Brian W. Aldiss

Born 18 August 1925 · Died 19 AUgust 2017

From Dereham, England, United Kingdom · Nationality: United Kingdom · Writes fiction and nonfiction

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) was an English writer, artist, and anthology editor, best known for his science-fiction novels and short stories. His byline typically reads Brian W. Aldiss or Brian Aldiss, with occasional pseudonyms in the mid-1960s. His work in the genre includes novels such as The Malacia Tapestry and Finches of Mars, which reflect his sustained engagement with speculative themes.

Quotes

“When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of Hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them. They show us the state of our decay.”
p. 17
“Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.”
"Apéritif" in Bury My Heart at W.H. Smith's 1990
“The Badlands were extensive. Ancient bomb craters and soil erosion joined hands here; man’s talent for war, coupled with his inability to manage forested land, had produced thousands of square miles of temperate purgatory, where nothing moved but dust.”
Who Can Replace a Man?, p. 19
“He had the settled expression of a certain kind of peasant—the kind that accepts, with protest but without malice, the vagaries of life. It is the gift life sends to compensate for the lack of a high I.Q.”
Who Can Replace a Man?, pp. 90-91
“It’s a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn’t; it’s something that goes on inside us.”
Greybeard, Chapter 2