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The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s
Brian Aldiss
Volume one takes us from his very first story – A Book in Time, published in The Bookseller in 1954 and never seen again until now – right up to his establishment as a major new voice in science fiction by the end of that decade.As he enters his 89th year this is a long-overdue retrospective of the career of one of the most acclaimed science fiction writers of all time, and a true literary legend.This ebook was updated on 6 October 2014 to include three stories missing from the earlier version.
The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s
BY BRIAN ALDISS
The Friday Project An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013
Copyright © Brian Aldiss 2013
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Brian Aldiss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
FIRST EDITION
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007482085
Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 9780007482092
Version: 2014-10-03
We are indebted to the following individuals who provided rare source materials: Jim Linwood, Richard Fidczuk and Phil Stephensen-Payne.
Contents
Title Page (#u7affc8fa-e422-5cd7-a7df-270c3aa15bb7)
Copyright (#u77e4c8d2-849b-59c4-b201-4539d00bf793)
Dedication (#u9f40cd0d-6c57-5bec-a922-5c4f3cd11e4e)
A Book in Time
Criminal Record
Breathing Space
The Great Time Hiccup
Not for an Age
Our Kind of Knowledge
Outside
Panel Game
Pogsmith
Conviction
Dumb Show
The Failed Men
Non-Stop
Psyclops
T
There is a Tide
Tradesman’s Exit
With Esmond in Mind
The Flowers of the Forest
Gesture of Farewell
The Ice Mass Cometh
Let’s Be Frank
No Gimmick
The War Millennia
The Sterile Millennia
The Dark Millennia
The Ultimate Millennia
The Shubshub Race
Supercity
Judas Danced
Ten-Storey Jigsaw
The Pit My Parish
Blighted Profile
Who Can Replace A Man?
The Carp That Once …
Carrion Country
Equator
Fourth Factor
The Megalopolis Millennia
The Star Millennia
The Mutant Millennia
The New Father Christmas
Ninian’s Experiences
Poor Little Warrior!
Sector Diamond
Sight of a Silhouette
They Shall Inherit
Are You An Android?
The Arm
The Bomb-Proof Bomb
Fortune’s Fool
Intangibles, Inc.
Sector Yellow
The Lieutenant
The Other One
Safety Valve
The Towers of San Ampa
Three’s a Cloud
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Brian Aldiss
About the Publisher
A Book in Time (#ua815ad74-2779-5bdb-b562-676a2205949e)
I was browsing in Albert’s, down Cecil Court, when I saw another customer slipping books under his coat. Indignation high, I made a grab at him, but he had seen my glance and was out of the shop before you could say ‘Limited signed edition’.
I followed hot-foot (crepes always do that to me). Luckily, he did not run far. He had something that looked to my wild glance like a car, hidden behind a pile of crates in a hotel yard. As I jumped on to the running board, I realised it was a queer make. It had no steering wheel, no driving wheels. A publisher? The wild thought flashed through my head, and then my quarry at the dashboard flipped a lever …
London was gone! At least, the old one had disappeared. It simply blurred and vanished, and a new one of smooth stone and metal took its place. We seemed not to have moved. I was bowled over; indeed, when the fugitive opened his door, I was knocked over.
‘Never impede a passing time machine,’ he said, helping me up.
‘Time machine?’ I queried. Could that really be the hideous explanation of the strangeness around about me?
‘What year is this?’ I asked.
‘2054,’ he said.
‘You’re sure your watch isn’t fast?’
‘Look friend, I’ve got no time for jokes. I’ve got just an hour off duty to snatch some lunch, and then I must be back into the past again. Goodbye.’
By the time I had come out of the nearest thing a non-yogi gets to a trance, he had gone. I was stranded a century into the future! To think that a love of law and order should result in this, when I had only meant to pop out of the bank for five minutes. And what would they say there if I did not return? ‘He said he’d be back in no time.’ How right they were!
Abruptly my misery vanished. My time traveller had said he was coming back in an hour! Then I was saved – I had an hour, just an hour, to look around in. Immediately I was filled with a thousand curiosities, but I knew there was time to gratify only one.
What to do? Go to the bank and check if I ever got on to the board? Slip into the nearest library and look up racing records, so that I could be sure of winning the 1954–64 Derbys? Have a peep into the Tate and see if anyone ever got round to enjoying Picasso? Or just stand and talk to someone, anyone, in the street, and see what changes, if any, human nature had undergone?
I stood there blankly, uncertain of my strange surroundings. Perhaps the bank, the library, the Tate had all long since gone. I tried to think of somewhere that would beyond doubt still be in existence.
I hailed a passer-by in blue nylon.
‘Foyles?’ I prompted.
He pointed up the street. ‘Ruddy bookworm,’ he muttered. Evidently human nature was much the same.
