FROM THE PUBLISHER

One of Britain's most renowned writers of science fiction, the prolific Brian W. Aldiss (b. 1925) is the rare author in this genre to he strongly touted for England's prestigious Booker Prize (he was never nominated but he has served as a judge). Aldiss's work - both his mainstream Life in the West (1980), the first volume of the Squire Quartet, and his intellectually challenging Barefoot in the Head (1969) - has attracted strong advocacy. In this long-overdue comprehensive assessment, Tom Henighan argues that Brian Aldiss's best novels are original in subtle and quietly effective ways. He sees Aldiss not only as a mainstay of the science fiction industry, but also as a significant writer of mainstream fiction, an interesting experimenter with a flair for postmodern narrative, as an outstanding literary historian, and as one of the most intelligent and incisive essayists ever to write about the science fiction and fantasy genres.

FROM THE CRITICS

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