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Starswarm
Two moons circle the dead planet Earth... but the race of man who eons ago escaped its withered crust live lives of bizarre variety on Starswarm. A part of the neo-human species who populate the far-flung sectors of a wondrous galactic cluster, they struggle to survive, to shape their destiny, to control forces they themselves have brought into being...
Contents:
Sector Vermilion (1964)
A Kind of Artistry (1962)
Sector Gray (1964)
Hearts and Engines (1964)
Sector Violet (1964)
The Underprivileged (1963)
Sector Diamond (1964)
The Game of God (1964)
Sector Green (1964)
Shards (1962)
Sector Yellow (1964)
Legends of Smith's Burst (1959)
Sector Azure (1964)
O Moon of My Delight (1964)
The Rift (1964)
Old Hundredth (1960)
Contents:
Sector Vermilion (1964)
A Kind of Artistry (1962)
Sector Gray (1964)
Hearts and Engines (1964)
Sector Violet (1964)
The Underprivileged (1963)
Sector Diamond (1964)
The Game of God (1964)
Sector Green (1964)
Shards (1962)
Sector Yellow (1964)
Legends of Smith's Burst (1959)
Sector Azure (1964)
O Moon of My Delight (1964)
The Rift (1964)
Old Hundredth (1960)
159 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
27 people are currently reading
246 people want to read
About the author
Brian W. Aldiss
834 books671 followersPseudonyms: 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
October 27, 2014
Fifty year old SF but still stands up with any of the best of today’s science fiction that attempts to depict societies that feel truly alien. What makes this even more interesting is that the societies depicted are alien not because they originated from a different biology, but because of the great gulf of time depicted. Indeed, depending how you read the book, there may be no more thanone (admittedly extremely large) alien in the entire book.
December 15, 2014
After reading this one it occurred to me biology is the science at which Brian Aldiss concentrates most of his thoughts on. In this collection of stories evolution, mutation of humans in different planets, alien life forms are the main concepts told. The bad part is when alien life forms are described the writer sticked to the variation of humanoid shapes or creatures that resemble reptiles, bears, dinosaurs of the world. In that manner I did not see much creativity. Though it was interesting to see stories told in different styles. While one is told as a fairy tale, the other is much like a family tragedy and another looks like a diary of a scientific expedition. In the end we also take a glimpse at dystopian future prediction of our world. Not excellent but still a good, readable work.
February 16, 2019
Een aantal min of meer korte verhalen, in los verband, met als gemeenschappelijke achtergond een sterrenstelsel (de Sterrenhoop). In deze verhalen probeert Aldiss meerdere schrijfstijlen uit, niet altijd ter bevordering van de leesbaarheid.
Nogal psychedelisch of, in de enkele gevallen dat je denkt de bekende Brias W. Aldiss gevonden te hebben, met een dramatisch einde.
Als wetenschappelijk, literair experiment waarschijnlijk waardevol, als element in de carrière van Aldiss zeker belangrijk maar als boek voor de geïnteresseerde sci-fi lezer niet om door te komen.
De toch al aanwezige schrijfstijl van Aldiss en de opdeling in korte verhalen maakte het toch mogelijk om tot het einde vol te houden.
Nogal psychedelisch of, in de enkele gevallen dat je denkt de bekende Brias W. Aldiss gevonden te hebben, met een dramatisch einde.
Als wetenschappelijk, literair experiment waarschijnlijk waardevol, als element in de carrière van Aldiss zeker belangrijk maar als boek voor de geïnteresseerde sci-fi lezer niet om door te komen.
De toch al aanwezige schrijfstijl van Aldiss en de opdeling in korte verhalen maakte het toch mogelijk om tot het einde vol te houden.
December 13, 2021
Si bien es mucho menos impactante que "Galaxias como granos de arena" en esta antología con cara de novela podremos explorar varios rincones del territorio colonizado por la humanidad en el espacio, es ameno porque muchas veces raya más en la fantaciencia, el pulp de aventuras y la space opera de principios del siglo XX, pero no lo recomiendo para acercarse a Aldiss.
January 12, 2016
This collection of stories, all taking place in a loosely-linked universe, had connecting passages written for this collection. They were published separately in SF magazines from 1958 to 1963. As I was reading the stories, it felt like Aldiss was trying to create his own version of Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories. Most of the stories worked, but a few were rather weak, so I could only give the overall collection three stars. Some of the individual stories would have earned four on their own.
While not groundbreaking, "The Game of God" was especially interesting, in that it addressed the assumptions we make when dealing with exploring the past or other cultures, and how that can go horribly wrong.
Very much worth reading if you want to explore the early works of Aldiss, but because it is some of his earliest, it may not be his best.
While not groundbreaking, "The Game of God" was especially interesting, in that it addressed the assumptions we make when dealing with exploring the past or other cultures, and how that can go horribly wrong.
Very much worth reading if you want to explore the early works of Aldiss, but because it is some of his earliest, it may not be his best.
January 25, 2020
4/5 (collated rating: Good)
Filth. Decay. Mud. Transmutation. Brian W. Aldiss’ SF is filled with such images: Men—with limbs removed—who are slowly (and artificially) transmuted into fish, writhe around in the mud of their tanks grasping at the last shards of their [...]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
Filth. Decay. Mud. Transmutation. Brian W. Aldiss’ SF is filled with such images: Men—with limbs removed—who are slowly (and artificially) transmuted into fish, writhe around in the mud of their tanks grasping at the last shards of their [...]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
November 11, 2021
Starswarm is a story of the fate of future mankind, who has left Earth for space, their descendants now living within the Starswarm. Starswarm is divided into Sectors (Sector Vermilion, Sector Green etc.) and each of these forms a connecting Prologue, in italics, to each story, to make the whole seem as a novel. Its rather like a Fix-up, an old practice of compiling a novel from stories.
If you have his collections The Saliva Trees and other Stories, Airs of Earth and Who Can Replace a Man? then you will already have 3 of the stories herein. (Incidentally the cover of Airs of Earth, featuring a young girl running, is taken from one of the stories in this book, {Oh Moon of my Delight})
Overall the stories are quite good, only one (Shards) being too weird and disjointed to make sense, though later in the 'story' that disjoint is explained,sort of.
I really liked The Legends of Smith's Burst (Sector Yellow), it reads like a Larry Niven or Alan Dean Foster adventure story, the protagonist having a destiny to work towards, encountering many strange beings and obstacles on the way
A keeper!
If you have his collections The Saliva Trees and other Stories, Airs of Earth and Who Can Replace a Man? then you will already have 3 of the stories herein. (Incidentally the cover of Airs of Earth, featuring a young girl running, is taken from one of the stories in this book, {Oh Moon of my Delight})
Overall the stories are quite good, only one (Shards) being too weird and disjointed to make sense, though later in the 'story' that disjoint is explained,sort of.
I really liked The Legends of Smith's Burst (Sector Yellow), it reads like a Larry Niven or Alan Dean Foster adventure story, the protagonist having a destiny to work towards, encountering many strange beings and obstacles on the way
A keeper!
October 2, 2019
A classic set of stories. Some work better than others, but considering the age of them, they are interesting and stand well. They are not simple, and use languages that is far from everyday.
Enjoyed them in the main, just not my favourite. Perhaps because of the short story nature of the collection.
Enjoyed them in the main, just not my favourite. Perhaps because of the short story nature of the collection.
June 23, 2022
L'idea è davvero interessante, raccontare una galassia nei suoi vari settori con un racconto che descriva delle peculiarità di ognuno. Purtroppo la qualità dei racconti a mio parere è altalenante, alcuni molto belli come il Vermiglio o il Diamante, altri piuttosto noiosi come l'Azzurro. Tutto sommato godibile
January 17, 2021
Got this at a flea market years ago. Just read it because I read Aldiss’ “Long Afternoon of Earth.”
This collection ekes out a 4 from me. It has really high peaks and really low valleys. It was hard to rate but the unbridled creativity carries it above the average book.
Generally I don’t like sci-fi. The high school level socio-politically philosophizing tends to turn me off. This book definitely does a lot of that. Where it shines is int he creativity of the worlds it envisions.
There is some truly sublime writing here. The Starswarm is the great expanse of space settled by man and the worlds and environments evolve him into new things in some instances. The first story “a kind of artistry” has this line “he was human more in his sufferings than appearance.” It was just brilliant, but then I could not roll my eyes far enough back in my head as the story was about the “tyranny” of his matriarchal society and how come mommy-wife won’t let him attend the hub planet orgies.
There was another that had this great sense of wonder and cool idea about FTL ships using planets to slow down. But the narrator is so unlikable it just killed it for me.
Three of the eight stories I really loved.
“The Game of God” was just a classic adventure story but in space. An old man becomes a god to the locals and prospectors mess up the situation. It was fun and a good mystery.
“Legends of Smith’s Burst.” I loved this one. Aldiss could really imagine worlds unlike anything else. This one really does that, and it has a very sword and planet feel to it.
“Old Hundreth.” To be repetitive , this is unbridled imagination and truly an alien setting. This story has such a mood to it, and really had this tremendous psychedelic tapestry to its setting.
It’s a very mixed bag but when it’s good it’s unmatched. Check it out but don’t expect every dish in the meal to be a stunner.
This collection ekes out a 4 from me. It has really high peaks and really low valleys. It was hard to rate but the unbridled creativity carries it above the average book.
Generally I don’t like sci-fi. The high school level socio-politically philosophizing tends to turn me off. This book definitely does a lot of that. Where it shines is int he creativity of the worlds it envisions.
There is some truly sublime writing here. The Starswarm is the great expanse of space settled by man and the worlds and environments evolve him into new things in some instances. The first story “a kind of artistry” has this line “he was human more in his sufferings than appearance.” It was just brilliant, but then I could not roll my eyes far enough back in my head as the story was about the “tyranny” of his matriarchal society and how come mommy-wife won’t let him attend the hub planet orgies.
There was another that had this great sense of wonder and cool idea about FTL ships using planets to slow down. But the narrator is so unlikable it just killed it for me.
Three of the eight stories I really loved.
“The Game of God” was just a classic adventure story but in space. An old man becomes a god to the locals and prospectors mess up the situation. It was fun and a good mystery.
“Legends of Smith’s Burst.” I loved this one. Aldiss could really imagine worlds unlike anything else. This one really does that, and it has a very sword and planet feel to it.
“Old Hundreth.” To be repetitive , this is unbridled imagination and truly an alien setting. This story has such a mood to it, and really had this tremendous psychedelic tapestry to its setting.
It’s a very mixed bag but when it’s good it’s unmatched. Check it out but don’t expect every dish in the meal to be a stunner.
July 26, 2012
Originally read ca. 2001. Re-read July 2012.
I hadn't read Aldiss in years and wanted to revisit a collection I thought of fondly. It holds up--his short stories are very original and interesting. Mostly winners in this volume.
I hadn't read Aldiss in years and wanted to revisit a collection I thought of fondly. It holds up--his short stories are very original and interesting. Mostly winners in this volume.
January 16, 2020
I was unaware of the concept of a "fix-up" novel before reading this, and I have to ask...why? Were scifi readers of the 60s averse to reading short story collections? Did they not notice the extremely thin connective tissue holding this together? The stories are stylistically and subject-wise almost entirely unrelated to each other. I even caught an instance of Earth mistakenly not being replaced with the name of a planet used in an earlier story, so the find-and-replace editing wasn't even rock solid. The grandiose framing device is doing a lot of the imaginative work.
The stories themselves weren't terrible (overall), but none of them amazed me. The better ones were "The Underprivileged", which would make a great Twilight Zone episode, "The Legend of Smith's Burst", a semi-surreal adventure story, and "Old Hundredth", which reaches the level of strangeness the premise had me hoping for.
The stories themselves weren't terrible (overall), but none of them amazed me. The better ones were "The Underprivileged", which would make a great Twilight Zone episode, "The Legend of Smith's Burst", a semi-surreal adventure story, and "Old Hundredth", which reaches the level of strangeness the premise had me hoping for.
November 28, 2020
Starswarm, above all else, is a shining example of why you can't trust Goodreads ratings. At 3.27 most would surely skip it and miss out on some truly excellent work.
December 21, 2020
La historia que más me gustó de este libro fue la del sargento Taylor. El final es bastante interesante y tiene varias revelaciones. Y creo que en general todo el libro está bien, pero ya había leído la historia del Sector Amarillo en El árbol de saliva y, aunque tiene algunas diferencias, eso le restó un poco de entusiasmo a mi lectura.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 9, 2025
"Shards" is the high point of the book, in my opinion the only section better than Aldiss' fantastic novel Starship. Fun deterioration of psyche and language. I also really liked the first and last stories, although I feel "Old Hundreth" occupies the same space as Delany's The Einstein Intersection.
August 1, 2025
Considering this is his first published book, it's insanely imaginative and the writing style is strongly experimental once again considering eras in which it came out. Though a bit difficult to follow at times, I've enjoyed this paradventure gasping for more.
January 2, 2018
Enjoyable collection 0f loosely related stories.
March 1, 2018
aggiornamento vecchio libro letto chissà quando
November 17, 2021
Overall a strong collection. All the stories are at least good and a few are very good.
March 4, 2022
Classic 60s scifi. Very pulpy.
May 8, 2023
Reread this from my high school science fiction books. A collection of stories from different "sectors" in the universe. Short story style.
Read
May 8, 2019I have three different german editions.
September 19, 2019
As ever Aldiss displays an impressive vocabulary and inventiveness in this interlinked collection of short stories. However, the interlining element is informed (via the narrative introductions) rather than intrinsic, as each story is set on a different planet, and explores different aspects of the future meaning they could be set in completely separate universes. It includes one story with Aldisss’ signature dream-state stream of consciousness, a style that never seems to date because it is so very weirdly done. Some of the other stories are dated in their attitude to women and men, but the ideas remain interesting, and they are technically well-done. As with many short stories, there is often minimal explanation of background, so the reader is left to work out quite a lot of how we got to that further from this present. This is an interesting collection with some interesting ideas although the presentation is ‘of its time’.
May 30, 2017
En samling noveller löst sammankopplade i den mening att de utspelar sig i samma universum. Aldiss skrev tydligen några sådana samlingar i början av sin karriär, denna mer eller mindre på förslag från förlaget. Novellerna hade alla tidigare publicerats i slutet av femtio-talet och början av sextio-talet varav de flesta gavs ut i tidningen New Worlds strax innan Moorcocks tillträde som redaktör. Författaren var en av figurerna i den brittiska New-Wave rörelsen men det är få noveller som det riktigt märks i. "Shards" är nog den enda och den bästa i samlingen. Även "The Legend of Smith's Burst" är bra och känns skumt nog väldigt Jack Vance. Inte vad jag väntat mig, minst sagt.
August 12, 2012
These were stories written independently for columns in 50's and 60's scifi magazines. The organizing idea in the book is that all these stories are on planets of a larger galactic society... but really their connections were thin and unilluminating. I didn't think the stories were very interesting or uplifting... just sour takes on different societal traditions that could occur in different manifestations of humanity. I didn't actually finish the book... about two thirds of the way through I couldn't take it any longer, there was just nothing there to hold my attention
February 13, 2021
Die Stories haben nicht wirklich einen Zusammenhang und können allein stehen. Sie sind sehr heterogen. Die meisten sind geradlinig und gut verständlich. Ein paar sind sehr seltsam und für mich fremdartig ("Sektor rot" und "Sektor blau"). Die erste fand ich sogar so schrecklich, dass ich fast das ganze Buch abgebrochen hätte.
Insgesamt OK
Insgesamt OK
June 15, 2024
Starswarm was for me a curate's egg of a book. It is a collection of short stories set in the very far future throughout the galaxy now colonised by Man.
Some of the stories caught my breath in their wonder whilst others I longed to end. The former more than make up for the latter.
Well worth reading
Some of the stories caught my breath in their wonder whilst others I longed to end. The former more than make up for the latter.
Well worth reading
Currently reading
March 3, 2009Brian is tripping, but I suppose I already knew that.
Want to read
July 14, 2010Short stories in a frame.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews