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Summary: Classic history of science fiction
Review: British writer Brian Aldiss is one of the most distinguished authors of SF alive, and combines his enthusiasm for the field with broad knowledge and sophisticated literary taste which causes him to champion authors often ignored by fans and casual readers and to dismiss many popular authors. His survey of the field, in this second edition of what was formerly called Billion Year Spree, is now somewhat dated, but still enormously influential. For those who like intelligent commentary by someone whose thinking is not exclusively focused on SF.
Rating: 
Summary: UNREAD
Review: I haven't read this book. I just wanted to see if Amazon, in their near-infinite wisdom, would put this up. You see, Amazon has a link on the Bester page that if you ARE Alfred Bester, you can review your own book. Midge of a prob is, he's as dead as my sex life. So mail them and make the damn site accurate, if unwieldy.
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Summary: Overwritten and unnecessarily defensive
Review: I'm a casual fan of science fiction - I know what I like and otherwise steer fairly clear of the genre to avoid the inevitable allegations of puerility and geekdom that my wife throws at me for reading novels about spaceships and little green men. Brian Aldiss is a prolific British Sci Fi writer who cares very much about his genre, and in particular believes it to have been unfairly maligned by people such as my wife. While that's probably true, it adversely colours this book in two ways: Firstly, Aldiss writes far too intellectually and "worthily", meaning as writer he comes across as pretentious and (what is worse) dull; secondly he tends to relegate of material which isn't "serious" science fiction (but which is generally more entertaining) to other cateogories such as "fantasy" which, to his mind, don't count. I think this is the mistake: Science Fiction at its heart is a poular, pulp sort of genre, no amount of post facto rationalisation will alter the fact that it is Lucas and Spielberg who are the backbone of (cinematic) Science Fiction, not Kubrick and Tarkovsky. It's a very heavy (physically as well as textually), long winded book. Having completed the first three or four chapters (in which Edgar Allen Poe gets a somewhat surprisingly extended mention) I have given up on the project of reading Trillion Dollar Spree from cover to cover, and now intend to use to dip into from time to time instead. Or, at any rate, just to stick on the bookshelf, comforted in the knowledge that it's there and I *can* dip into it from time to time, if I feel like it. Olly Buxton
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Summary: Glorious Starts, Bitter Endings
Review: This work is well worth the read especially for the literary scholar. It starts out wonderfully, exploring the origins of science fiction and gives credit where it is due to many obscure early writers, as well as writers outside of the english speaking world. However, the further one gets into the work, Mr. Aldiss becomes increasingly bitter. It becomes very apparent that the work is no longer an objective study of science fiction but an outlet for Mr. Aldiss to vent his frustrations. Authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, Heinlien and others are mostly discounted, even though their output is vast and have served to popularize the genre. One is left with the feeling that Mr. Aldiss merely dislikes anyone who is more popular, or better selling than himself. Quite a shame since this tends to diminish his own talents in petty sniping. Mr. Aldiss is no small talent himself, many of his works are classics in the field, but in this work he comes off as a grumpy, disgruntled old man. I would recommend the earlier work "The Billion Year Spree" which contains the brilliance of the first half of the work, without the extra helping of bile.
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