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Intangibles Inc. and Other Stories
Neanderthal Planet; Randy's Syndrome; Send Her Victorious; Since the Assassination.
Cover Illustration: Michael Farrell
Cover Illustration: Michael Farrell
189 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
2 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
About the author
Brian W. Aldiss
833 books674 followersPseudonyms: 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 25, 2011
I admit it: I've been known to drop spoilers, and this can annoy people. For example, I'm ashamed to say that my review of The Old Curiosity Shop reveals that , my review of Doctor Faustus reveals that and my review of The New Testament reveals that . I apologise profusely for the above and numerous other lapses. But, as you can see, I've now discovered the spoiler tag, so there'll be a whole lot less of these unfortunate incidents in future. So let me tell you about this rather good collection of Aldiss shorts, and at the same time show you what a reformed character I am.
Send Her Victorious is one of the weirdest stories I've ever come across (given that it was written in 1968, you do wonder what the author was smoking at the time). Aldiss appeared to have a bizarre thing for Queen Victoria: in particular, Cryptozoic contains a memorable scene where . Here, we get one of those Matrix-like deals where we discover that the real world is very different from the one we believe we live in. It turns out that . You can see the logic. As Aldiss points out, . The hero figures out that the portal to the real world must be . He opens it, and discovers himself on the other side of the mirror, . The last two lines are a great ending to this extended shaggy dog joke:
I'm sorry... I should just be getting warmed up, and I was planning to tell you about Randy's Syndrome and the title story too, but I'm already feeling exhausted from so much exercise of virtue. You know what it's like with good resolutions. Maybe I'll have to be bad after all.
Send Her Victorious is one of the weirdest stories I've ever come across (given that it was written in 1968, you do wonder what the author was smoking at the time). Aldiss appeared to have a bizarre thing for Queen Victoria: in particular, Cryptozoic contains a memorable scene where . Here, we get one of those Matrix-like deals where we discover that the real world is very different from the one we believe we live in. It turns out that . You can see the logic. As Aldiss points out, . The hero figures out that the portal to the real world must be . He opens it, and discovers himself on the other side of the mirror, . The last two lines are a great ending to this extended shaggy dog joke:
I'm sorry... I should just be getting warmed up, and I was planning to tell you about Randy's Syndrome and the title story too, but I'm already feeling exhausted from so much exercise of virtue. You know what it's like with good resolutions. Maybe I'll have to be bad after all.
April 24, 2024
Colección de 5 relatos, algo particulares, pero que sin duda no dejan indiferentes.
Planeta Neandertal. Tras la Semana Nuclear, los robots son los que dominan la Tierra y los pocos humanos restantes están confinados en pequeños reductos. Un relato de ficción escrito por uno de ellos provocará un cambio radical en la mentalidad autómata. Extraño y curioso. Bastante interesante.
El síndrome de Randy. Una huelga de nacimientos por parte de los fetos puede provocar un caos mundial en un mundo asolado por las crisis, la escasez y el desempleo. Un loco relato sobre la comunicación madre-nonato con humor y alguna pullita religiosa.
La hipótesis de la Reina Victoria o la guerra contra los victorianos, año 2000. Una sociedad en la que la locura se ha apoderado de las mentes de todos. Una paranoia de relato donde Aldiss saca todo su potencial para estudiar la psique humana y para desgranar una sociedad terriblemente afectada. Hay que estar preparado para lo que se viene encima con esta lectura...
Intangibles S.A. Un relato que baila entre las posibilidades de la estupidez humana, la ironía de la cabezonería del protagonista o el mensaje del sacrificio para lograr un objetivo. ¿Dejarías de tocar un objeto toda tu vida por una simple apuesta? Pues nuestro protagonista lo hace sin ser muy consciente realmente del porqué. Un relato extraño que te deja con ganas de más.
Desde el asesinato. Un popurrí de temas en este relato. Desde conspiraciones políticas, transformaciones físicas personales enlazadas con el espacio-tiempo, inestabilidades mentales.. Todo bastante batiburrillo sin terminar de desarrollar ningún tema a fondo en un relato innecesariamente largo. De los peores de la recopilación.
Planeta Neandertal. Tras la Semana Nuclear, los robots son los que dominan la Tierra y los pocos humanos restantes están confinados en pequeños reductos. Un relato de ficción escrito por uno de ellos provocará un cambio radical en la mentalidad autómata. Extraño y curioso. Bastante interesante.
El síndrome de Randy. Una huelga de nacimientos por parte de los fetos puede provocar un caos mundial en un mundo asolado por las crisis, la escasez y el desempleo. Un loco relato sobre la comunicación madre-nonato con humor y alguna pullita religiosa.
La hipótesis de la Reina Victoria o la guerra contra los victorianos, año 2000. Una sociedad en la que la locura se ha apoderado de las mentes de todos. Una paranoia de relato donde Aldiss saca todo su potencial para estudiar la psique humana y para desgranar una sociedad terriblemente afectada. Hay que estar preparado para lo que se viene encima con esta lectura...
Intangibles S.A. Un relato que baila entre las posibilidades de la estupidez humana, la ironía de la cabezonería del protagonista o el mensaje del sacrificio para lograr un objetivo. ¿Dejarías de tocar un objeto toda tu vida por una simple apuesta? Pues nuestro protagonista lo hace sin ser muy consciente realmente del porqué. Un relato extraño que te deja con ganas de más.
Desde el asesinato. Un popurrí de temas en este relato. Desde conspiraciones políticas, transformaciones físicas personales enlazadas con el espacio-tiempo, inestabilidades mentales.. Todo bastante batiburrillo sin terminar de desarrollar ningún tema a fondo en un relato innecesariamente largo. De los peores de la recopilación.
September 17, 2015
Brian W. Aldiss es uno de los grandes autores de la ciencia ficción de la última generación, un clásico lleno de visiones refrescantes.
April 17, 2018
পাঁচটার মধ্যে দুইটা ভালো লাগছে। কাঁটায় কাঁটায়।
July 18, 2019
Brian Aldiss was a brilliant science fiction and fantasy writer, though his books could sometimes come across as enigmatic or downright baffling, particularly when they involved some kind of slippage in reality - this 1969 collection of five novellas illustrates both his strengths and weaknesses wonderfully.
There's one out-and-out fantasy story, the rather wistful title story, where a never-aging traveller revisits a family with longer and longer gaps between visits after setting an original challenge. For me, the first two stories in the book Neanderthal Planet and Randy's Syndrome work best because, although they are challenging in their themes, they don't resort to the time/reality slippage scenario that was so central to many Aldiss books. The first features a rather clever double layered approach by sandwiching a science fiction story written by the main character into two parts of a story about his life. The second is fantasy, but less obviously than Intangibles Inc, featuring conscious foetuses which decide not to leave the womb.
To make up the five we have Send Her Victorious, the weirdest of the stories with an almost steampunk feel despite a future setting (Queen Victoria (sort of) plays a major part) for a story involving time or reality slippage, while the final story, Since the Assassination, also a slippage story, involves the assassination of the American president and a bizarre discovery on the Moon.
Overall there are some brilliant ideas here, and though the stories are now 50 years old, they are still very readable, if you are comfortable with Aldiss's habit of distorting reality. The only real criticism is that he really can't write women characters. All the stories feature women (relatively unusual for the period), but in a way that often makes them, cringe-makingly, 'the little woman'. Feminist it ain't.
There's one out-and-out fantasy story, the rather wistful title story, where a never-aging traveller revisits a family with longer and longer gaps between visits after setting an original challenge. For me, the first two stories in the book Neanderthal Planet and Randy's Syndrome work best because, although they are challenging in their themes, they don't resort to the time/reality slippage scenario that was so central to many Aldiss books. The first features a rather clever double layered approach by sandwiching a science fiction story written by the main character into two parts of a story about his life. The second is fantasy, but less obviously than Intangibles Inc, featuring conscious foetuses which decide not to leave the womb.
To make up the five we have Send Her Victorious, the weirdest of the stories with an almost steampunk feel despite a future setting (Queen Victoria (sort of) plays a major part) for a story involving time or reality slippage, while the final story, Since the Assassination, also a slippage story, involves the assassination of the American president and a bizarre discovery on the Moon.
Overall there are some brilliant ideas here, and though the stories are now 50 years old, they are still very readable, if you are comfortable with Aldiss's habit of distorting reality. The only real criticism is that he really can't write women characters. All the stories feature women (relatively unusual for the period), but in a way that often makes them, cringe-makingly, 'the little woman'. Feminist it ain't.
April 28, 2021
‘Intangibles Inc’, the title story of this collection, is a wonderful and very clever novella. Its brilliance is a particular boon for this collection of five stories as it has to do some very heavy lifting. It alone is worth picking up this collection indeed, sadly it’s probably the only significant reason to pick up this collection as three of the other four stories are not exactly amongst Aldiss’s finest. However the remaining story ‘Neanderthal Planet’ is a reasonable read.
October 1, 2020
Libro de cuentos de ciencia ficción de Aldiss escrito en 1973; ha envejecido mal; muchos de sus argumentos y tramas pudieron ser novedosos y originales en ese entonces, pero ahora parecen acartonados y lleno de lugares comunes, y el estilo literario de la narrativa de Aldiss tampoco es de mucha ayuda, vaya, solamente una curiosidad para aficionados a la CF.
April 9, 2021
Unos relatos me gustaron más que otros.
En Planeta Neanderthal se utiliza una historia (según el protagonista, no es real) para deshacerse de las máquinas que gestionan el planeta. Y en realidad es algo interesante lo de la dualidad de la especie.
El síndrome de Randy fue el relato que me pareció más interesante y extraño también. Lo más curioso es que parece que al final todo el asunto era real.
La hipótesis de la Reina Victoriana es aún más extraño que el relato anterior, lo cual parecía un poco difícil de lograr. El paralelismo con el experimento de ratones le agrega un tono más material, aunque hay varios factores que a su vez lo eliminan. Y el final es bastante bueno.
Intangibles S. A. me parece una historia triste, pero se demuestra que es bueno tener una meta en la vida jaja.
Finalmente, Desde el asesinato está un poco muy teñido de política para mi gusto, pero logran sacarse varios aspectos buenos.
En Planeta Neanderthal se utiliza una historia (según el protagonista, no es real) para deshacerse de las máquinas que gestionan el planeta. Y en realidad es algo interesante lo de la dualidad de la especie.
El síndrome de Randy fue el relato que me pareció más interesante y extraño también. Lo más curioso es que parece que al final todo el asunto era real.
La hipótesis de la Reina Victoriana es aún más extraño que el relato anterior, lo cual parecía un poco difícil de lograr. El paralelismo con el experimento de ratones le agrega un tono más material, aunque hay varios factores que a su vez lo eliminan. Y el final es bastante bueno.
Intangibles S. A. me parece una historia triste, pero se demuestra que es bueno tener una meta en la vida jaja.
Finalmente, Desde el asesinato está un poco muy teñido de política para mi gusto, pero logran sacarse varios aspectos buenos.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2014
A collection of five SF short stories originally published between 1960 and 1969. If you enjoy SF short stories as much as I do, then this is an excellent book by one of the greats of British SF. For me, the title story was the best, but all were fun.
February 9, 2009
Intangibles Inc. (the titular short story) gave me a very new idea of what defines a villain.
October 9, 2013
A collection of satirical and sometimes surreal SF. Worth checking out.
November 17, 2015
The treatment if women is dated and jarring, but this is a very fine collection of weird early Brian Aldiss. The title story will haunt you for a long time.
November 5, 2017
Aldiss war offenbar ein komplizierter Mensch. Seine Stories sind darum ebenfalls kompliziert und schwer bis gar nicht verständlich für mich. Ein Vergnügen ist das nicht wirklich
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews