Brian Aldiss
Author BORN AUGUST 18, 1925 DIED AUGUST 19, 2017, AGED 92
BRIAN ALDISS pioneered a new wave of science fiction writing in the 1960s that took the genre into uncharted territory.
Among his many novels were Greybeard, Hothouse and the Helliconia Trilogy.
His 1969 short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long inspired Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film AI: Artificial Intelligence.
He also wrote bestselling mainstream novels, poetry, drama and two autobiographies – Bury My Heart At WH Smith’s and The Twinkling Of An Eye.
Born in Dereham, Norfolk, Aldiss began writing scary stories as a way to deal with bullying at boarding school.
Sent away at the age of six, he often got so upset that he wet his bed in the dormitory. “To stop other boys teasing me, I told terrifying stories,” he revealed in 2015.
“If any of them cried out in horror for me to stop, I had triumphed; they were never going to mock me.
“Eventually I wrote the stories down. I intended to charge a penny per read.
“Everybody wanted to read but unfortunately were not so happy to pay.”
During the Second World War he served in the Royal Corps of Signals which inspired his bestselling Horatio Stubbs series, then began work as a bookshop assistant in Oxford which provided the setting for his first book, The Brightfount Diaries, in 1955.
Three years later he turned his hand to science fiction with Non Stop. His follow-ups including Hothouse, The Saliva Tree and the classic Helliconia Trilogy all proved to be worthy award winners.
In 2000 Aldiss received the title of Grandmaster from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and was made an OBE in 2005.
He is survived by his partner, Alison Soskice, and four children: Clive and Wendy from his first marriage to Olive Fortescue, and Timothy and Charlotte from his second to Margaret Manson.