Brian Aldiss is, rightly, respected as one of the best British SF writers of the last half decade and, unusually, he commands respect from the ‘literary’ fiction community as well as the SF&F. Brian’s first SF book, Space, Time and Nathaniel, was published in the mid 1950s, the start of a long career which has taken in novels, being a literary editor for the papers and working with Harry Harrison on the brief-lived-but-memorable Science Fiction Horizons. Brian also has a well-earned reputation as a great anthologist – he’s been putting together some excellent literary anthologies for decades, enjoying success with early ventures like the Penguin Science Fiction collection back in the 60s, which spawned several more volumes over the years, then a compendium of the volumes called the Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus.
Now Penguin has announced plans to publish A Science Fiction Omnibus this November a new and updated collection, almost 600 pages of SF taking in more than six decades, from Asimov’s Nightfall from 1941 to Eliza Blair’s Friends In Need from 2006 and including works by Harry Harrison, Clifford Simak, Bruce Sterling and Aldiss himself. Perfect for SF fans and also a terrific primer for those newer to the genre. I find it interesting to note that this is being published under the Penguin Modern Classics banner – that’s one of the most respected literary imprints by one of the world’s best known publishers, an imprint that takes in writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. How wonderful to see both the genre and Brian accorded that level of respect.
Thu, Jul 5, 2007
Books