Brian Aldiss
Список книг автора Brian AldissThe Twinkling of an Eye
Writer, soldier, bookseller, father: Brian Aldiss has earned many titles in his life. In the Twinkling of an Eye is a candid, vivid and charming look at the stories behind this distinctive writer of fiction.His life as a struggling novelist is unflinchingly laid bare. There are recollections of the beauty and freedoms of Sumatra, the camaraderie of the army and the sobriety of post-war England, bookselling in Oxford, marital breakdown and financial impoverishment. With insight and honesty, Aldiss delves into his role in the new wave of science fiction writing in the 1960s, and his friendships with his contemporaries: Anthony Storr, J. G. Ballard, Kingsley Amis, Doris Lessing, Michael Moorcock and William Boyd.This is Aldiss at his most-versatile, outspoken best.
Somewhere East of Life
The final volume of the critically acclaimed Squire Quartet, available for the first time as an ebook.Having abandoned Britain to its recession, architectural historian Roy Burnell operates out of Germany, attempting to hold the world together culturally. Moving around the more outrageous parts of the globe, his task is to list architectural gems threatened by war, history and human awfulness.Such is man’s ingenuity, however, that Burnell’s mind is also threatened. Someone has stolen a chunk of his memory – ten years in fact. This chunk, and in particular the more salacious bits, such as his marriage to Stephanie, has been chopped up, recorded in e-mnemonicvision and sold to lovers of soft porn everywhere.First published in 1994 and unavailable for some time. Features a new introduction by the author.
The Hand-Reared Boy
The groundbreaking novel about sex and growing up, available as an ebook for the first time.Longlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize, The Hand-Reared Boy was the first literary novel to honestly, and explicitly, explore the sexual awakening of a young man. Quite shocking when first published in 1970, it is now considered a classic.It is the first book in the Horatio Stubbs Trilogy.Brian says: “Young Horatio Stubbs suffers the pangs of adolescence, but is weaned from the pleasures of masturbation by the delights offered by his school’s nursing sister, who is not all she seems. The novel became a great scandal in England, where it was rejected by thirteen publishers, and caused a lawsuit – as a result of which it became a bestseller.”
Forgotten Life
The second volume in the acclaimed Squire Quartet, available for the first time as an ebook.Spanning fifty years and three continents – from pre-war Suffolk, to the Far East in the 1940s, to Oxford and America in the present day – Forgotten Life is a novel of immense scope, encompassing comedy and tragedy, joy and grief, as its three main characters try to work out the most difficult problem of all – the meaning of their own lives.Brian says: ‘This novel, which in retrospect can be seen to have a similar ground plan to Non-Stop, written thirty years earlier, was more warmly received than any other Aldiss novel, not simply by its reviewers but by readers.’Features a new introduction by the author.
Walcot
A story charting the events of the twentieth century through the eyes of the Fielding family, whose fortunes are altered irrevocably…The Brian Aldiss collection includes over 50 books and spans the author’s entire career, from his debut in 1955 to his more recent work.On the glorious sands of the North Norfolk coast, Steve, the youngest member of the Fielding family, plays alone. But are these halcyon days?War is looming, and things will never be the same again. This book, described by Brian as his magnum opus, charts the fortunes of the Fielding family throughout the twentieth century.
A Rude Awakening
The final volume of the Horatio Stubbs trilogy, available as an ebook for the first time.The war is over but our hero, Horatio Stubbs, is still in Sumatra and still narrating his sexual adventures.Brian says: “In the third (and last) of the HAND REARED BOY series, equatorial juices flow. Stubbs is now in Sumatra, the official war being over. But the birth pains of the new Indonesian republic interfere with Stubbs’s sexual involvements with, among others, two Chinese ladies.”
Dracula Unbound
A dramatic reworking of the vampire myth in a way that only Brian Aldiss can…Available for the first time in eBook.When Bram Stoker was writing his famous novel, Dracula, at the end of the 19th century he received a visitor named Joe Bodenland. While the real Count Dracula came from the distant past, Joe arrived from Stoker’s future – on a desperate mission to save humanity from the undead.Following on from Frankenstein Unbound, this is a dramatic reworking of the vampire myth in a way that only Brian Aldiss can.
Remembrance Day
The third book in the Squire Quartet, available for the first time as an ebook.Russian born Dominic is one of the success stories of the eighties, when yuppies made fortunes on the stock market .Ray Tebbutt is among the unlucky ones. He was involved in a bankruptcy in the mid-eighties .Peter Petrik, a dissident Czech film director, lives in Prague, dreaming of making more films when times improve .The lifelines of these people and others – comic and sad by turns in true Aldiss fashion – converge towards the finality of an IRA bomb epuisode in Great Yarmouth.
Life in the West
The first volume in the acclaimed Squire Quartet., available for the first time on ebook.Thomas C. Squire, popular presenter of television documentaries, one time secret agent, a hedonist whose worldly success and self-confidence overshadow the lives of his family and friends, faces a mid-life crisis which undermines the stability of his ancient house. This brilliant and sometimes violent novel moves from England to Sicily, Singapore and Jugoslavia.Brian says: ‘A complex and argumentative drama built about the axes of Thomas Squire’s attendance at an imaginary contemporary ARTS symposium in Sicily, his extramarital and marital relationships, and his past as a secret agent in Jugoslavia, a land caught between East and West. Includes several humorous portraits of national types.’First published in 1980 and unavailable for some time.
A Soldier Erect: or Further Adventures of the Hand-Reared Boy
The second book in the Horatio Stubbs Trilogy, available for the first time on ebook.A Soldier Erect finds Horatio Stubbs, the hero of The Hand-Reared Boy, serving in the Far East during WW2. Thankfully, the war doesn’t get in the way of his sexual escapades.Brian says: “In the second novel concerning Horatio Stubbs, World War II has broken out. Stubbs is serving in the British army in India and Burma. After tussles with whores in India comes the struggle with the Japanese in the jungle. The only novel to describe a soldier’s life in the ‘Forgotten Army’. Like its predecessor, Soldier was a best seller in England.”