.

I will reveal no more of the plot, but must comment on the ending: I found it somewhat of a letdown: unconvincing, rapid and convenient. Still, the book is a fine piece of work and deserves to be better known, despite its draggy middle and arguably botched finale.

Is it worth the $100 or so price currently needed to purchase it? I will leave you to answer that. (I got mine in a rare stroke of luck for $4.50.) But it is a well-written novel of futurist sci-fi/horror and gruesome social commentary, worth quite a bit in the final analysis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Enemies of the System - SciFi tackles politics
Aldiss subtitled his book " a tale of homo-uniformis" and this is telling. The book tells of a group of overcivilised spacefarers marooned on a planet where people from their mollycoddled society have been maroonedand subsequently gone wild.

The 'natives' represent all the vibrantsavagery and anarchistic creativity that the visitors have lost in theirover organised, overdeveloped culture.

The two different ways of lifemeet and interact, with challenging results, both sides leave thetransaction changed and shaken up.

This book examines themes relevant toour modern civilisation and the way that we may often feel lost when wecome into contact with a simpler, more "primitive" way oflife.

The ending is typically Aldiss and satisfying, although I won'ttell you what happens... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not Free SF Reader
Plenty of good stories to be found this year says editor Harrison. Certainly a significant improvement over the dud they put out the year before, as this editions averages 3.50. No 5s, but a 4.5 and several 4s to be found.

One amusing addition that is worth a bonus 0.5 is Gahan Wilson's horror movie pocket computer, which apparently you plug where you are up to in a dodgy movie, and choose a possible end, and go to bed.

In a competing series, a mention was made of using this to write one paragraph stories, after putting in a few SF writer names in place of the generic 'man' and 'woman' etc.

Harrison Aldiss 08 : After King Kong Fell - Philip José Farmer
Harrison Aldiss 08 : When Petals Fall - Sydney J. Van Scyoc
Harrison Aldiss 08 : Paleontology: An Experimental Science - Robert R. Olsen
Harrison Aldiss 08 : The Women Men Don't See - James Tiptree
Harrison Aldiss 08 : Listen with Big Brother - Brian W. Aldiss
Harrison Aldiss 08 : The Rise of Airstrip One - Clive James
Harrison Aldiss 08 : Owing to Circumstances Beyond Our Control 1984 Has Been Unavoidably Detained - Alan Coren
Harrison Aldiss 08 : Lost and Found - Thomas Baum
Harrison Aldiss 08 : The Four-Hour Fugue - Alfred Bester
Harrison Aldiss 08 : The Scream - Kate Wilhelm
Harrison Aldiss 08 : The Execut1oner's Beautiful Daughter - Angela Carter
Harrison Aldiss 08 : Songs of War - Kit Reed
Harrison Aldiss 08 : Time Deer - Craig Strete
Harrison Aldiss 08 : A Typical Day - Doris Piserchia
Harrison Aldiss 08 : Programmed Love Story - Ian Watson

Bystander big ape story.

4 out of 5


Immortality message rejection.

4 out of 5


If you make a Rex, they will break stuff, eat stuff, kill stuff. Imagine that.

4.5 out of 5


Crash alien intro.

4 out of 5


Patriotic crims.

3.5 out of 5


Concorde silly.

3 out of 5


Flat out of rats, sorry.

3.5 out of 5


Play generation.

3 out of 5


Dry and stinky on the nose.

4 out of 5


Running out of people. Scientists, too.

4 out of 5


The high chop f3tish unrewarded.

3 out of 5


Revolution women, non-stick.

4 out of 5


Everybody watching.

2 out of 5


Breeding experiment demands.

3 out of 5


Wife wh0re personality.

3 out of 5 ... Read more

Product Description
Reading two fantasy books found on a murdered girl, the narrator finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy which shakes his conception of reality. Aldiss is one of Britain's best-known science fiction writers and has Hugo and Nebula awards. ... Read more