Few short stories in science fiction have cast a longer and more curious shadow than Brian Aldiss’s Supertoys Last All Summer Long. First published in 1969, the story’s quiet, melancholic exploration of artificial consciousness would eventually become the seed of one of cinema’s most legendary unrealised projects: Stanley Kubrick’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. A lecture by […]
The Aldiss Award awards ceremony. At the start of the Saturday evening’s award ceremony at this year’s World Fantasy Convention I (Tim, Brian’s son) was proud to be able to stand up and introduce not only the concept of an award for world-building in speculative fiction, but to also announce the winner of this, the […]
Honouring the Legacy of Brian Aldiss, Celebrating Extraordinary Realms in Science Fiction & Fantasy We’re delighted to reveal the shortlist for the inaugural Aldiss Award for World Building in speculative fiction. Our Chair of Judges, Allen Stroud, said: “The short list reflects our determination to find the very best stories that fire the imagination of […]
Supertoys Last All Summer Long Read by Brian AI Aldiss The Aldiss Literary Estate, The Aldiss Award, Curtis Brown & Robin Strauss Agency are proud and excited to announce a series of special events and publications to celebrate the centenary of author, poet, editor, science fiction Grand Master, multiple Nebula & Hugo award winner, and […]
In one of his essays, Joseph Brodsky, talking about Osip Mandelstam, says this about our lives: Any poet, no matter how much he writes, expresses in his verse, physically or statistically speaking, at most one tenth of his life’s reality. The rest is normally shrouded in darkness. Is this admirable remark what we feel about […]
Mention has been made of the Inklings. This was the literary group which met frequently in the aforementioned pub, The Bird and Baby. The leading members were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. One was accustomed to seeing Tolkien bustling along in the Broad, clutching a copy of Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer. Possibly he was then – […]
Brian’s UK publishers The Friday Project is curating a series of short anecdotes that Brian has written about some of the many literary greats that he has been fortunate enough to know and meet over his illustrious career, and others that he has simply admired. In a short series here on Brian’s blog we publish […]
(This post was originally published on aldissandmore.com) How about these beautiful pieces of poster artwork commissioned by NASA themselves to help inspire a generation to stay on board with the space discovery missions being run by NASA. Commissioned to look like art deco 1930’s era classic poster-work they certainly evoke memories of some classic science […]
Brian’s UK publishers The Friday Project is curating a series of short anecdotes that Brian has written about some of the many literary greats that he has been fortunate enough to know and meet over his illustrious career, and others that he has simply admired. In a short series here on Brian’s blog we publish […]
On the 29th November, with my partner, Alison Soskice, I was one of the many who attended the last rites of that darling writer, DORIS LESSING. The ceremony was held on the outskirts of London, conducted by a woman of the British Humanist Association. So no religion there, then. placemats” I sat most of the […]
