Release date: September 1, 2020
Subgenre: Nonfiction, Essay collection
About The Jonbar Point: Essays from SF Horizons:
The Jonbar Point collects, for the first time, two major essays on science fiction which Brian Aldiss published in the two issues of his and Harry Harrison’s critical journal SF Horizons. Christopher Priest contributes a new introduction.
“Judgement at Jonbar” (1964) is a lengthy analysis on several levels of Jack Williamson’s pulp-era classic The Legion of Time, which gave SF the term “jonbar point” – where alternative timelines diverge. This essay is described in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “one of the most penetrating studies yet written about a pulp-sf novel”.
“British Science Fiction Now: Studies of Three Writers” (1965) examines the work of the contemporary authors Lan Wright, Donald Malcolm and J.G. Ballard – treating the first two somewhat cruelly (though very entertainingly) and the third with measured admiration. This, based on his early work to 1965, was the first substantial critical study of the later very famous J.G. Ballard.
Brian Aldiss himself, one of the most distinguished SF authors of the twentieth century, should need no introduction. The Jonbar Point: Essays from SF Horizons is published by permission of The Estate of Brian Aldiss.
Excerpt:
From the Introduction by Christopher Priest
These two essays reveal Brian Aldiss in his prime. They were first published more than half a century ago in SF Horizons, a short-lived critical magazine edited and published by Aldiss and Harry Harrison. At this point in his career Aldiss had established a formidable reputation for his fiction. He was still under 40 years of age. His novels then included Non-Stop, Hothouse and Greybeard, and he had already written and published dozens of short stories. In 1958 he received a unique plaque from the 16th World Science Fiction Convention, naming him the most promising new author of the year; Hothouse won a Hugo Award in 1962; a story, “The Saliva Tree”, was awarded a Nebula in 1965 for best novella of the year.
The two sole issues of SF Horizons appeared in 1964 and 1965, but these essays, both given prominent position in the magazine, were never included later in any of Aldiss’s several books of critical writing. They are therefore not widely known outside the long-ago readership of the magazine, even though because of the quality of the arguments they have had a lasting underground influence on SF criticism. The naming of the “Jonbar Point” – the event or moment in which the course of history might be changed – was first adumbrated here.
Both essays should certainly be read more widely – they reverberate with ideas, insights and fine critical analysis. Quite apart from anything else, they are energetically written from a position of caring knowledge, and are hugely enjoyable to read.
Why did Aldiss never collect them?
Their length probably counted against them: they are both in the region of 12,000 words in length. And I wonder if Aldiss had second thoughts about some of what he had written?
The first essay, “Judgement at Jonbar”, is an exhilarating and insightful analysis of a fast-moving extravaganza, The Legion of Time by Jack Williamson. This is a short novel written originally in the late 1930s, a three-part serial in Astounding Science-Fiction. Astounding was of course an American pulp magazine, perhaps the most important of the time. The edition of Legion which Brian Aldiss was reading was a British paperback from Digit Books, published in 1961, copyrighted in 1952.
It was the sort of science fiction that Aldiss, in other moods, saw as something to which he was rather in opposition, or was working to encourage others to evolve away from. His critical writing was usually concerned with supporting modern science fiction, the unparalleled diversity he saw within the field, the opportunities he knew it could present to ambitious and serious writers. Jack Williamson, a hard-working and successful writer, was of the old school: his books were intelligent but aimed commercially at a popular audience. In the mid-1960s the New Wave revolution was questioning many of the conservative values represented by the pulp tradition. Aldiss himself was a prominent and articulate contributor to that debate.
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About Brian Aldiss:
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE (1925 - 2017) was an English author of
both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian
W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction
pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss was a vice-president of the international H.
G. Wells Society. He was also co-president of the
Birmingham Science Fiction Group. His writings have been compared to
those of Isaac Asimov, Greg Bear and Arthur C. Clarke. His influential
works include Greybeard, Hothouse, the Helliconia trilogy, Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction as well as the short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”, the
basis for the Stanley Kubrick-developed Steven Spielberg film A.I.
Artificial Intelligence.
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