#Helliconia Spring

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23 books to Read in 2023

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Helliconia Spring: Classic Sci-fi Novel Review

Author: Brian W. Aldiss Publisher: Gollancz (my copy, in Helliconia) Country: UK Year: 1982 Planetary Romances are a thing well done by now, and even by ’82, we’d seen people try it. The grandaddy of it, springing to mind, is Herbert’s Dune novels, and the influence of Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom books, also on the subgenre, can’t be underestimated. Neither, it must be said, can the epic…

[theotherpages]

Helliconia Spring

Today's Dose of Nature

The Helliconia (Zebra Longwings) are thick in the yard this month. Our passion vines are growing well (favorite host plants) and the Firebush and Milkweed Vine and Spanish Needles provide plenty of nectar.

[arkadiandreams]

Sci-fi author Brian Aldiss sadly died a few days ago, shortly after his 92nd birthday. "Helliconia Spring" remains my favourite of his works; many years ago, when I was in the 5th year of secondary school (so, penultimate year before leaving), I used to doodle little hoxneys in the margins of my English schoolwork (to the bemusement of my English teacher). Hoxneys were these horse-like creatures that emerged from dormancy as the planet Helliconia warmed up, and they were described as being striped. I suppose it was meant they were striped like a tiger, but I always envisioned them as being somewhat like a toed version of a prehistoric horse, like merrychippus, with bright coloured stripes going down their backs. So, in honour of Brian Aldiss, I've drawn a hoxney in the style I used to do them.

[bogleech]

Hi, thank you for introducing me to Midworld!! I'm halfway through but it's quickly getting up there with Helliconia Spring as one of my favorite scifi books, well, ever

I'm realizing now how much more it must have influenced everything I make then I ever even realized, pretty much all my own settings are that sort of setup where anything, no matter how ordinary, can kill a foolish outsider in some unexpected way. It's just that in one setting I have that means actual monsters and in another setting I have that means stuff like lamps and chicken nuggets

[whattoreadnext]

ALDISS, Brian

British novelist (1925-2017)

For over 40 years Aldiss has been a major propagandist for British sf, editing anthologies, speaking at conventions and writing several non-fiction books including Billion Year Spree (revised version: Trillion Year Spree), a critical history of the genre. His own sf covers the whole range from space opera (e.g. Non-stop) to future catastrophe (e.g. Hothouse, about human life after a global catastrophe shrinks our race to two feet high), from philosophical fantasy (e.g. Frankenstein Unbound and Moreau's Other Island, extensions of themes from earlier sf masterpieces) to stories of alternative worlds (e.g. the Helliconia trilogy: see below). He is also known for non-sf novels. These range from a comic trilogy about the oversexed 1950s adolescent Horatio Stubbs (A Hand-reared Boy; A Soldier Erect; A Rude Awakening) to Life in the West, a Bellow-like book about the plight of a man who has made his reputation preaching science and technology as the salvation of humanity, and is now forced, by the disintegration of his own emotional life, to give his views more intimate analysis.

THE HELLICONIA TRILOGY  (1982-85) Helliconia is one of four planets which revolve round Batalix, itself a satellite of the giant star Freyr. Helliconia seasons last not for months but for hundreds of Earth years, and the planet is inhabited by two separate and incompatible races, one adapted to winter life, the other to summer. The three novels (Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter) explore the effects of Helliconia's enormous seasons, each long enough for whole civilisations to rise, flourish and die. Colonial wars, racism, ecology, the clash between religion, science and the arts, are underlying themes -- and all the time, Helliconia is observed: watching it provides entertainment, a blend of travel-documentary and soap-opera, for the bored inhabitants of Earth.

Aldiss' other sf books include Earthworks, The Saliva Tree, Barefoot in the Head, Enemies of the System, The Malacia Tapestry, Dracula Unbound, and a dozen story-collections including Starswarm, Cosmic Inferno and New Arrivals, Old Encounters. His non-sf novels include The Brightfount Diaries, The Primal Urge, The Male Response and Forgotten Life.

READ ON

The Dark Light Yeats

To the Helliconia books : Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

To Aldiss' SF in general : Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Saga Ray Bradbury, The Golden Apples of the Sun

To the Horatio Stubbs books : Leslie Thomas, The Virgin Soldiers

To Life in the West : John Fowles, Daniel Martin John Updike, Roger's Version

 more :Tags  Pathways  Themes & Places

[ultraclairedg]

The Helliconia Trilogy

As promised, this week is fantasy book week, and you get three for the price of one as it’s a trilogy – Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer and Helliconia Winter by Brian Aldiss.

The British author, Brian Aldiss is probably not an author many people have heard of unless you are very keen on science fiction and of a certain age, despite having won a number of accolades including  an OBE, two Hugo’s and a Nebula. But, you probably will have heard of Steven Speilberg’s film “A I Artificial Intelligence”, which was based on his short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”.

The Helliconia Trilogy is a series of books that could easily become the next big TV series and I really wish it would be picked up by a serious production company but until then I’ll just have to make do with reading the books over and over again. Yes, I have read them all many times over and each time I find something new in them.

The action takes place on the eponymous planet Helliconia, a planet with an extreme elliptical orbit around a binary star that causes its seasons to be very long and very extreme. This planet is inhabited by humans and another intelligent species – the Phagors (Ancipitals), a rather Minotaurean species. There is also a host of weird and wonderful creatures to be found there too, all described with such perfect style that you are drawn into the world and see it clearly.The first book starts just as the long, bitter winter is ending. Changes begin to take place in the flora and fauna, and also within the people themselves. Right from the start, we are introduced to the Phagors and realize the threat. The conflict between the two sentient species is constant and in the extreme climate life for human beings is cruel, violent and short.

(This is a Hurloon Minotaur from Magic:the Gathering, but it’s what I imagine a Phagor to look like)

This trilogy is not only about conflict and battles, though. Its strength lies in its detail and this is what draws the reader back again and again. The meticulous organization of the political and religious systems, the slow but inexorable changes brought about by the changing position of the planet, the micro and macro-biology, it’s all described with such scope of imagination that it is truly wonderful. Again, Wikipedia describes the books in detail but beware – lots of spoilers there if you do take up my suggestion and read the books.

Helliconia Spring was written in 1982 so anyone interested should be able to pick up cheap copy from Amazon and I can assure you it will be worth it. Read it and allow yourself to be transported to a world so alien, so different from our own. Allow yourself to fear the Phagors, to search for the fabled Oldorando, to push the Great Wheel.

You may have heard of a game called Helliconia which is loosly based on the books. I haven’t played it but it would seem that “loosely” is the operative term. Please read the books first.

Unfortunately, Brian Aldiss died in August at the age of 92. May he rest in peace.

[spacemerchants]

HELLICONIA SPRING // Brian Aldiss Cover // Tim Gill Triad Granada // 1983

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okay there are more but I might do a part 2...

[kjudgemental]

Helliconia Summer - Classic Sci-Fi Novel Review

Author: Brian W Aldiss Publisher: Gollancz (my copy, in Helliconia) Country: UK Year: 1983 The second part of the Helliconia trilogy sees the planet’s population progress from the medieval times to the early modern era. Taking up a far shorter span of time than it’s previous installment, Helliconia Spring, Summer is the height of warmth for the planet of Helliconia. It’s the time when kings…

[mickeslibrary]

Brian Aldiss: Helliconia vår 2 (Helliconia Spring). Cover by X. Delta, Sweden, 1986.

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[mickeslibrary]

Brian Aldiss: Helliconia vår 1 (Helliconia Spring). Cover by X. Delta, Sweden, 1986.