The Detached Retina

The Detached Retina
Brian Aldiss

A collections of anecdotes, reviews and essays, written with the humour and warmth one associates with Brian Aldiss.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 writings.The contents include a letter to Salvador Dali, Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, the work of Philip K. Dick, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, James Blish, Culture: Is it worth losing your balls for?and the differences between US and UK fantasy.

The Detached Retina

BY BRIAN ALDISS

Contents

Title Page (#u16bea973-0663-5c8e-bed1-ca8a1f6d6afd)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

THANKS FOR DROWNING THE OCELOT

‘A ROBOT TENDED YOUR REMAINS …’

The Advance of the Mega-machine

A NOTE

BETWEEN PRIVY AND UNIVERSE

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

THE IMMANENT WILL RETURNS—2

A WHOLE NEW CAN OF WORMS

SCIENCE FICTION’S MOTHER FIGURE

I

II

STURGEON: THE CRUELTY OF THE GODS

THE DOWNWARD JOURNEY Orwell’s 1984

PEEP

CULTURE

Is it Worth Losing Your Balls For?

WELLS AND THE LEOPARD LADY

Lecture delivered at the International Wells Symposium

THE ADJECTIVES OF ERICH ZANN

A Tale of Horror

JEKYLL

ONE HUMP OR TWO

Lecture given at the IAFA Conference of the Fantastic

KAFKA’S SISTER

CAMPBELL’S SOUP

SOME EARLY MEN IN THE MOON

KALIYUGA, OR UTOPIA AT A BAD TIME

Talk given at the Annual MENSA meeting in Cambridge

UTOPIA: DREAM OR PIPE DREAM?

THE ATHEIST’S TRAGEDY REVISITED

THE PALE SHADOW OF SCIENCE

Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science

DECADENCE AND DEVELOPMENT

THE VEILED WORLD

A Lecture given to the Oxford Psychotherapy Society

A PERSONAL PARABOLA

Speech delivered at the Natwest Fundación, Madrid

About the Author

Also part of The Brian Aldiss Collection

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#u2be261e9-644b-552a-8704-51109a847daa)