The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s - Part 4 (The Brian Aldiss Collection)

I've recently been on the latest of my periodic science fiction kicks, which inevitably include finding new books and authors, and re-reading and re-discovering the greats. Back in the late Sixties in junior high I read my first Brian Aldiss. Most memorable is the short story collection "Who Can Replace a Man?" Later, in 1975, in college, I read "Barefoot in the Head" (1969), a bizarre Joycean novel about Europe following the Acid Head War and the dropping of PCA bombs (Psycho-Chemical Aerosols).When I found the recently published Complete Short Stories: The 1960s, I decided to start with the late Sixties. Little did I realize that this Part 4 (1967-1969) includes the short stories and novelettes that would be assembled to create the "fix-up novel" Barefoot in the Head! They were all originally published in "New Worlds," the British New Wave SF journal.The content of this 609-page book is excellent -- the stories are astonishingly inventive, and Aldiss is a great stylist. I dock it a star because it lacks any context or explanation for the stories. "The Night that All Time Broke Out," for instance, was originally published in Harlan Ellison's influential "Dangerous Visions" anthology. Aldiss did contribute a short introduction, but all he says about the stories is: "Most of these stories are fairly dark, glowing with gloom."If you had not read Barefoot in the Head, you might not realize that there are seven stories, including the two long novelettes, that are all linked in a continuous, albeit fragmented, narrative. Here they are, in what I think is chronological order, which is not the order you find them in here, out of order and all mixed in with the other stories:1) Just Passing Through2) Multi-Value Motorway3) Auto-Ancestral Fracture4) Still Trajectories5) The Serpent of Kundalini6) Drake-Man Route7) Ouspenski's AstrabahnTruth be told, I'm only sure about the first and last. It is a product of the Psychedelic Age!Aldiss served in Burma in WWII, and many of the stories are set in India. He is quite socially conscious, and clearly a liberal, but throughout his deep humanism shines, as well as his realistic view of human life, full of flaws and tragedy.Some I suppose may be drawn to the story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long," which was the basis for the Stephen Spielberg film "A.I." It is a good one, to be sure, but it's only eight pages long, and just the germ of the story in the film. Here it does not stand out at all among the 36 stories.Brian Aldiss was voted a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 2000 by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. These stories are certainly a testament to the top-level quality of his writing!