Non-stop [Hardcover]

BRIAN W. ALDISS (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1989

Science-Fiction

Product Details

• Hardcover: 182 pages
• Publisher: CARROL AND GRAF; First Carroll and Graf Edition edition (1989)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001OYXAHQ
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,317,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Aldiss' Answer to Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, January 6, 2001

By 

Randy Stafford (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Non-stop (Pan science fiction) (Paperback)

Written as response to Robert A. Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, a novel he felt lacking in emotion, Aldiss' novel is a classic generation starship tale.

The idea that their universe is the inside of a giant spaceship is known but derided in the Greene tribe. They're a barbarous lot. They destroy books whenever they find them. The Teaching, a Freudian inspired religion with its talk of id and ego, values full and immediate expression of fear and anger lest the repression of those emotions curdle into neurosis. A nomadic lot, they seal off the hallway they live in, moving the barricades when they exhaust the "ponics", plants that abound in the ship's corridors. Their power stems from a cache of weapons found two generations ago.

And protagonist Roy Complain is not happy with his life in the tribe. He gets flogged for losing his woman on a hunting expedition into the "deadways" beyond the tribes "Quarters". Chaffing under the Teaching and floggings of his tribe, Complain decides to accompany priest Marapper and three others through the deadways and to the land of the advanced people of Forwards. Marapper expects, somewhere, to find the ship's control room, seize control of the vessel, and end this painful journey through the stars.

In his wanderings, Complain learns the truth behind the other groups -- the mutants, the Outsiders, and the Giants -- rumored to inhabit the ship. Aldiss puts an ironic twist to the generation starship tale, particularly ORPHANS OF THE SKY, when he reveals the exact situation of the ship. By novel's end, Aldiss gives a detailed and ingenious explanation for Complain's world.

It's not necessary to read the Heinlein story, or any other generation starship tale, to appreciate this fine novel. Aldiss gives us believable emotion and, in Complain, a fine portrait of a man growing into a true knowledge of himself and his world.

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Starship" and "Non-Stop" - the same book, different editions, July 25, 2006

By 

Larry Gott (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Non-Stop (Paperback)

There is a review on Amazon that says that Aldiss's "Non-Stop" is a SEQUEL to his "Starship". Au Contraire! They are the same book, different editions. Starship was written and copywrited in 1958. Non-Stop was copywrited in 2000, most recently published in 2005.

On the back cover of Non-Stop, it says that "This...[is] Starship...updated for the twenty-first century."

Here is what Brian Aldiss says about the two books:

"For this new edition of an old favorite, I have made some alterations here and there. These occur on 48 pages [193 remain the same]. The adventure remains the same; the characters remain the same; the theme of an idea gobbling up real life remains the same. Only a few words have been changed. But of course a few words make all the difference."

-B.W.A.

So, don't do like I did and get both expecting Non-Stop to be a sequel. My first clue was that the two Table of Contents were exactly the same. Just thought you'd like to know.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic that still holds up well, February 14, 2010

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Non-Stop (Paperback)

For me, Brian Aldiss was one of a number of writers in the late fifties and early sixties who began remaking SF in response to what they correctly regarded as the low literary quality dominating the American SF magazines. Editor John W. Campbell, whose tastes dominated the aesthetics of the genre for decades, felt that strong literary qualities -- strong characterization, strong literary technique, and sophisticated dialogue -- detracted from the ideas that were supposed to be what SF was about, and only what it was about. Writers like John Brunner, Brian Aldiss, Keith Roberts, J. G. Ballard, and Michael Moorcock in Great Britain, Stanislaw Lem in Poland, and Philip K. Dick in the United States helped lift SF to something higher than it had been under the pioneering novels of Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein. As others have noted, Aldiss wrote this in response to Heinlein's ORPHANS IN THE SKY, but in its ambitions it was a rejection of the entire American school under Campbell's direction.

Not a great deal happens in this novel. The plot is rather simple, but it is a simple tale told well. The story focuses on Complain, who lives in a tribal structure on what we gradually learn is a spaceship. He and others break away from the tribal group to see what else there is outside the decks upon which they live. I won't ruin any of the story for those who have not yet to read it, but it is sufficient that what they discover is not what they anticipated. There are a host of wonderful twists and turns, marred only by an unconvincingly, unnecessary, and probably obligatory love story.

There are a couple of editions of this book, not just with different titles (STARSHIP versus NON-STOP). I've been able to look at both editions and there is actually very little difference between the two. Virtually all the differences between the two are alterations in proper names of minor characters, especially those in the captain's log that is read at one point in the book. I don't think that anyone wanting to read this should worry in the least about which edition they are reading. There are simply no substantive differences between the various versions.