The Detached Retina - by Brian W Aldiss (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this fascinating collection of essays, one of the world's preeminent science fiction writers explores a wide range of science fiction and fantasy writers and writings. The contents and themes include a letter to Salvador Dali . . . Mary Shelley and Frankenstein . . . the Immanent Will and Olaf Stapledon . . . the work of Philip K. Dick . . . Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon . . . Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four . . . James Blish . . . Culture: Is it Worth Losing Your Balls For? . . . Wells and the Leopard Lady . . . H. P. Lovecraft's 'The Music of Erich Zann' . . . Jekyll . . . the differences between United States and United Kingdom fantasy . . . Anna Kavan as 'Kafka's Sister' . . . Campbell's Soup (Astounding Science Fiction under the editorship of John Wood Campbell) . . . science fiction's relationship to science and literature in general.

From the Back Cover

We devotees of SF enjoy its diversity of opinion, the bustle of bright and dark, the clash of progress and entropy, the clamour of theories about the past, the future, the ever-present present, everything. In this fascinating collection of essays, one of the world's pre-eminent SF writers explores a wide range of SF and fantasy writers and writing.

About the Author

Brian Aldiss is that rare phenomenon among writers, a critic as well as a major creative force, whose contemporary novels as well as his science fiction have met with great success. This present volume may be considered as a continuation of the discourse presented in Billion Year Spree and Trillion Year Spree (written with David Wingrove). Its scope is wide, its tone humane rather than academic.