his story collection, with a whimsical and appreciative introduction by Andy Duncan, is something of an intentional tribute to two milestones in the life of its author: his 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the start of his career. Leagues deep into the uncharted and mysterious terrain of both his life and his art, Aldiss, we find, is still going strong, delivering his unique fabulist stories in a grand-masterly manner.
"Tarzan of the Alps" is a poignant tale about how misprision can equal hope, as two illiterate peasants build a dream on a misunderstood film. An intelligent bee would perceive literature much differently from a man, or so we learn in "Tralee of Man Young." "The Eye Opener" posits a weird celestial phenomenon with earth-altering impact, while "Aboard the Beatitude" takes us along on a megalomaniacal dash across multiple galaxies.
What would you do if you met a man who claimed to be the inspiration for a famous advertising icon? The narrator of "The Man and a Man With His Mule" has a novel response. "Dusk Flight" is a memoir of a eccentric writer who never existed, while "Commander Calex Killed, Fire and Fury at the Edge of the World, Scones Perfect" uses the recent Balkan troubles as an entry to an alternate world.
On a planet where winters are long and severe, the majority of the population goes to sleep for months at a time. But for those among "The Hibernators" who remain awake, life becomes a militaristic hell. One man's tape recordings start a revolution in "National Heritage." And in "How the Gates Opened and Closed," a simple fireside tale reflects a larger truth.
Finally, two novelettes, thematically linked, round out the volume. "Total Environment" limns life in an experimental structure designed to test humanity's breaking point, while "A Chinese Perspective" offers the freedom mankind desperately needs in the form of artificial worldlets—the Zodiacal Planets, or zeepees—in orbit around Earth.
Twisted, yet full of humanity
The majority of these stories date from the '90s and the '00s; two are unique to this volume. And the novelettes originate in 1968 and 1978. Yet there is a complete cohesiveness and organic wholeness among all these pieces that speak of how Aldiss' approach and vision have been nailed down firmly since almost the start of his writing life. He's improved technically, learned more and gotten wiser and more ambitious—but his themes and attitudes, formed through keen thinking and a cosmopolitan early life, have remained the strong foundation of all his work.
Having seen and absorbed much, and rejected nothing, Aldiss embraces a tragicomic view of life and man's place in the cosmos. His japes always have a sting; his disasters always have a laugh. This is, after all, the man who embraced Kingsley Amis' critical term "comic inferno" as the title of one of his books. This balanced view of life, a kind of Buddhist Middle Path, allows Aldiss neither to despair nor to blithely ignore roadblocks and pitfalls. This seems to me to be the perfect mode of thought and reaction for an SF writer, allowing him to postulate futures and incidents that bring out both the best and the worst in his characters.
Consider my favorite story here, "Total Environment." I've loved this story for nearly 40 years, and was thrilled to have a chance to re-encounter it. Aldiss posits a gigantic tower structure set up in India as an experiment like Biosphere II (but long before that venture). Starting with 1,500 couples, the techno-village is now packed with 75,000 individuals, a festering mass of poverty. Our hero, Thomas Dixit, is about to plunge inside for a firsthand view of what the experiment has wrought. In other hands, this piece could be a total dystopia. But Aldiss discloses the nobility and dignity and surprising positivity of both the tower dwellers and Dixit. It's a masterpiece of high concept and brilliant execution, right from to the opening section, which is chronologically displaced from the main narrative.
"A Chinese Perspective" deals with the identical theme—how an artificial environment can give rise to radical new modes of thought—but with a kind of Phildickian exuberance and goofiness. Any story that imagines a new kind of voyeuristic soft-core porn involving electron-microscopic examination of a woman's entrails is automatically a winner in my estimation!
Aldiss and his work are an inspiration and a joy and an international resource. Long may he write!
