Customer Reviews

Report On Probability A

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This book, a minor masterpiece, is a clear demonstration that you can never take away from a work of art what you didn't bring to it. If your idea of "a science-fiction book" is lots of exploding spaceships, you're definitely in the wrong book here. A reader looking for the sorts of spaceship books (OK, not all exploding) that are Aldiss's more usual fare will react much like someone taking a swig of that they expect to be soda and finding it to be a vintage brut champagne: he or she will spit it out in disgust.

"Brut"--very dry--is in fact a good reference here. The tale slowly, with meticulous care, builds a haunting image of a world that, as Aldiss patiently limns it, we shift from seeing as our own to perceiving as some dreamlike, perhaps nightmare, variant of it. The shadowy, almost motiveless, slow-motion activities of the characters seem more and more opaque as events unfold.

That is not empty or pointless: the developing claustrophobic atmosphere reflects our own world in a distorted, but specifically distorted, way--it gives us to think of how and why our own world and lives differ from the empty gestures of the characters here--or, indeed, if at bottom they truly do. Are our own acts so deeply meaningful and rational as we like to think?

The book, having given us that strange, dark mirror, then goes off in new directions, about which one cannot say much without spoiling some of the effect.

All in all, this is not a summertime beach read, but if you bring to it patience and a willingness to go with the flow and ponder as you go, you can come away with some rewards.

I'm astonished that this book was re-printed in 2001. It was originally published in 1968 as some sort of weird avant-garde experiment.

Plot summary: Nothing happens. It is described in mind-numbingly tedious detail. You keep expecting something to happen, but here's the twist: nothing ever does.

Ha ha! Isn't that a great twist?

As you read you think to yourself, "Surely if I can get just a tiny bit further in the book, something will eventually happen. And that will make it all worth it." But nothing does. Eventually you start hating yourself for reading it and wondering why they even bothered. It sounds harsh but I'm really not joking. Search other reviews on the web.

Technically I've seen people say it's some kind of avant-garde new wave experimental thing. An "anti-novel". Maybe. I prefer to think of it as a sort of twisted practical joke. It's a funny joke on the publishers that they were suckered into publishing it, and it's equally funny that anyone actually bought this book thinking it might be a good read. And that's about all there is to say about it.

BTW, normally I quite like Aldiss' work. He's an old Grand Master of SF and both his writing and story collections are top-notch. This book may be an interesting specimen for collectors who want Aldiss' full set of work, or professors of literature interested in the "anti-novel". But there's no reason for any normal person to buy this book.

This is without a doubt the worst SF book I ever read. As a previous reviewer stated: It's a mind-numbingly tedious description of nothing happening. You keep thinking that the story will have a point but it never does. I felt so cheated at the end of the book that I literally threw it across the room in disgust.

The main points in this book could easily have been published as a short-story. There is not enough plot to justify a novel.

I normally like Aldiss's books, but this one made me swear off of him for quite a long time.