Space Odysseys

by Brian W. Aldiss

Science fiction stories.

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies

272 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Pseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.

Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.

Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic anthology in a series by Brian Aldiss, RIP. Aldiss promises the pure quill in entertaining old SF, and mostly delivers. Aldiss did a number of these themed anthologies. "Galactic Empires" and "Space Opera" are the best known. This is one of the weaker ones. As you can see, it took me a while to finish it.
TOC & story info: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?3...
Cool cover art by Eddie Jones, http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/jone... (scroll down for gallery)

• The Sentinel • (1951) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke. This was the starting point for 2001, the Kubrick film, but the story itself hasn't aged well. The story opens on the shores of a dried-up crater lake on the Moon. Um. 19th century geologists had already worked out how to map the shorelines of shrinking lakes in the post-glacial west. Didn't happen on the moon! Pretty clunky writing, too. 2.2 stars. Pity Aldiss led with this one.

Then again, consider Clarke's first magazine publication of this story here (1951): http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/3/3b... "Tyrant and Slave-Girl on Planet Venus" ! Woo-hoo! See first comment.

• Galactic Patrol (excerpt) • [Lensman] • (1974) • short fiction by Edward E. Smith. Not reread. I'm not much of a Doc Smith fan.

• The Lake of the Gone Forever • (1949) • novelette by Leigh Brackett. I've tried 3 times now to read this one, and I give up.

• Reason • (1941) • short story by Isaac Asimov. Now, this is more like it! Robot story, still pretty crude, but Asimov was a first-rate storyteller. A new model robot is being tested, to manage an orbital power station. Unexpected problems develop. 3.5 stars.

• Time Is the Traitor • (1953) • novelette by Alfred Bester. John Strapp makes Decisions, and owns 1% of the world. But he has some SERIOUS kinks.... A classic Bester story that hasn't dated a bit. 4.5 stars.

• The Impossible Planet • (1953) • short story by Philip K. Dick. An old, old woman wants to visit Earth, her ancestral home, lost in legend. A space captain obliges. Killer last line. 3+ stars.

• The Unfinished • (1951) • short story by Frank Belknap Long. A sweet bit of space opera in 11 pages. Recommended. 4 stars.

• And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr. Newest story in the anthology. One of Tiptree's best, and best known: 5+ stars. Free copy and more details at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

• The Empress of Mars • (1939) • novelette by Ross Rocklynne. Entertaining old-style fantasy-Martian adventure: "Have at you!" the giant roared, and his sword cut the air with a shriek. ... "
It's a bit over the top, but colorful and fun. 3.5 stars.

• I'm Going to Get You • (1974) • short story by F. M. Busby. A latter-day Job rails at God. Eh, 1.5 stars.

• Strange Exodus • (1950) • short story by Robert Abernathy. An odd story. Strange, gigantic creatures have eaten most everything on Earth. Surviving humans find a way out. 3 stars.

• Star Ship • (1950) • novelette by Poul Anderson. A starship crew is stranded on an Iron-age world. A pretty crude early Poul Anderson, 2 stars

• To Each His Star • (1952) • short story by Bryce Walton. Four men survived the wreck of the starship. Old Dunbar said he knew the way to a paradise planet. But Old Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. Good old-fashioned story, 3 stars.

• The Big Hunger • (1952) • short story by Walter M. Miller, Jr. A prose poem to the Outward Urge, the star craze that populates the galaxy. The folks who like things quiet stay home, the restless, hell-raisers move on. A golden-age classic. 4 stars.

• Night Watch • (1965) • short story by James Inglis. The long voyage of an Automatic Stellar Observation Vehicle: Asov. Turns into something of a history of our Galaxy. 4 stars.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A companion volume to Aldiss' Space Opera, although I didn't know it existed until many years after I first was reading Space Opera courtesy of the local public library when I was growing up.

Again, this is a mid-70s collection of mostly 1950s SF, although a few stories date back to the 40s and a few stories would have been, as of the time of publication, very recent, although not original to this anthology.

And again, I had a very pleasant time reading pretty much all of it. Highlights included an excerpt from one of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman books, Arthur C. Clarke's "The Sentinel" (the short story that eventually became the germ of the idea used in 2001: A Space Odyssey), and probably my favorite piece in the whole book, Poul Anderson's "Star Ship", an extremely sword & planet-feeling story from his Psychotechnic League series.

Recommended if you're in the mood for this sort of thing, which I clearly was.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly Space opera type stories but good space opera to me. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Stories by Anderson, Asimov, Bester, Brackett, Clarke, Walter M. Miller Jr., E. E. Smith and others.

[Michael Bafford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars for "liked it" which I only did in parts. There are a few John-Carter-of-Barsoom knock-offs which I probably would have enjoyed more when this anthology was published in 1975. One of these is by Poul Anderson of whom I thought more highly. Apparently - according to the editor Brian Aldiss - this was how he broke into SF. In Star Ship he writes:

"I don't care about equality," she whispered. "A woman shouldn't try to be a man. I'd want only to cook and keep house for my man, and bear his children." (p.251)

Holy cow!

There's an Arthur C. Clarke which is pretty good, The Sentinal which is the precursor to 2001

Isaac Asimov writes a logical farse - with robots - in Reason.
Alfred Bester disappoints slightly with a morality Time is the Traitor
P.K. Dick's performance was better than expected, he being wildly uneven. The Impossible Planet is a Firefly like story of a space captain sharper who agrees to take an old woman to "Earth" in exchange for a considerable sum. Even though everyone knows Earth is a myth. Surprisingly the ruined desolate world he takes her to may in fact be the place.

James Tiptree Jr's story didn't really do anything for me, and there is a Walter M. Miller Jr The Big Hunger about the human wanderlust as pathology.

My favourite was the last story in the collection: Night Watch by James Inglis. According to Aldiss this is his only story - which is wrong as he has a few more. This one tells the story of a long-distance probe searching for new planets and beaming its findings back to earth. Time being relative and the probe being self-repairing, this goes on for a long, long time.

I haven't read a lot of Aldiss, Greybeard and especially the Helliconia trilogy. I still recall the thrill I got in the beginning of the first book with the huge steaming herd jostling one another across the frozen waste. And the glory of the Spring! The whole premise is wildly wonderful. Anyway he made a few blunders - didn't know that James Tiptree was a woman for example. But he said a few wise things too:

So far, the history of the human race can be strictly defined as an odyssey, a wandering. There are no goals for a species except the biological ones. But we a becoming increasingly our own creation, formed as much by the social biosphere as the natural one; the more so as human beings carry round inside them their own shaping fantasy which dominates their individual lives. (p.160)

On the same page is this anecdote:

One such sceptic was once at work in Oxford City Library; on the title-page of Wernher von Braun's autobiography, "I Aim for the Stars", he had pencilled a subtitle. "But Sometimes I Hit London"

In another passage he writes a curious typo - if typo it is:

To a sophisticated palate, the pleasure is perhaps intensified when the story in question has gathered a little moth(sic), for the underlying intentions show through all the more clearly.

I would have said "moss". But possibly this is why he unabashedly publishes excerpts from E.E. (Doc) Smith, Ross Rocklynne, and the Anderson mortification.

[Rach · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see the way our modern scifi is born of these stories, but many hold now-outdated ideas.

”The biped bludgeoned the planet into submission.”
— from “The Big Hunger”

This was a perfectly fine anthology, with varied enjoyment from me (which is typical)! My favorite stories were “The Impossible Planet” by Philip K. Dick, “The Unfinished” by Frank Belknap Long, “Star Ship” by Poul Anderson, “The Big Hunger” by Walter M. Miller Jr., and “Night Watch” by James Inglis. These ones made me think the most and linger on what it means to be human and have human stories, which is what I love about scifi.

I was surprised how few of these stories had robots involved, they all were much more focused on the journey of man which is to be expected of odysseys. I was not surprised by the lack of women protagonists. Or the way women’s chests were described instead of their emotions. I can do without hearing the term “supple” for a while.

As much as I’ve enjoyed these anthologies (this is my second “old scifi” one), I really would like to find one that is all women or POC curated in this time because I’d like to see how the themes and topics range from what white men were writing in 1976.

[Adam Schrecengost · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard one to rate since there's a huge difference in quality between stories. Gave me a few new authors to look at, and the last two stories in particular are profound.

[Tell Tale Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

-Gregory Kerkman

[Dan]

ooo! I love the cover art!
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The collection is from 1972 or so... I don't know when it was revealed that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman and not a man. I was actually jolted when Aldiss introduces Tiptree as "he."
My first story by her (oh, wait, I think I read something in college, but I don't remember it to well): I always thought she'd have a revival, esp. after the well-reviewed biography that came out. I hate that it will probably be left to digital scavengers to find her books and not bookstore grunts.

[Patrick]

12/13/11: "Time Is the Traitor" (1953) by Alfred Bester
12/14/11: "The Sentinel" (1954) by Arthur C. Clarke
1/11/12: "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" (1972) by James Tiptree, Jr.
4/26/12: "The Big Hunger" (1952) by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
4/26/12: "Night Watch" (1964) by James Inglis
4/25/12: "To Each His Star" (1952) by Bryce Walton
4/25/12: "The Unfinished" (1951) by Frank Belknap Long
4/19/12: "Strange Exodus" (1950) by Robert Anbernathy
4/15/12: "The Impossible Planet" (1953) by Philip K. Dick
4/15/12: "I'm Going to Get You" (1974) by F.M. Busby

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent collection of older envisionings of the future.