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Brian Aldiss

Brian AldissAKA Brian Wilson Aldiss

Born: 18-Aug-1925
Birthplace: Dereham, Norfolk, England
Died: 19-Aug-2017
Location of death: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Author

Nationality: England
Executive summary: Supertoys Last All Summer Long

Military service: British Army (Royal Signals 1943-47)

Born in 1925, Brian Aldiss has had a lengthy writing career encompassing poet, film critic, anthologist, and newspaper literary editor, but he is best known for his contributions to the world of science fiction. His most notable works include the Helliconia trilogy (about life on a world whose "year" was equivalent to 3,000 Earth years), Supertoys Last All Summer Long (made into the 2001 Spielberg film A.I., a project originally ear-marked for Stanley Kubrick), The 80 Minute Hour, and the now-classic Non-Stop (1958).

Aldiss was one of the three main writers in the British science fiction "New Wave" along with Michael Moorcock and J. G. Ballard. Although he did at times write about space ships and robots (like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, Aldiss, like Ballard, opted to stretch the reader's mind in a new way -- not by imagining brave new technologies, but by exploring the strange new mindfucks that accompanied them. In this vein he produced such works as Greybeard, Hothouse, The Dark Light Years, Earthworks, Barefoot In the Head, and Report on Probability.

Now in his 80s, Aldiss continues to publish work that makes readers see things in a new light (his 2000 novel White Mars written in conjunction with physicist/mathematician Roger Penrose poses important questions about the colonization of other worlds), but he has not confined himself to science fiction. He has, in addition, produced such mainstream fiction as The Hand-Reared Boy, A Soldier Erect, Ruins, and Remembrance Day, plus two autobiographies (The Twinkling Of An Eye and When The Feast Is Finished) and several books of poetry.

Aldiss has received considerable recognition over the years, including such awards as the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Nebula Grand Master. He has twice been named Britain's Most Popular Science Fiction Author by the British Science Fiction Association. Two other novels, Frankenstein Unbound and Dracula Unbound have also received film treatment.

Wife: Olive Fortescue (div. 1965)
Son: Clive
Daughter: Wendy
Wife: Margaret Manson (m. 1965, d. 1997)
Son: Tim
Daughter: Charlotte

    High School: West Buckland School, Devon
    High School: Framlingham College, Suffolk

    Hugo 1962, for Hothouse
    Nebula 1965, for The Saliva Tree
    British Science Fiction Association President (1960-65)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (17-Feb-2001) · Himself

Official Website:
http://www.brianwaldiss.com/

Author of books:
Nonstop (1958)
Hothouse (1962)
Earthworks (1965)
Frankenstein Unbound (1973)
Helliconia Spring (1982)
Dracula Unbound (1991)
The Squire Quartet (1998)
Supertoys Last All Summer Long (1969)
The Hand-Reared Boy (1970)
A Soldier Erect (1971)
The 80 Minute Hour, A Space Opera (1974)
Ruins (1987)
Remembrance Day (1993)
The Twinkling Of An Eye (1998)
When The Feast Is Finished (1999)
White Mars, Or, the Mind Set Free (2000, with Roger Penrose)
Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time (2001)
Super-State (2002)
The Cretan Teat (2002)
The Twinkling of an Eye: My Life As an Englishman (2004, memoir)


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