Chapter Eight: Frankenstein Unbound,
Brian Aldiss

Brian Aldiss ranks as one of the most literate and consistently entertaining writers of speculative fiction. Although occasionally Aldiss's fiction varies towards the dark and satirical, his novels usually posses and underlying humor and verve. Aldiss, like Alfred Bester before him, uses standard science fiction for very nonstandard purposes.

Brian Aldiss (1925-), born in England, received his education in through private schools. He served in the Royal Signal Corps in Burma during World War II, which forms the locale for two of his novels and seems to have shaped some of his attitudes towards colonialism. He demobilized in 1948 and became an assistant in an Oxford bookshop. He began writing by contributing sketches about bookselling to The Bookseller, eventually collected in The Brightfoot Diaries. He sold his first story to Ted Carnell's Science Fantasy but achieved his first major success with Starship (1958), a novel.

Aldiss found in science fiction a form congenital to his vision, which on the surface does not seemingly vary much from that of his compatriot Ballard:

"I am a surrealist at heart; that is I'm none too sure whether the reality of the world agrees with its appearances. Only in sf, or near sf, can you express these feelings in word." (1)

Aldiss's story-lines do not much vary from Cambpellian or, more to the point, Carnellian science fiction. The character discovers he does not know all he needs to know about the world. He seeks the truth, and in classic science fiction apparently finds it. Aldiss's vision of the world, however, differs radically from the typical Carnellian science fiction writer's. The individual image and character, rather than the plot, more interests Aldiss:

Aldiss helped bring mainstream literary techniques into science fiction. Metaphors, similes, and occasionally overwrought prose abound in Aldiss's style. Aldiss's humor and puns balance this and usually prevent overloading the novel with too much message or too much purple prose. In his middle period, Aldiss, like Ballard, flirted with surrealism, stream of consciousness, and even poetry, but recent novels stick more to traditional methods verging on pulp nostalgia. Critic James Blish, generally antagonistic towards stylistic experimentation in science fiction, praises Aldiss's efforts and adds that Aldiss "never offers aborted experiments in the disguise of finished works." (3)

Escape and escapism persistently reappear in Aldiss's fiction. Knowledge allows freedom from a particular mind set. Avoiding the truth imprisons one. The higher truth may frighten, but gives greater psychological and physical satisfaction:

Aldiss’s persistent critique of Western society forms a second important theme in his work. Aldiss attacks the imperialistic view but also finds isolationism equally sterile. His novels voice these concerns and something of a left-wing political stance:

Destruction and the death of society and the world form another recurring motif in Aldiss's novels as they do of his British New World contemporaries, Ballard and Moorcock. Manmade catastrophes and failures Aldiss censures, but he finds a romantic satisfaction in the natural replacement and demise of humanity unique among speculative fiction writers, and unlike Ballard, these processes appear positive and not bizarre. Like the romantic writers, Aldiss can identify with nature even as it destroys his fellow men.

Aldiss produces realistic characters. His men, petty, small, and often stupid, occasionally blunder into triumphs, which surprise them as much as they do the reader. The protagonists, generally anti-heroes, find that making humanity's place in the universe or even their own in society lies beyond their capability; the narrator or some wise futuristic character must give them the information or insight. Aldiss forces today's men, ready or not, to face tomorrow, and the future provides a metaphor for the new vision that both reader and character must face today.

Whereas another more traditional science writer might consciously create a situation that might functions as a metaphor to reader, Aldiss consciously uses his science fiction as metaphor:

This use of science fiction as metaphor, when properly controlled, serves Aldiss well. Unfortunately, this use as science fiction as metaphor sometimes brings Aldiss's own lack of scientific background to the fore and causes some confusion. Whereas it would appall a classic science fiction writer to find his world "does not work," Aldiss will and does readily put aside natural laws in search of creating meaning. Whereas one can forgive a Ballard for the world logic of his worlds as they stem as projections of the unconscious or even Dick, who in a work such as Ubik or the Zap Gun mocks the silliness of his own sciences, Aldiss’s science sometimes seems "almost workable" to the work’s detriment. Thus, whereas Blish attacks Zealzny for not choosing between allegory and realism in works like Creatures of Light and Darkness, Aldiss consistently chooses symbolism over realism, but his resisting readers and critics simply do not always agree with his choice. Here his own ability to create realistic characters, in which he surpasses Zelazny, Dick, or Ballard, tends to works against him. The action seems too realistic to take as merely metaphoric.

Another point distinguishes Aldiss from colleagues, the English in particular, his relative optimism. Often, perhaps a bit too often, Aldiss’s works end on a positive note even when all humanity perishes. Personally, he expresses a similar optimism about the profession and about traditional science fiction an optomism expressed by both his long history and somewhat affectionate parodies of the genre. Here, as in his fiction, Aldiss often seems particularly capable of straddling the lines, between realism and metaphor, experiment and tradition, attack and defense, and mainstream and pulp.

Aldiss wrote in a variety of different genres. His Billion Year Spree: A true History of Science Fiction, quoted numerous times in previous chapters, ranks as one of the classics of science fiction criticism. He edited anthologies too numerous to mention, from the innovative SF series co-edited with Harry Harrison to Farewell Fantastic Venus and Space Opera, nostalgic collections of old space operas.

Two novels about the growth of a young man in Burma during the 1940s, the Hand-Reared Boy (1970) and A Soldier Erect (1971), their titles giving clues as to their sexual content and humor, drew mixed reviews from mainstream critics (7). Another non-science fiction work, Brothers of the Head, (1977) concerns a pair of Siamese twins.

Short stories, one of Aldiss's strength, appear in several collections: No Time Like tomorrow (1959, out of print); Who Can Replace a Man (1965); The Saliva Tree and Other Strange Growths (1966); Neanderthal Planet (1969); Moment of Eclipse (1970--currently out of print); The Book of Brian Aldiss (1972--out of print);, and New Arrivals and Old Encounters (1980). Two volumes straddle the lien between science fiction stories and novels with an intrusive, didactic authorial voice. They also show his penchant for using science fiction as metaphor.

Starswarm (1965) Aldiss organizes around different colored segment of a galaxy that humanity inhabits one million years from now, and it posits that "the inhabited solar system of Starswarm--our galaxy--will exhibit all the characteristics through which a civilization can pass." (8) In its first story, "Sector Vermilion," a plant of men attempt to escape an Oedipal relationship with their wife-mother figures. The finale, "The Rift," tells the story of an alien that learns about humanity by transforming herself into one of its art-works.

Galaxies Like Grains of Sand (1959) attempts to give glimpses of mankind's history. A "Visting Amoebae" comes to take supplant mankind, but he gives men a consolation, typically Aldissian, for their children:

"'Explain to them once more that there are galaxies like grains of sand, each galaxy a cosmic laboratory for bold experiments of nature...and that a newer one, with more modern equipment, is opening just down the street.'" (9)

These two segmented novels suffer from over didacticism, intrusive narration, and an occasional tendency for the omniscient narrator to find more meaning in a story than the reader might. They illustrate, however, Aldiss's skill as a story a writer. His stories tend to have more of the fantastic and more irony of the situation, despite having worse character development than his novels.

Aldiss's novels fall into three periods. The first lasts from 1958 to approximately 1961. These novels feature standard science fiction plotting and style but contain better characterization and original themes than those of Aldiss's mainstream contemporaries.

Starship (1958) takes the traditional story of the broken down civilization living in a generations' starship first used in Robert A. Heinlein's Orphans in the Sky (1940). In Heinlein's story, the strongest learn their predicament and figure their way out. In Starship, Aldiss's weak hero discovers the ship already returned from its destination and orbits earth. The characters, petty, confused, and even silly cannot do much. Roy Complain, aptly named, becomes the reluctant protagonist and learns, to his surprise, that he traces his ancestry back to the original captain of the ship. A salvage party from earth reveals to him and his fellow shipmates the message of the novel's prologue:

The shipmates must learn to live as part of a new larger community of earth. Aldiss's decision to give his travelers biological as well as social reasons for misunderstanding their fellow humans weakens the novel. The situation, as Aldiss well knows, does not offer any originality either. A competent first novel, Starship humanizes the old Asimovian-Heinleinian hard science novel.

None of Aldiss's other early novels remain in print, but they continue in a similar vein. Vanguad from Alpha (1959) received some mixed praise from critic Damon Knight who, implicitly acknowledging some of Aldiss’s limitations as consistent world creator said its "final solution is ingenious and satisfying; his future world has at least touched on reality because it's as idiotically patched together as our own." (11) Bow Down to Null (1960) introduces a Galactic Empire along the lines of Asimov, but Aldiss's decays and corrupts, a clear recreation of the late British Empire. Simple interpreter Gary Towler ends up leading the revolution that clears the "nulls" from the earth. The Primal Urge (1961), a funny ironic taboo-breaking novel, points toward the sexual concerns of a later generation. It asks, which comes first: sex or power, passion or reason, body or soul? (12) These three novels, like Starship offer original variations on old themes, but they lack the technical skill of later Aldiss works.

The Long Afternoon of Earth (serialized in FASF, 60-61, 1962) won the Hugo award for short fiction and incorporates Aldiss's most fantastic setting, one of his few truly original ones. In the novel, the earth has stopped revolving; one side nearly lacks all life, and the other spawns a new spectrum of exotic plant life that chokes out most of the animal species. Man survives in a reduced, life-shortened form. Some evolve into a butterfly like form; the "tummy-belly men" develop umbilical chords that allow them to act as mental and physical dependents of the tummy-belly trees. Humans on the dark side devolve into near apes. James Blish justly criticizes the physical and biological characteristics of this world. (13)

Gren, a human, performs a mock epic journey across this world; a morel, an intelligent mold creature, enslaves him. He encounters a dolphin-evolved Soda, who keeps humans for slaves. His morel captor takes over the mind of the Sodel and reveals the purpose of the solar system to Gren:

When the morel offers to take the humans to the stars on the backs of starspiders, he impresses Gren, but then he adds he wants to create a new civilization with morels as rulers, Gren becomes less impressed. He accepts, instead, the natural demise of mankind as he does man's limitations:

Gren learns how to live freely by experiencing physical, mental, and emotional slavery. He learns to lead by undergoing domination. If impossible, Hothouse offers an amusing, intriguing world. The Long Afternoon of Earth, an engaging, entertaining composition with an underlying statement about a man's place in the universe though suffers somewhat from Aldiss's scientifically implausible situation.

D. Classical Aldiss: the Mid 1960s novels, The Dark Light Years;
Greybeard, Earthworks, and Cryptozoic!

His second period dates from 1962-1970. Significantly, his first work of this period, Report on Probability A, did not find its way into print until 1968. During the intervening years, Aldiss became closely associated with New Worlds, even to the point of securing a grant from National Council of the Arts when it appeared the magazine would fold. New Worlds gave Aldiss a market for the experimental, darker path of his second period. Aldiss, in return, provided Moorcock's group with something of the respectability they otherwise lacked. This period, partly due to this relationship, contains most of Aldiss's best novels.

The Dark Light-Years (1964) as the title suggests, contains dark humor, more specifically Aldiss's Swiftian satire. In the book, Humanity encounters the Utods, a species that eats, excretes, and copulates from a single orifice. Ambisexual, telepathic, and nearly immune from pain, the Utods inhabit filthy Shangrilas. They neither fight wars, suffer diseases, hate one another, nor even feel normal pain. Some Utods, however, violate the isolationist tenets of their religion to travel to the stars where they encounter human spacemen. The Utod's physical structure prevents them from developing an intellectual personality separate from their emotional personality. Mankind holds the ambiguous advantage of viewing life from a detached, objective standpoint. Aldiss, however, makes it clear the Utods hold the capacity to destroy humanity any time they wish.

The human attributes the Utods passivity to inferiority. Seeing the Utods living in their own excrement re-enforces this conclusion. They rapidly exterminate almost all of the Utods, whom they consider near animals. At least one surviving Utod, however, appears destined to return the "wisdom" that humanity’s violence imparted:

The Utods suffer the sin of ignorance, but mankind from its inhumanity. The novel frightens with only a few kind characters to alleviate its dire vision. Some of Aldiss's humor could have balanced a work over-laden with grim irony. If Jonathan Smith wrote science fiction, he might have written The Dark-Light Years.

Graybeard (1965) features a novel in which no one bears children any more. Greybeard and Martha search and find children still being born, insuring man's survival. Throughout, Aldiss criticizes modern society, particularly its potential for nuclear destruction. The novel repeats Aldiss's concern with the cycle of nature. It also remains out of print, despite some critical acclaim. (17)

Earthworks (1965) also contains social themes. It employs cinematic "cuts" to show the difficulty of distinguishing illusion and reality. The world of Earthworks suffers from soil depletion and famine. Characters live, nearly alone, on board an automated spaceship. Hostile to each other, they live out of touch with their environment. The narrator and journalist are bound by name, knowledge, and job. Most critics regard this as a minor effort (18), but Paul Ableman rates the novel highly and states that "he succeeds in wedding the psychological and metaphysical realities in a convincing and compelling narrative structure." (19)

Cryptozoic! (1967) concerns artistic and social escapism. Edmund Bush, an artist, mind-travels back in time in order to get ideas for his paintings. Most productive people in the year 2093, the setting of the novel, escape in a similar fashion from militaristic governments, social unrest, and continuing third world poverty. Bush's own father and stepmother provide him with no moral and ethical guidance. In the far-future, Cryptozoic, however, Bush discovers that time actually moves backwards; mankind devolves towards the amoebae stage. This provides a convenient explanation for many seeming contradictions in his own world as well as a metaphor for the decaying society he inhabits:

Bush believes this, but a psychiatrist offers an alternative explanation to his father: Bush's mind simply no longer accepts the real world. The social and psychological problems of the world may weigh too much on Bush, and Aldiss does not tell us which theory to believe, leaving us free also to choose the more escapist solution. The reader, he suggests, can look at his own decaying society or escape-into science fiction. Cryptozoic an amusing, well-written novel about social ills parodies the very reasons the reader chose to read it in the first place.