Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works

You can get a site directory by clicking on the “hamburger” icon () in the upper right of this page.
Or you can search this site with Google (standard Google-search rules apply).
(Be aware that “sponsored” links to other sites will appear atop the actual results.)

Search term(s):

Trillion Year Spree: Available Copies

The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Pages Unmarked. Tanning, Covers Moderately Worn. Stress Ines On Spine. Binding Square & Firm. Not Ex-Library.

Brian W. Aldiss?s Trillion Year Spree is a history of science fiction with the brakes removed, which is probably the only sensible way to approach a genre that has spent two centuries refusing to remain in its assigned drawer. It begins with Mary Shelley, because all respectable arguments about science fiction eventually return to a young woman inventing modern technological dread while everyone else was busy being Romantic near a lake, and then it barrels onward through monsters, machines, planets, futures, catastrophes, utopias, pulp magazines, literary feuds, chrome-plated hopes and several kinds of cosmic embarrassment. Aldiss had already written Billion Year Spree , but apparently a billion years was not enough spree for the subject, so here we are at a trillion, which feels about right for a field where a short story can begin with a laboratory accident and end with the heat death of the universe. This revised and expanded account, written with David Wingrove, takes science fiction seriously while fully understanding that seriousness in SF often arrives wearing a silver jumpsuit and carrying a ray gun with questionable ergonomics. This is not just a parade of spaceships. Aldiss goes rummaging through the origins, arguments and mutations of the genre: Gothic horror, scientific romance, Wells, Verne, American pulp, golden-age machinery, New Wave experiments, dystopias, space opera, social speculation, literary ambition and the eternal question of whether science fiction wants to be respectable or would rather stay up late drawing tentacles on the furniture. The result is part history, part criticism, part family argument, and part long, affectionate inspection of a genre forever trying to evolve faster than its readers can shelve it. The great pleasure is that Aldiss writes from inside the beast. He is not some visiting professor tapping the glass and asking whether the Martians are symbolic. He knows the magazines, the writers, the movements, the quarrels, the triumphs and the nonsense. He can admire science fiction?s imagination while also noticing its bad habits, its tin ears, its grand claims, its magnificent failures and its occasional tendency to mistake scale for depth. Galaxies are all very well, but someone still has to write the sentence. For the science fiction reader, this is a map of the territory with the swamp monsters left in. It explains where the genre came from, how it argued with itself, how it escaped the nursery of pulp and began demanding adult furniture, and why the literature of tomorrow so often looks suspiciously like the anxieties of whatever decade wrote it. Every age builds the future it deserves, which is unfortunate, but at least it gives critics something to do. Good copy, as sold by Crappy Old Books. A solid Gollancz volume from the days when science fiction history still had enough confidence to measure itself in geological absurdity. Ideal for anyone whose shelves already contain robots, ruined cities, alien empires, prophetic warnings and at least one paperback with a cover that cannot be explained in daylight.

First UK paperback edition. Small thick octavo, pp 688, a few illustrations, the pages are very slightly age-toned, paperback, the covers very slightly worn, the spine a little creased.

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Shelf and handling wear to cover and binding, with general signs of previous use. CLEAN CONTENT PAGES. SEE PHOTOS FOR MORE INFORMATION. Secure packaging for safe delivery.

"First published in Great Britain 1986" on its copyright page, and publisher's original "£15.00" price on its jacket's front flap. Per ISFDB, this Gollancz UK edition preceded the Atheneum US edition by one month, so is the true first edition (if it matters to you.) This book is in near fine condition, marred only by bumps on its spine ends. Its binding is sound and square, with no spine crease. Covers are unmarked and otherwise unworn, with bright gilt titles on its spine. Pages are unmarked and unworn. Its dust jacket, now protected by a removable mylar cover, is also in near fine condition: whole, bright, and unmarked, with some traces of edge wear, but otherwise unworn. I will ship this book in a moisture proof zip-loc bag, padded in bubble cushion, inside a sturdy box to assure it reaches its new owner in the same condition as my description.

Signed/annotation by David Wingrove. Reading content is in clean and readable condition. Slight shelfwear to dust jacket.

Trillion Year Spree by Brian W. Aldiss (First Edition) Gollancz File Copy A firm square copy with minor bumping to corner tips. Moderate edge wear. Not price-clipped.

Reading content is in clean and readable condition. Slight shelfwear to book.

First UK edition hardcover signed by Aldiss to the title page. Textblock slightly toned else tight and square. In fine DJ in mylar. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 544 pages; Signed by Author

III,511 S. u. Abb. auf Taf., Gr.-8°, OLwd. im OSchuber Erstausgabe. Vorzugsausgabe in 100 (gesamt 126) num. Exemplaren mit Signatur des engl. Science Fiction-Autors (1925-2017) und seines Co-Autors Wingrove. ExLibris.

Signed by both Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove. Limited edition, No. 61 of 100 numbered copies. Hard cover, in very good condition with black card slip case in good condition. Light shelfwear to case, occasional minor blemishes present. Rear board has two tiny catches to the cloth covering, otherwise boards are in fine condition. Within, the content is 'as new'. CN

Very Good. Dust Jacket may NOT BE INCLUDED.CDs may be missing. SHIPS FROM MULTIPLE LOCATIONS.