An Exile on Planet Earth: Articles and Reflections

(Hardback)

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Although Brian Aldiss cannot be pigeon-holed as a science fiction writer there is no doubt that he is a master of the art of conceiving other worlds. His fertile imagination has created intriguing and often shocking narratives which have become classics of the genre and have also translated into cinema.

This collection of his essays, most of which are revised for this volume, is a testimony to the influences behind his writing, showing how the circumstances and events of his childhood are translated into strange metaphors in his novels and stories (the lonely boy playing on the beach in Walcot), how his identification with the exile is a recurring theme throughout his work (it is surely no accident that he was asked to write an introduction to Solzhenitsyns The Gulag Archipelago), and how a world without children (Greybeard) expressed his grief at the temporary loss of his own children after his first marriage broke up.

In these writings we witness the main events of Aldisss life, and through his honesty and vulnerablity we are able to trace the alliance between incidents in his life and his creative imagination. For the lovers of his many books and poems this volume reveals new insights into the man and his world, giving us a better understanding of his place in the history and literary criticism of science fiction and of his interest in the cultural importance of SF as a genre.

Reviews

"Masterful English prose."--Paul Kincaid, author of Strange Horizons

--Paul Kincaid, author of Strange Horizons "Locus"
"Brian Aldiss has published something like a half-dozen volumes of essays in his long career, as well as a couple of fascinating autobiographies, but well into his eighties he still seems to be discovering new things about himself and his work. His newest collection, An Exile on Planet Earth, published in connection with the donation of Aldiss's archives to the Bodleian Library, revisits some familiar material--travel essays, H.G. Wells, his military service in WWI, his love of Mary Shelley, and his experiences with Kubrick and Spielberg--but also includes some fascinating insights into his own fiction and some provocative notions about SF in general, all loosely organized around the theme of alienation suggested by the title."--Alan Yentob, from the foreword "Locus"

"What he gives us here is the reality that underlies the fiction: personal stories, often of pain, that illuminate the work."

--Alan Yentob, from the foreword

Author Bio

Brian Aldiss, OBE, is a fiction and science fiction writer, poet, playwright, critic, memoirist, and artist. He has written more than 75 books and 300 short stories, including the acclaimed novels Hothouse, Non-stop and the Helliconia trilogy, all regarded as modern classics.