Brian Aldiss Equator (1958)
Where unfamiliar Brian Aldiss paperbacks sat crumbling on the shelves of second hand stores are concerned, my rule of thumb has generally been to buy the novels but ignore the short story collections, because while the man wrote some amazing novels, the short fiction occasionally borders on unreadable. Equator comprises a couple of novellas, therefore resisting easy classification by length and so presenting something of a dilemma, but I bought it anyway because I liked the cover and didn't want to spend the rest of my life wondering whether I'd missed out on something incredible.
Unfortunately, Equator - which occupies the first two thirds of the book - is mostly crap and should probably be regarded as an unusually long short story. It's a Bond-style spy thriller in which some dude endures a wearying series of inconsequential scrapes and close shaves in pursuit of - yawn - some microfilm which will potentially reveal the truth about some recently arrived alien race, specifically that we probably shouldn't trust them. It reads as though Brian had failed to sell the story to whoever was publishing Ian Fleming at the time, and made a few changes so as to adapt it to the needs of his existing audience. There's some exotic detail because whatever the hell happens is partially set in Indonesia, but it's not very interesting.
Thankfully, Segregation - which makes up the full count of pages - is a little more engaging. I've always said Aldiss is at his best when writing wacky environments, and although Segregation is really just one of those boy's jungle adventure tales transposed to an alien world, the biology invoked is of weirdness sufficient to ensure that Aldiss at least had fun writing it, as seems to have been the case.
Where unfamiliar Brian Aldiss paperbacks sat crumbling on the shelves of second hand stores are concerned, my rule of thumb has generally been to buy the novels but ignore the short story collections, because while the man wrote some amazing novels, the short fiction occasionally borders on unreadable. Equator comprises a couple of novellas, therefore resisting easy classification by length and so presenting something of a dilemma, but I bought it anyway because I liked the cover and didn't want to spend the rest of my life wondering whether I'd missed out on something incredible.
Unfortunately, Equator - which occupies the first two thirds of the book - is mostly crap and should probably be regarded as an unusually long short story. It's a Bond-style spy thriller in which some dude endures a wearying series of inconsequential scrapes and close shaves in pursuit of - yawn - some microfilm which will potentially reveal the truth about some recently arrived alien race, specifically that we probably shouldn't trust them. It reads as though Brian had failed to sell the story to whoever was publishing Ian Fleming at the time, and made a few changes so as to adapt it to the needs of his existing audience. There's some exotic detail because whatever the hell happens is partially set in Indonesia, but it's not very interesting.
Thankfully, Segregation - which makes up the full count of pages - is a little more engaging. I've always said Aldiss is at his best when writing wacky environments, and although Segregation is really just one of those boy's jungle adventure tales transposed to an alien world, the biology invoked is of weirdness sufficient to ensure that Aldiss at least had fun writing it, as seems to have been the case.
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