Tag Archives: Brian W Aldiss

Galactic Empires: Volume Two

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Galactic Empires: Volume Two [Amazon, Abebooks, Local Library] ed Brian W Aldiss, with Poul Anderson, Roger D Aycock, James Blish, Fredric Brown, Algis Budrys, Avram Davidson, Gardner F Fox, Harry Harrison, John D Macdonald, Mack Reynolds, A E van Vogt, F L Wallace, trans Heinz Nagel, epilogue Olaf Stapledon, and cover by Karel Thole.

Aldiss Galactic Empires Volume Two

This second volume of Brian Aldiss’ multi-author science fiction anthology is at least as good as the first. As before, selections are drawn from periodicals in the tail end of the pulp era: the 1940s and 1950s. (Harry Harrison’s “Final Encounter” is an outlier from 1964.) The thematic sections of the book treat “Maturity or Bust” and “Decline and Free Fall,” but the stories are more accurately characterized by the subsections, such as “The Other End of the Stick,” which uses narrative reversals to point out subaltern perspectives.

In his editorial remarks, Aldiss is especially fervent about the James Blish story “Beep.” It is definitely an interesting tale, adding the espionage bureaucracy flavor to a narrative that uses FTL communications technology to explore philosophical determinism. I was curious to read the Gardner Fox story “Tonight the Stars Revolt!” but it turned out to be pretty unexceptional sword and planet fare.

Women authors are conspicuous by their absence from this book, and the relatively late Harrison story is the only one with anything interesting to say about gender. The fault lies with Aldiss’s choices more than with what was written in the period. Leigh Brackett and C. L. Moore wrote many stories that would have suited this collection. The Poul Anderson story “Lord of a Thousand Suns” particularly struck me as perhaps Brackett-derivative. Anderson is also a repeat author from the previous volume, the only one to have two stories selected by Aldiss.

In its two books this anthology supplies a distinct perspective on Golden Age science fiction. It was notable to me that I had read none of these stories collected elsewhere. Still and all, I will be happy to turn my sfnal attention to more recent works after this excursion into an early phase of the genre.

Galactic Empires: Volume One

Hermetic Library Anthology Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Galactic Empires: Volume One [Amazon, Local Library] ed Brian W Aldiss.

Aldiss Galactic Empires Volume One

This anthology volume is made up of science fiction stories mostly from the third quarter of the 20th century (1951-1975). It is constructed around themes within the general space opera subgenre. Its four subsections are titled “A Sense of Perspective,” “Wider Still and Wider …,” “Horses in the Starship Hold,” and “The Health Service in the Skies.” The themes were not as coherently demonstrated as I would have liked, and the book got off to a shaky start with two weaker stories from authors I like: R. A. Lafferty and Arthur C. Clarke.

It was interesting to me to read the original Asimov “Foundation” story in the text first published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1942. Although it has been decades since I read the Foundation novel, one difference was obvious: Hari Seldon was not the pioneer of psychohistory, but simply “the greatest psychologist of our time” (96). I suspect some actual psychologists set Asimov straight regarding the aims and limitations of their discipline. The cliffhanger ending made this piece an odd inclusion here, though.

It had been a long while since I had read anything by Clifford Simak, and I found his longish story “Immigrant” to be one of the more enjoyable ones in the book. I also appreciated the rather naïve romp of Coppel’s “The Rebel of Valkyr,” even though its plot twist was telegraphed quite obviously. It offered better star wars than Star Wars. With some exceptions, I found the longer stories more deserving of my attention, and the shorter ones tended toward negligibility.

Representations of gender in these selections are often painfully dated, if not downright reactionary by today’s standards. There is only one female author included, and her story “Brightness Falls from the Air” is a mournful one about interracial exploitation.

I have a copy of Volume Two of this collection. The first volume was good enough that I expect to read the second, but not so cohesive that I feel any special urgency to do so.