Helliconia Spring

Helliconia #1

by Brian W. Aldiss

A planet orbiting binary suns, Helliconia has a Great Year spanning three millennia of Earth time: cultures are born in spring, flourish in summer, then die with the onset of the generations-long winter.

Helliconia is emerging from its centuries-long winter. The tribes of the equatorial continent emerge from their hiding places and are again able to dispute possession of the planet with the ferocious phagors. In Oldorando, love, trade and coinage are being rediscovered,

This is the first volume of the Helliconia Trilogy -- a monumental saga that goes beyond anything yet created by this master among today's imaginative writers.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Space Opera, Audiobook

429 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Pseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.

Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.

Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

Helliconia - British author Brian Aldiss' superb creation, science fiction worldbuilding comparable to Frank Herbert's Dune, or, if you like, in the world of fantasy, comparable to J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.

Helliconia Spring - the first volume in the trilogy. The other two volumes are Helliconia Summer and Helliconia Winter.

Take a look at the below diagram. Helliconia is a planet revolving around its sun Batalix as Batalix revolves around larger sun Frayr in an elliptical orbit. The consequence of Helliconia being either closer to or more distant from Frayr results in a particular season - spring, summer, winter - lasting for centuries. This Frayr-Batalix binary sun solar system is within our Milky Way but thousands of light years away.



Survival on Helliconia centers around the Darwinian struggle for supremacy between humans and phagors. A word on each species:

Humans, sort of
Unlike humans on Earth where you are either alive or dead, on Helliconia, once humans leave their bodies, they descend into a pitch-black realm to become first gossies and then with the passage of more time, fessups. All living humans can communicate with the gossies when they, the living humans, enter a trance state called pauk.

Phagors
Built like big, powerful professional wrestlers, phagors walk human-style on their two hind legs and speak their own language. Phagor heads are like mountain goats with two lethal horns; shaggy white fur and antifreeze-like blood make phagors impervious to the bitter cold. Phagoes fight ferociously with swords and spears; phagors take humans as slaves and some phagors ride huge horse-like beasts called kaidaws.



Climate
Alas, in many critical ways, there's a third major player in the cycles of life on Helliconia: the weather itself. Can you imagine what the planet must be like during those hundreds of years of Siberia-like subzero ice and snow? And how about those other hundreds of years when Helliconia moves closer to Fraya and the surface of the planet turns into tropical jungles and scorching deserts? Then there are those hundreds of transitional spring-like years where summer-dominating humans and winter-dominating phagors continually battle it out.

Brian Aldiss builds the world of Helliconia Sping methodically, in carefully elaborated detail over the course of 450 pages. This to say, the novel requires a bit of time and energy but once I began to immerse myself in Aldiss' creation, I gladly returned to the book again and again. As part of his worldbuilding, Aldiss explores myth and religion, anthropology and sociology, landscape and architecture, gender and class.

Helliconia Spring begins with an extensive Prelude where we follow Yuri, a young hunter from a tribe of hunters (think of Jean M. Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear) as he makes his way to the city of Pannoval, a city having much in common with one of our first prehistoric cities along the banks of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia.

"He breathed deep as he got his first sight of Pannoval.
Ahead was a great cliff, so steep that no snow clung to it. In the cliff face was carved an enormous representation of Akha the Great One. Akha squatted in a traditional attitude, knees near his shoulders, arms wrapped round his knees, hands locked palms upward, with the sacred flame of life in his palms. His head was large, topped with a knot of hair. His half-human face struck terror into a beholder. There was awe even in his cheeks. Yet his great almond eyes were bland, and there was serenity as well as ferocity to be read in that upturned mouth and those majestic eyebrows.
Beside his left foot, and dwarfed by it, was an opening in the rock. Yuri saw that this mouth was itself gigantic, possibly three times taller than a man."



Yuri remains in Pannoval and even subjects himself to rigorous training in order to become one of the city's priests. But you just can't keep a hunter tribesman down - forever his own man and a lover of freedom, Yuri sickens of the whole domesticated rule-bound society and his role as priest. Along with three companions, Yuri flees the city, ventures forth across mountains and planes to establish the priest-free community of Oldorando.

The bulk of Aldiss' novel picks up 50 years later in Oldorando. Yuri is long dead but the men and women still live mostly in The Clan of the Cave Bear-style until, decades later, new discoveries and innovations transform Oldorando into a medieval-like village complete with guilds and tradespeople, new fabrics and fashions, writing and books, even an academy of science run by women.

Every week Helliconia undergoes a further winter thaw. Ah, springtime! Although one could write a short book on all the happenings, I'll simply bullet the following to serve as a taste test:

Flora and Fauna
Many species of our animals and plants are found in Helliconia, including pigs and sheep, boars and dogs, geese and blackbirds, bats, lice and mosquitoes. Additionally, a number of unique creatures roam the land such as a giant worm with wings.

Social Strata
Oldorando has its leaders and lieutenants, hunters and craftsmen, and there are also slaves, not only humans (usually captured from outlining tribes) but as the phagors take human slaves, so humans have their phagor slaves. In Oldorando, there's old Myk, a phagor that has never known freedom, a phagor taken captive by humans at birth. Among Myk's duties through the years once he reached maturity: giving human children rides on his big, broad furry back.

Space Station Observatory
Halfway through the novel, we discover there are researchers from Earth orbiting Helliconia in an enormous space station called Avernus. As much as the researchers on board would love to go down to the planet's surface, even pay a visit to Oldorando (wouldn't that be fun!), unfortunately, such a trip would be a death-sentence since our immune system could never handle deadly Helliconian microbes.

Meanwhile, Back on Planet Earth
All of the information about Helliconian life is transmitted back to Earth - including actual photos and film footage of human interaction within Oldorando and phagors riding across the planes. Universities compile encyclopedias; theaters show Helliconia feature films; computer programmers create entertaining games (natch) simulating all aspects of Helliconian life - one blockbuster: battles between humans and phagors.

The Big Picture
Of course, the prime question looms: will humans accumulate enough knowledge and recorded history so when the next cycle unfolds and Helliconian Winter turns into the next Helliconian Spring, humans can benefit from the previous spring's accomplishments. In other words, will humans learn from the past or must they begin again at Clan of the Cave Bear cultural ground zero? So exciting. I'm all set to find out in Helliconia Summer and Helliconia Winter. Who knows, maybe the Helliconian humans might even have some help from Earth humans. If so, then those monstrous phagors are in for a big shock.


British author Brian Aldiss, 1925-2017

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is ambitious, having a great premise, and Aldiss obviously put a lot of effort into it. I've read his Trillion Year Spree which was basically an master-class overview of SF in general, so I appreciate what he's done here a bit more than I would have coming in cold.

So what is it? This huge, sprawling, many year epic of Helliconia?

Loooong seasons, very much in the same tune as the later-written GRRM books -- even including his contemporary SF with the same concept, Dying of the Light -- but Aldis takes it a bit further. He explores a vast human culture growing on an alien world that is rising out of its long winter slumber.

I want to love everything about it more than I do. Indeed, if I had read it when I was much younger, I probably would have been knocked over by it. The amount of worldbuilding is amazing, the nordic feel engaging, the alien beasties reminding me a lot of Pern without the OTT aspects, and exploration of cultural and intellectual shift really got me going.

So what didn't I love?

Mostly the characters and the somewhat lacking plot. It's great in concept but not nearly as engaging as I would have loved. GRRM really put a pin the characters, for example. Aldis obviously had a lot going for himself and I will definitely give this the props it deserves, but it will never be one of those life-changing books, alas. Still amazing, however, with tons of effort and worldbuilding. I just wish... yes, well, I wish it was more.

I'll be continuing on, however, with the trilogy. This is the rise, after all. I'll want to see the human culture hit its summer... and then return to winter.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess I am joining the chorus of voices who express frustration if not outright disappointment with this book. Aldiss has written several sf novels that are among my favorites -- Hot House, Greybeard, The Dark Light Years -- and I was looking forward to this trilogy. But as other reviewers tend to point out, if you glance at the reader responses to all three books, the number or respondents drops book by book. Helliconia Spring, although it certainly has its fans, I found to be pretty rough going.

Aldiss has meticulously imagined his Ice Age world facing the coming of a thaw that occurs only every 1000 years or so. The planet Helliconia is part of a binary star system. It's short year around Batalix is 400 plus days, but Batalix carries Helliconia with it in orbit around Freyr in a year the equivalent of 2592 earth years. Few Helliconians ever witness a change of season, and those changes are so separated in time that knowledge of them and their consequences is either lost or the subject of legend. The coming of Spring causes some forces in Olderando, the novel's main setting, to entrench themselves in old ways while others, especially a group of women, throw themselves into the pursuit of knowledge that will make sense of their changing world. That world is threatened by Phagors, creatures like mean Chewbaccas that are primordial enemies of humans, the societal changes that increased population and mobility bring, and a virus activated by the warming climate.

Scientists from Earth survey these changes from an orbiting space station called the Avernus. (Why is this space station named after the entry to the underworld from Roman mythology?) I was curious to know more about what was going on with the Earth scientists, but I did not wish another 100 pages added to this already long novel. But Aldiss uses their presence to establish with one elegant scene just what a "long game" he is playing. The Avernus has orbited Helliconia for centuries if not longer. Technology on the ship allows the observers to follow in detail the developments among the various races and even particular people on the planet. They beam them back to earth, and these broadcasts are watched by millions is specially built theaters. But because of the time involved in sending the broadcasts, this futuristic form of reality TV takes place a thousand years after the events themselves. The long dead broadcasters and protagonists are entertaining multitudes who were centuries away from existence when these event took place. Aldiss is concerned with storytelling on a cosmic scale.

If only the story was a bit more engaging. The characters' fates are sealed by the climactic changes they cannot comprehend. I am not inclined to pick up another 400 page book to witness what I can only imagine will be approximately the same fate unfurl for a new set of Helliconians.

[Paul Christensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of a planet with seasons lasting centuries was also used by the ‘Game of Thrones’ writer, but to feebler effect than the epic Helliconia trilogy.

Although I suspect Brian Aldiss to be an atheist who regards gods as manifestations of ‘natural forces’ or something of the kind, and his invented religions are interesting but flawed, his extremely vivid worldbuilding is successful largely thanks to his deep studies in biology. Who can forget the creatures that populate Helliconia: hoxneys, yelk, protohumans, and of course the phlegmatic phagors? All highly convincing.

The ’Spring’ book is probably the best of the three because the sense of change and an open future is so intensely rendered.

A hugely enjoyable saga.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series proves Aldiss' ability at world building and that he's not just good at writing short stories and novella's. Throughout this series (and even this book) characters come and go but the real story is that of the Planet Helliconia itself as the annual cycle of life is followed through from Spring to Winter. That's a larger prospect than it sounds given that one Helliconian year is equivalent to 2500 Earth years.

Human civilisation rises and falls in the space of a Helliconian year when the monstrous Phagors become the dominant species during the winter. Observers from Earth watch silently from above in an orbital space station, forbidden from interfering for their own safety because of their vulnerability to the viruses that they have no immunity to. Slowly throughout the series the way the life cycles of the variety of life forms on the planet interact in a symbiotic way to assure their mutual survival is revealed. Nature imposes a harsh but necessary routine upon the inhabitants of Helliconia.

This really is a masterpiece but it is slow going and one must be prepared to realise that the characters are not the central focus of the books.

~ After a re-read in 2019 ~

I very much enjoyed revisiting this and was relieved that It was as good as I remember it. One might be left wondering what happened to some of the central characters of the story and it seems to end rather abruptly with some plot lines left unresolved. But this is in keeping with the general fact that these books are not really about the individual human characters and their lives but rather the gradually unravelling story of the great cycle of life on Helliconia.

I still think this is a masterpiece of SF.

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea is nice - supposing a year was a thousand times as long? But I found the book a bit too slow, and got bored. I finished it, but never read Summer and Winter.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic, compelling work that manages to be at once a study of a bizarre alien world with entirely different conditions than ours, an epic drama of several generations struggling to survive in it, and of all things, a bloody reality television show.

It's rather a slog at times, but still, it's one of those works I wish I'd read years ago.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Executive Summary: There were times where I enjoyed this book, but they were few and far between. Just not enough for me to like overall.

Full Review
If you look at how long it took me to read this fairly short book (26 days) and how many multiple day gaps I often went between reading it, it should be no real surprise I gave this 2 stars.

I found the prologue long and pretty boring, and it might be the most character development of the entire book. Unfortunately after the prologue that character no longer appears.

I found most of the characters pretty unlikeable. That always makes it harder for me to enjoy a book. I did find the development of the town pretty interesting, especially the technological innovations that came along.

The world building was interesting, but a bit too hard sci-fi for my liking. My eyes kind of glazed over when he'd get into scientific observations about Helliconia.

Overall, this book just wasn't for me, and despite buying the entire trilogy, I won't be continuing on to see what happens next.

[Daniel Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Helliconia cycle is a SF trilogy with a planet as its main character. Yes, it's that epic and mind-boggling in scale. Heck, the prologue to the entire trilogy is a 100-page unbroken chapter.Helliconia Spring, the first of three novels in the cycle, tells the tale of a small human community as Spring comes to a world whose year lasts long enough for civilizations to rise and fall.

It goes without saying that the main feature of Aldiss' novel is his incredible world-building. In the Helliconia cycle, he not only introduces three competing civilizations, but a rich and unique ecology that encompasses animals, plants, even parasites and viruses that are uniquely suited to this world's peculiar climate. The whole is told with meticulous detail, and a portrait of a unique system in delicate balance emerges, with the two main sentient species, humans and phagors, waxing and waning with the seasons.

The bulk of Helliconia Spring tells the tale of a small village at the critical point when the long winter finally breaks and spring arrives to the world. Humans, pushed to the brink of savagery by the long winter and the ascendance of phagors, slowly emerge from their hiding places, and their civilization begins to flourish again. The events in Helliconia Spring cover a mere generation, which makes for a more intimate chronicle of humanity at a turning point. I have to say, I liked a lot of the themes and characters covered here. Given the incredible ambition of the world-building, it would have been easy to lose the characters in the backdrop. That does happen, but not as much as I expected.

The most interesting conflict in the book is between the men, who want unity and respect of tradition, and the women, who want to seek knowledge and better their condition. This tension is raised a few notches by the deep transformations happening the world over, making this choice of dramatic scale an illuminating one. I liked the women's struggle for independence and knowledge, faced with men who love them, but who believe that the proper way to love a woman is to possess her. The fact that they all belong to the same community, and ultimately feel for one another, makes the conflict even more gripping.

Ultimately, that tension fails to coalesce as the changes overcoming Helliconia take center stage. That desire to illustrate the transformations of the world, and the waxing of human influence, ends up diluting the dramatic arc. As much as I liked to read how humans were returning to a time of plenty after generations of hardships, I have a hard time believing that a handful of men and women rediscovered astronomy, heliocentric theory, currency-based economy, masonry, and horseback riding, within the span of a single generation. Perhaps real-life discussions on anthropology, such as Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies have spoiled my ability to suspend disbelief in that matter.

I also feel that the main purpose of the book, to showcase the transformations happening in human civilization, may have been better served by the approach showcased in The Years of Rice and Salt, where we get periodic glimpses of individual stories throughout history. On the whole, the human stories get lost in the overall chaos of the world, especially considering that the sequel, Helliconia Summer, jumps ahead a few centuries.

The prose was engaging for the most part, with some clumsy parts. Some adverbs made me cringe. (Worst offender: "he said chantingly".) But for the most part, the descriptions were crisp, and the characters were well-rounded and interesting.

A strange concept featured in the novel is the human space station, orbiting above Helliconia, and studying the events happening on the surface in detail. That was a strange choice, and although I suspect it plays its part in subsequent novels, it was merely an odd framing device in this one. It's as if Aldiss was afraid we'd mistake his story for fantasy, and wanted to root it deeply in science fiction by throwing around references to space stations and scientific observations.

All in all, Helliconia Spring was a fascinating, if flawed read. I suspect the book should be considered only a part of an overall and self-contained story, but I'm not particularly attracted to the remaining novels. But that being said, I do come away fascinated and impressed by Aldiss' world-building skills. They are thorough and fascinating.

[AndrewP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting into this book was somewhat of a slog. If I didn't know the pretense of the book I think I would have abandoned it early on, but the idea of a planet trapped in a binary star system was intriguing enough for me to keep going. (Hint to future readers: If you don't know Kepler's Laws of motion look them up, it explains an awful lot.)

The story follows a couple of generations of humans, trying to survive as their world begins to warm up. Not much happens so don't expect a lot from the plot. It's all about the environment and that's where I have my doubts. All of the main events happen within a single generation and I find the time scale a bit suspect. It's hard to believe that over a 'long year' of some 2,500 years the end of the ice age would be noticeable within a single person lifetime. But in this book that effectively what happened.

I will probably read the following two volumes sometime in the future but not right now.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

The end of this one was good, but it just took SO LONG to get there. The world-building of Aldiss is great, but since we are going through 100s of years (in this book anyway) of history, we can't really get attached to any characters and with all the strange names, they all got jumbled up in my head anyway. I realized reading this how much I like to have at least one consistent character to hold on to as I adventure into various world-building environments and I was sorely missing one here. I'll probably finish out this series regardless, just because I want to see if the medieval or pre-industrial versions will be any more action-filled.

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE.

The first in an epic science fiction trilogy that is big on world building and science but a bit short on plot and character. The very long prologue was great and had more plot and character than the rest of the story. This seems to be a very well planned and thought-out novel/trilogy but I really struggled to get through big sections of the story. It’s a very slow read through a fascinating setting. I’m mixed on continuing the trilogy, but time will tell.

[Maggie K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say as I started this book, I had qualms about whether I was going to enjoy it. It is written in a very factual way, so that it's hard to get a real feel for the characters. A very long prelude follows a young man from a tundra like area as he braves the ceaseless snow to get to a city and eventually goes back out to start a new life.

But eventually the story evolves into showing the life his descendants have made. Their dealings with indigenous species and plants, attempts to reconcile their religious beliefs, and their adaptation as the frozen planet moves into Spring, and I realize this isnt about these characters at all; it's a story about how the various flora and fauna adapt and change along with the ecology of the planet.

Because the planet revolves around two different suns, one a semi-normal type year, and another stronger sun of which the orbit is unimaginably large, creating multi-generation long seasons. The scope of this is such to be rather amazing....the various adaptation of the plants and wildlife, and the people all work to make this planet complete, yet there is very little awareness due to the uber-long seasons.

Rather remarkable when you think about it!

[Alissa Thorne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I get what this book was going for. It told the story of a civilization developing under the influence of planarity forces. By telling it through the eyes of the primitive peoples it aimed to achieve a kind of biblical scope. Well it was successful in one sense--it was about as much fun to read as the bible.

The storytelling will spend years with a particular character, dwelling on one characters boring and brutal little life then unceremoniously flit past their demise and jump generations into the future. I think this was an attempt at giving the work an epic feel, but instead it lost my interest.

I regret sticking this one out to the end. I kept expecting it to bring it all together to make the tedious effort of watching these savages painstakingly crawl through towards civilization have some kind of grand meaning. Perhaps that's in the next book, but I'll pass, thanks.

[Anaarecarti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seria de romane “Helliconia” este una dintre acele serii care intră în categoria de lux “The best of the best”. Mai mult decât atât, este un The best SF in a Fantasy World. Gata! Am spus-o chiar de la început ca să nu existe nici o îndoială. Nu pot decât să recomand această serie! Și încă nu am citit decât primul volum!!! Este ceva cum rar întâlnești: o carte publicată în 1982 care nu a îmbătrânit deloc sau, ca sa fim corecți, a îmbătrânit bine, fiind la fel de actuală acum ca atunci când a apărut în original.

Recenzia completa pe https://anaarecarti.ro/main/helliconi...

[ksiazkowy_pirat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wiosna Helikonii Briana Aldissa to moim zdaniem wspaniałe rozpoczęcie trylogii przedstawiającej dzieje tytułowej planety - Helikonii.

Okrążające ją dwa ciała niebieskie powodują, że pory roku są tam bardzo intensywne i… bardzo długie. Po zimie, trwającej setki lat, budzi się do życia roślinność, zwierzęta i cywilizacja, wygnana jak dotąd na granice funkcjonowania przez wrogą ludziom rasę - , która przypomina trochę yeti.

Nie była to łatwa książka, ale im dłużej o niej myślę i im więcej czasu mija od kiedy ją przeczytałem, tym bardziej mi się podoba. Próg wejścia jest dość wysoki, bo pojawia się wiele nazw własnych, jednak z każdą kolejną stroną przychodzi zrozumienie zamysłu autora.

Sam pomysł na fabułę jest bardzo ciekawy, bo przedstawiane są losy planety. Pojawia się wielu bohaterów, jednak ich życia i przygody są w pewnym sensie tłem do tego, by pokazać jak planeta się zmienia. Można powiedzieć, że to w pewnym sensie kronika życiorysów bohaterów, ich decyzji i życia codziennego, które mają wpływ na całą planetę.

Jestem pod ogromnym wrażeniem w jakich szczegółach cała ta historia została dopracowana. Podobnie miałem przy czytaniu innej książki autora - Cieplarni, jednak Wiosna Helikonii jest zdecydowanie łatwiejsza w odbiorze. W książce pojawia się wiele gatunków zwierząt, roślin, system religijny, a nawet rasy, które okraszone są dodatkowym rysem historycznym.

Nie mogę się doczekać kolejnego tomu - Lata Helikonii, pory roku równie srogiej dla ludzi jak zima. Ten tom ma pojawić się jeszcze w tym miesiącu, a ja naprawdę polecam zainteresować się tą trylogią, bo to nie tylko piękne wydania, ale i szalenie interesującą treść.

[Romulus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cztery gwiazdki a nie komplet tylko dlatego, że to pierwsza część trylogii. Mam trochę pytań odnośnie ciągu dalszego więc zaczekam na kolejne.

To kolejna klasyczna powieść, która wraca na polski rynek aby odkryło ją kolejne pokolenie czytelników. Dla mnie też była to pierwsza lektura. Warto było. Lubię ambitną science fiction, która na dodatek jest bardzo przystępna dla czytelnika. To nie inżynierska sci fi, tylko bogate światotwórstwo konsultowane przez autora z naukowcami różnych dziedzin. Imponujące, choć nie tak jak niektóre książki Ursuli le Guin, ale to nie wada. Jednak jest to powieść pozbawiona fabularnych „błyskotek”, „cekinów”. Mimo całej przystępności jest to pozycja koneserska i science fiction z wyższej półki.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book didn't really work for me. As other reviewers have pointed out the central character of this book is the planet of Hellliconia and when a planet is the focus of the novel then the resulting work is often epic in nature.

This is my first reading of Aldiss and I can't help thinking that if I had read other works of his I may appreciate this more. In Helliconia Spring Aldiss attempts a lot. The planet of Helliconia is in a binary system where it orbits one sun Batalix every four hundred days or so and another larger, older sun Freyr every 2,500 years or so. The upshot of this is that the seasons on Helliconia last hundreds of years and inhabitants of the planet have no comprehension of the changing of the seasons.

In this novel the inhabitants of a hunter-gatherer society are part of the transition between a seemingly endless Winter and a new Spring. The novel focuses primarily on the inhabitants of a village called Oldorando and its changes as it grows and it's society learns and develops. The characters however are mostly uninteresting and have few redeeming qualities. What we seem to have here for large sections of the novel are power struggles within the village and it's grasp of new society.

Other reviewers have commented on the implausibility of a society discovering money, astrology and great engineering projects in the space of a generation or two - coming from a basic hunter / gatherer society. This burst of knowledge didn't annoy me that much although I can see how it may to others.

A key theme is the battle between women in the village and their thirst for knowledge and the men who think the best way they can express their care is by taking them for 'their woman'. This is quite an interesting aspect to the novel but suffers from many of the other themes in the book. So much is in there that nothing really takes centre stage.

The same could be said about the war between humans and the phagors - a race that has developed on the planet independently. In Autumn and Winter the phagors are in ascendancy and in Spring and Summer the humans are. We've war, phagors treated as gods and slavery of both phagors and humans and strange 'human-like' species. Add to that pandemic virus's and there is absolutely lots going on.

The issue with the book is that it takes so long for Aldiss to get anywhere. The characters are uninteresting (and their lives are often ceased in a sentence). There is so much backstory and 'telling' of what is going on quite often the book is just boring. Aldiss takes forever to get anywhere. There is a 100 page prologue at the start of the book and if the book had ended there I would have been relieved! The saving grace for me is that I got slightly more interested in the characters towards the end.

A great idea and some great world building but missing something in execution.

[Paulo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great, appealing and very promising start, the first section with grand Yuri was my favorite.

Then there was a jump in time and location for another set of characters (Yuri's descendants), and the remaining (big) portion of the book stayed there with those small cast and focused on their daily (not that interesting) struggles on their little place with nothing really exciting going on. The ideas behind this book were really good but I was expecting something with a wider scope, with more planet exploration and more meaningful events. The space station Avernus sections were minimal and barely explored.

To be honest there were some peaks here and there with the story but there was always some disappointment, even the title seemed wrong because only by the end it's when finally the planet enters the springtime, most of the book happens during the winter time with the characters always making sure to complain about the cold.

Also the ending left things wide open, seems that Aldiss didn't even knew how to tie up things properly because there was no closure at all, when a big event was just about to take place, an event that will supposedly give us the fate of the main characters, Bang, the end... Knowing that the next book jumps ahead in time with another characters so there's that.

Overall it's an okay read, mostly saved by the ideas behind it and by the solid writing of Aldiss, I may give a try at the following book on the trilogy. 3 stars.

[Ethan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book five years ago, since it sounds like a really interesting idea and has neat cover art. I read about 20 pages, and put it down due to lack of interest. I recently picked it up again and finished it, but found myself pushing through most of it. It gets a little better than the prologue, but I just didn't care too much about the people of Oldorando (or even keep them straight, since their names all sound the same). A few chapters could've adequately told the story that takes several hundred here. It would be nice to know more about the Earth Station that's observing the planet, since they seemed a lot more interesting than any of the inhabitants of Helliconia. I'm all for blending genres, but this particular blend (almost Conan-style fantasy mixed with splashes of hard sci-fi), just doesn't work very well. It will be a long time, if ever, before I pick up the second volume.

[Laura L. Van Dam]

Abandonado al 40%/DNF at 40%

Me aburrió muchísimo. No avanza, es como leer todo el tiempo lo mismo. Un amigo que leyó toda la saga me confirmó que es todo así y entonces perdí la esperanza de que repuntara.

Tampoco voy a seguir con las secuelas, obviamente.

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthropological Science Fiction.

The hardest of hard SciFi meets pre-agrarian society.

The effort it must have taken to write is matched only by the effort it takes to read.

Had Helliconia been the National Geographic reality TV show described in the book I would have enjoyed it more.

This 18 hour audiobook was a two month feat and I blame part of that on the narrators sleepy-go-bye-bye-voice.

[Onisim Pînzariu · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Helliconia” e un roman extrem de complex, construit cu multă atenție la detalii. Helliconia este o planetă asemănătoare Terrei, pe care însă timpul și anotimpurile se mișcă după alte legi, sistemul solar cuprinde 2 străjeri și oamenii nu sunt singurele ființe inteligente care trăiesc pe suprafața ei. Am fost fascinat încă de la început de complexitatea lumii, de imaginația bogata a autorului și mor de nerăbdare sa aflu ce se întâmpla mai departe. S-a terminat intr-un cliffhanger destul de mare. Abia aștept sa termin cu bacul și sa ii scriu o recenzie 🙈

[Dave Packard · Rating 2 out of 5]

One star because I was actually able to finish it, and one star for the cool idea. I loved the science and the background information, I hated the “story” and found myself practically napping through most of it.

[jaroiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

No, není to zrovna styl sci-fi, který mě baví. Docela rozvláčné.
Pořád mi to jaksi připomínalo Štorchovy Lovce mamutů.
Nejvíc by se mi to asi líbilo jako komix od Saudka. Nenakreslil něco takového?
Nonstop byl mnohem lepší. Ale zase pořád lepší Helikonie než Skleník.
Tedy +- střed.
Můj problém je orientace ve jménech, která jsem si těžko zapamatovávala, takže celkově jsem se hůř orientovala a vnímala audio tak napůl.

[book.away]

DNF na pozycji z serii Wymiary Vespera łamie mi serce, ale liczyłam na SF, a ten tytuł to raczej klasyczne fantasy i bardzo brakowało mi tutaj elementu fantastyki naukowej, co skutkowało brakiem zainteresowania fabułą, która moim zdaniem… jest dość nudna. 💔

[Nicolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai lu ce livre il y a bien longtemps ... Tellement longtemps, en fait que je ne me souviens plus de la date, ou même de l'année, où je l'ai lu ... Mais tout ça n'a pas grand chose à voir avec ce roman. J'ai donc choisi de le relire à un moment où mon stock personnel de nouveautés s'était épuisé.
Le printemps d'Helliconia raconte donc le dégel d'un monde dont les années durent des dizaines de nos siècles, ce qui laisse le temps aux plantes de s'adapter à chacune de ces saisons, et aux êtres vivants d'oublier ce que les précédentes saisons ont pu être.
On assiste donc à l'émerveillement des hommes et femmes qui vivent ce dégel comme une nouveauté, en oubliant que l'hiver ne fait que s'arrêter.
En soi l'idée est assez belle. Seulement j'ai l'impression qu'Aldiss a voulu aborder trop de thèmes simultanément, ce qui nuit pour moi à la beauté de cette oeuvre (qui pourtant est très loin de manquer de qualités). Tenez, par exemple, il essaye de traiter en même temps la différence entre deux espèces (humains et phagors), le fait religieux (Wuttra et Wahka) , la géologie, l'évolution des espèces et peut-être une dizaine d'autres sujets. Ce qui donne au final des digressions parfois assez pénibles. Voire même des attentes curieuses de la part du lecteur que je suis. Je vais vous donner un exemple.
Pendant tout le bouquin, Aldiss utilise un schéma assez clair : un humain découvre un fait nouveau dans un endroit qu'il croyait connaître, et Aldiss en profite pour nous présenter l'animal, ou la plante, ainsi que ses adaptations vis-à-vis de l'étrange saisonalité d'Helliconia. Le truc curieux, c'est que ça ne dérange manifestement pas l'auteur de s'arrêter au beau milieu d'une scène d'action pour nous décrire par le menu les plissements géologiques qui accompagnent le réchauffement climatique de la planète. Ce qui fait qu'à la fin du roman, on est toujours prêt à ce que n'ilmporte quelle scène dérive en une description du panthéon phagor aggrémentée de considérations sur le régime alimentaire de leurs montures et son impact sur la polinisation des algues sous-marines. Et à cette même fin du roman, dans une scène de retour à la maison assez pathétique, l'auteur nous explique que la défécation de l'étrange monture du héros sera utilisée par un bousier ... A ce moment-là, j'ai été *déçu* qu'il ne nous explique pas la constructionf ractale des terriers de bousiers. Je crois qu'en fait, dans ce roman, Aldiss a voulu pousser à son extrême certaines méthodes de description d'univers SF décrites sur Génération Science-Fiction dans les articles de Claude Ecken (qui sont tout bonnement fabuleux).
Bon, je ne devrais pas bouder non plus mon plaisir, parce qu'à part ça, ce roman n'est rien d'autre qu'une assez plate chronique de l'âge de bronze, où on invente la monnaie, et où une brave dame découvre la mécanique céleste et constate que la cour de ferme qui leur sert de monde n'est rien qu'une petite planète perdue dans un complexe système binaire. Et d'ailleurs, je ne boude pas mon plaisir puisque j'ai trouvé certains éléments de ce premier récit assez intéressants, voire même fascinants, comme par exemple tout cet écosystème qui à mon avis ne tient pas debout biologiquement parlant, mais qui a malgré tout un charme certain.
J'ai donc pris un certain plaisir en relisant ce livre, entaché des défauts signalés ci-dessus et d'une écriture largement plus antique que celle d'un Brunner largement plus vieux ou, pour prendre un genre plus raisonnablement proche, d'un Moorcock qui a pour lui l'avantage de dépeindre les aventures du champion éternel.
Bref, c'est un peu mou, plutôt daté, mais néanmoins intéressant grâce à un monde d'une grande beauté formelle, et des personnages qui ont quand même une sacré personnalité (Aoz Roon et Shay Tal en tête).

[Davorin Horak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mislim da je možda Broderick u Reading by Starlight dao najbolju moguću ocjenu Aldissovoj proljetnoj Helliconiji. To je invetnivan, postmoderni tekt, intelektualan i dekonstruktivan bez da izgubi onaj dječaki šarm osjećaja čudnovatosti. No isto tak je u dijelovima pretenciozno didaktičan, slučajan i sklon suhoparnim ekspozicijama. Točno takav sam osjećaj imo čitajući, povremeno upadajući u zečju rupe u kojima me čekala odvratna ružna pulp neman. Svakako vrijedi čitanja jer Aldiss jest majstor riječi i roman je punh vrijedna blaga iako, moram priznati, ne vuče me nešto čitati dalje. Le Guin je i dalje dva koplja iznad. Naravno, Aldiss nije ostao dužan Brodericku pa mu je odgovorio na njegovu kritiku s ubičajenim 'ne kužiš ti to'. Uglavnom, svaki iole ozbiljniji čitaelj SF.a ovo treba prožvakati pa neka vas mojih tri zvjezduške ne obeshrabre.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across a copy of Helliconia Spring in a charity shop and bought it as I hadn't read any Brian Aldiss for more than twenty years. Although it was first published in 1982, it has the feeling of older scifi from the sixties or earlier. Aldiss carefully introduces the reader to a planet in a binary star system, inhabited by several intelligent races including humans. As the novel opens, Helliconia is coming to the end of an ice age and the changing climate induces huge social upheaval. Helliconia Spring is therefore a novel of climate change, but not the anthropogenic type. The reader is placed in the same position as the humans from Earth who live on a station orbiting Helliconia and observe the planet as reality TV and research project. However they can never actually visit Helliconia, due to a viral plague that periodically scourges seemingly all the intelligent races (possibly all mammals?) on the planet.

Helliconia Spring is not a book to read for the characterisation, which is fairly rudimentary. Protagonist duties are shared around various people within several different generations, to give an overview of events across an extended period of time. An omniscient narrative voice also interjects periodically. The plot is intriguing if you like to trace socioeconomic change in response to environmental transformations. Which I certainly do. The ecology of Helliconia is described in great detail, which I liked while finding the gender essentialism a bit tiresome. The romance elements are pretty silly; I was somewhat amused when Vry was seduced by a man asking intelligent questions about her scientific theories. Aldiss certainly conveys the sweep of history quite well. The individual life stories of each character aren't as involving. The writing style is also rather ponderous and took me a little while to get used to:

One Batalix-dawn, when the clouds were thick as phlegm and hoar-frost speckled the ancient breastworks of the hamlet, the horns of the lookout sounded from an eastern tower. Immediately, there was stir and shouting. Dresyl ordered all women to be locked in the women's tower, where many of them were already at work. He assembled his men, armed, at the barricades. His little sons came forth trembling to join him and stare towards the rising sun.
In the grey dawn distance, horns showed.

I respect the detailed worldbuilding here (when it isn't sexist or racist) and it's an interestingly ambitious project. However the style and characterisation weren't sufficiently compelling for me to seek out the two subsequent volumes in the series. I've read other scifi that does similar post-ice age social upheaval plots in a more involving way (e.g. Souls in the Great Machine), although Aldiss was likely a pioneer.

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Helliconia Spring' by Brian W. Aldiss was a recent pick by my book club, chosen after the author recently died.

The book is about a planet that orbits binary stars. It has a very long orbital year, which has strange effects on the inhabitants of the planet. At the start of this book, the planet is coming out of a winter cycle and moving slowly into spring. There are dominant life forms that start to struggle. There are cyclical plagues that thin and change the humanoid populations. Civilizations rise, fall, and change.

I struggled to read this book until I changed my perceptions. While there are characters in the book, this is not a character driven story. It is an environment driven story. It was tough to get through while I tried to find characters to latch on to, but it got better when I started to view the larger picture. The appendixes in the version I read are definitely things I should have looked at earlier in my reading of this novel. I ultimately enjoyed reading it, but it felt like a struggle to read.