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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Aldiss evokes yet another strange and wonderful environment., 29 Jun 2003
One thing is for sure in the field of Science Fiction; if you like your plate full of 'heroes' who are paragons of moral probity - Brian Wilson Aldiss is the author to give you a triple dose of stomach-churning indigestion.Quite from where he draws inspiration for such spiteful, perfidious and yet deliciously appealing protagonists as those found in Non-Stop (not to mention his other works) is beyond me. And in all honesty - I don't really want to know. Meet Roy Complain, member of the Greene tribe, a nomadic group of semi-primitives trapped aboard a malfunctioning generation star ship ploughing its way through the Universe. Roy's job is to forage for food throughout dark and foreboding corridors overrun by choking plant life. Surprisingly enough, the members of the tribe appear completely oblivious to their actual predicament; the truth of their existence, and that of their environment, is shrouded in mystery - lost and corrupted over the centuries. Only the fiercely redoubtable Father Henry Marapper suspects that there may be more to the 'world' than meets the eye, and when Roy's mate is abducted in the corridor jungles, the priest enlists the resourceful hunter for a dangerous trek into the unknown reaches of the spacecraft in search of answers. Along for the journey come several other individuals who would appear to represent the absolute worst examples of humanity such as Wantage, hideously disfigured and the hopelessly psychotic, and Roffery, a brazenly corrupt meat salesman. Marapper himself, whilst being hugely entertaining, is a certifiable maniac with a penchant for dispending a brand of 'religion' that probably wouldn't be out of place during the Spanish Inquisition. In all honesty, you'd be hard pressed to imagine this disparate group of quarrelsome lunatics ever reaching their goal, but after negotiating their way through the hazardous Deadways (populated by all manner of strange and terrifying creatures) that's exactly what some of them achieve. Of course, a major spanner is thrown into the works when it is discerned that the 'goals' weren't what they bargained for. An excellent example of the classic 'conceptual breakthrough' SF novel, Non-Stop delivers twist after devilish twist, and whilst it's possibly not of the same calibre as Aldiss's masterwork 'Hothouse' (the narrative does tend to meander at times), it would be unfair to regard this novel as anything less than an insightful and thoroughly entertaining piece of work. Recommended.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A true classic of the field, 12 Sep 2006
I wish for this to remain a non-spoiler review. To give away anything of this story, would be a crime in my opinion.
The Greene Tribe live in relative ignorance, generally only aware of their own immediate surroundings, and meagre existence. For them to really consider where they are, is truly beyond them. This is until one of their kind - Roy Complain - decides to investigate beyond his dwellings.
A story can be very powerful when told in the right way. Non-Stop does this in a very well poised and paced manner. Although the book does start slowly, and really does not get going until about a quarter of the way through, the revelations brought upon the reader are truly shocking, with a long lasting effect. I was totally stunned by what Complain discovers. Shortly in, you find out why the book is called 'Non-Stop', and from that point, the shocks keep coming for Complain that turn his whole universe inside-out. He realises that for the whole of his life, and that of his tribe, they have been totally deceived, and that their whole existence is an age-old lie gone horribly wrong.
This is, in my opinion, Aldiss' finest work. Having read the majority of the Sci-Fi Masterworks series, amongst many others, this rates as one of the true greats of the genre. This book will get under your skin, and stay with you for a long, long time.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Generation Ship Classic, 5 Jan 2007
Although not the first Generation Ship story to be written and certainly not the last, `Non Stop' is the book that stands head and shoulders above the rest.
David Pringle in his `100 Greatest Novels' acknowledges that Aldiss owes a debt to Heinlein's `Orphans of The Sky', a fix-up novel consisting of two novellas from the 1940s. The two books take the same basic premise, that a colony ship is launched from Earth, knowing that generations of humans will live and die within its hull before it reaches its destination. In each book, the knowledge of what the ship actually is has been lost and the descendants of the crew have reverted to a tribal existence while the ship ploughs on through space.
In contrast to Heinlein's escapist adventure however, Aldiss's vision is a darker one and succeeds, where Heinlein's doesn't, in making clear the vast distances between us and even the nearer suns in our galaxy.
We see the world of the Ship through the eyes of Complain, a young hunter whose tribe lives in Quarters. Long ago, a mutated hydroponics food plant has adapted to its surroundings and now grows everywhere, forming jungles on abandoned decks where pigs and insects thrive.
When Complain's woman is kidnapped by another tribe he is approached by Marapper, the tribe's priest, who is planning an expedition through the jungle-choked decks; an expedition to the mythical Forwards, where they may find the secret of what their world actually is.
It's a very sobering vision, since, like Wyndham, whose main novels were published only a few years before this, Aldiss refuses to provide any answers or a cosy conclusion.
What also separates this from Heinlein's work is that the characters have more of the bite of human reality about them. Most of the people we encounter are selfish to some degree and concerned for their own survival.
Aldiss very clearly show here humanity's propensity for ignorance, denial, acceptance of religious dogma without question, violence and self-destruction, and ultimately the Ship may serve as a metaphor for how we behave in the only 'world' we have.
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