Title: Starswarm
Title Record # 30905
Author: Brian W. Aldiss
Date: 1964-01-00
Type: COLLECTION
Language: English
Current Tags: None Add Tags
Author: Brian W. Aldiss
Date: 1964-01-00
Type: COLLECTION
Language: English
Note: A number of the short stories in this fix-up originally appeared in the 1963 collection ''The Airs of Earth''.
Synopsis: Adapted from Joseph Milicia's Introduction to the Gregg Press edition: As everyone knows, it is customary for writers to gather previously published stories into books, in pursuit of larger artistic schemes or simply of larger sales... The most memorable volumes as volumes are usually novel-like in some way, as when the stories have a continuing cast of characters in a more or less chronological sequence... or at least a common setting (in science fiction, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, 1950...). Somewhat more unusual are volumes with connecting passages: new material to give a framework to the original tales, at best creating an organic whole, at worst gluing the tales together like an album of photographs with captions... In SF, probably the best known volume is Clifford D. Simak's City (1952), in which the links purport to be scholarly analyses of a collection of "ancient tales...
Brian Aldiss early in his career produced two volumes of stories with frameworks — they were called "chronicle-novels" by his publisher, Signet. Aldiss comments on the first: "I was ambitious early in my career, and soon began to compose stories which would fit roughly into a millenia-long plan for the future, to create a giant perspective. The result ran to about 110,000 words, which my British and American publishers (Faber and Signet) then regarded as far too long for an SF book. It contained about fourteen stories embodied in connecting narrative. Signet loved the connecting narrative and asked to drop some stories; Faber preferred the stories. So the two hooks [The Canopy of Time, Faber, 1959, and Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, Signet, 1960; Gregg Press, 1977] resulted. I always liked Galaxies Like Grains of Sand the better, believing that the narrative strengthened the stories."
Starswarm, on the other hand, originally "was just a collection of tales," and published as such by Faber as The Airs of Earth: "Signet, however, thought the title unadventurous and wanted me to try what they called another "chronicle-novel", to follow up the success of Galaxies Like Grains of Sand. Well, I saw the attractions and was modestly pleased with the results; but here was the case of commercial considerations dictating the shape of the volume.... I altered bits of the stories to fit their procrustian bed."
All the same, despite its commercial origin, the Starswarm framework, like that of Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, is of some interest in itself; and while the volume as a whole may be less organically conceived than Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, it is a much finer collection of stories."
User Rating:
This title has no votes.
VOTE
Current Tags: None Add Tags
Other Titles
Variant Titles | Translations | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Publications
Displaying all variants and translations • Do not display translations • Do not display variants or translations
Title | Date | Author/Editor | Publisher/Pub. Series | ISBN/Catalog ID | Price | Pages | Format | Type | Cover Artist | Verif |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Starswarm | 1964-01-00 | Brian Aldiss | Signet / New American Library | D2411 | $0.50?$: US dollar |
159 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | ||
Starswarm | 1964-01-00 | Brian Aldiss | Signet / New American Library of Canada | D2411 | C$0.50?C$: Canadian dollar |
159 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | ||
Sterrenhoop | 1968-00-00 | Brian Aldiss | Meulenhoff (M=SF #11) | 11 | ƒ2.90 | 223 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | Frank Stoovelaar , Ruurd Groot | |
Der Sternenschwarm | 1968-07-00 | Brian W. Aldiss | Heyne (Heyne Science Fiction & Fantasy #3124) | 3124 | DM 2.40?DM: German (Deutsche) mark |
159+ [1] |
pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | Frank Kelly Freas | |
Starswarm | 1971-00-00 | Brian Aldiss | Signet / New American Library | T4558 | $0.75?$: US dollar |
159 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | ||
Starswarm | 1976-00-00 | Brian Aldiss | Signet / New American Library of Canada | Y6883 | C$1.25?C$: Canadian dollar |
159 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | ||
Starswarm | 1978-06-00 | Brian Aldiss | Gregg Press | 0-8398-2408-4 | $9.00?$: US dollar |
xvi+ 159 |
hc?Hardcover. Used for all hardbacks of any size. |
coll | ||
Starswarm | 1979-00-00 | Brian Aldiss | Panther / Granada | 0-586-04991-6 | £0.95?£: UK pound |
190 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | ||
Starswarm | 1985-00-00 | Brian Aldiss | Panther / Granada | 0-586-04991-6 | £1.95?£: UK pound |
190 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | Vincent Di Fate | |
Starswarm | 1985-12-00 | Brian W. Aldiss | Baen Science Fiction Books | 0-671-55999-0 | $2.95?$: US dollar |
246 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | Joe Bergeron | |
Starswarm | 1985-12-00 | Brian W. Aldiss | Baen Science Fiction Books | 0-671-55999-0 | C$3.95?C$: Canadian dollar |
246 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | Joe Bergeron | |
Starswarm | 1990-08-00 | Brian Aldiss | VGSF (VGSF Classics #45) | 0-575-04182-X | £3.50?£: UK pound |
190 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll | Image Bank | |
Starswarm | date unknown | Brian Aldiss | Signet / New American Library | Y6883 | $1.25?$: US dollar |
159 | pb?Paperback. Typically 7" by 4.25" (18 cm by 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. |
coll |
Reviews
- Review by P. Schuyler Miller (1964) in Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction, June 1964
- Review by Robert Silverberg (1964) in Amazing Stories, August 1964
- Review by David G. Hartwell [as by Dave Hartwell] (1971) in Locus, #100 November 11, 1971
- Review by Thomas A. Easton [as by Tom Easton] (1986) in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, August 1986
- Review by Helen McNabb (1991) in Paperback Inferno, #89
- Review by Bruce Gillespie (1992) in SF Commentary, #71/72