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Non-Stop
Brian Aldiss started writing in the 1950s and is still going strong. His publications include several autobiographical works and a number of mainstream novels from which he is quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary over 100 times. Nevertheless, he is most widely known as an author of science fiction. In this field, he was an important contributor to the British New Wave of the late 1960s and has written influential works on the history of SF -- being credited with originating the now widely held view that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the progenitors of the genre. Despite the quantity and quality of his science fiction, his genre-crossing approach and an aversion to repeating himself make it difficult to view his work as a cohesive body.
Non-Stop was Aldiss' first science fiction novel. Like much 1950s SF it was first published as a magazine serial. The partwork structure shapes the novel and the exploration of the world which the characters inhabit. The first section describes life in the Greene Tribe, a society which has decayed from our own with a religion derived from Freud and Jung. The primary viewpoint character is a typical disaffected youth who runs away yet finds himself forced to take on great responsibility. He is one of a mismatched group which escapes the tribe's territory in search of fame and power in mythical places far from the corridors of their birth. Such a template has been a part of story telling since at least the time of Homer, yet here the central characters are far from heroic and learn almost everything the hard way. Each subsequent section broadens the scope and adjusts the focus of the story, gradually revealing the true nature and effect of the claustrophobic environs.
One potential problem with the book is the way in which much of the back story is recounted. The central characters find a diary and the reader is simply given a huge data dump. Many questions of history are answered, explaining for the reader's benefit how this world came to be, as the diary's author has a viewpoint much like our own. Rather than offering closure, the additional historical perspective generates new resonances in the plot. The information cannot be easily digested by the novel's protagonists. Neither can it solve the crises of the present; the satisfaction of intellectual understanding does not end mortal danger. The final portion of the book demonstrates the the use of this rediscovered knowledge but shows a world about to be remade as much by fire as order.
Non-Stop has a fearsome reputation and the setting must be familiar to many with a passing knowledge of science fiction. Some of the ideas within it have been reused in so many different ways that it is difficult to imagine in advance that this ancient text could be worth reading for any reason other than genre archaeology. However, it retains its place in many lists of great SF novels for better reason than nostalgia for the youth of the genre or author -- or reader. It is the extent to which the occupants have lost their context and the effects of regaining awareness of their history which gives this novel its lasting power. The book's revelations are not dulled by their apparent familiarity. There is much more to it than the clever use of what was then an original setting. The lasting strengths of Non-Stop are its awareness of the universal themes of human nature and its sharp writing.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
No, no, no... If you like Star Wars and technology, try E.E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" series. It was written at the height of the 1930's "space police" space opera and intentionally overwhelmed the others in scope and scale. If you think the Star Wars rebels are underdogs, you don't know Atlantis. If you think the Star Wars fleet battles are large and complex, you don't know fleet formation fighting. If you think planetary defenses are impressive, you don't know the difference between a negasphere and a planet's intrinsic velocity.