DL/A-Z//ALD/5 - [Correspondence with Brian Aldiss, 2003-2006]

DL/A-Z//ALD/5

Sub-file

[Correspondence with Brian Aldiss, 2003-2006]

24/04/2003-2006

7 Letters (typescript)
1 Article

Aldiss, Brian

[2003]

042 is a letter from Brian Aldiss to Doris Lessing. He mentions Lessing’s son [Possible GDPR issue]. Covers aging, the declining popularity of science fiction and the 2003 Iraq invasion. Mentions Faber & Faber, Sir Geoffrey Faber, Charles Monteith, Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest, Edmund Crispin and J.R.R. Tolkein.

“Perhaps when I am dead, someone will say, “Brian Aldiss? Wasn’t he the bloke who planted that kolkwitzia hedge?” There are worse things to be remembered by.”

043 is a letter from Aldiss to Lessing. He discusses aging and funerals. Discusses Lessing’s son Peter [possible GDPR issue]. Describes family life generally. Discusses Barcelona, Vienna and Nantes, and Pieter Breugel’s The Wedding Feast. Complains about publishers. Describes a recent health scare: “So I’m writing to you in case I snuff it on Friday, or people would say, sotto voce, “He never answered Doris Lessing’s letter, you know...” Proposes naming his latest novel “Sanity and the Lady”. Asks after Lessing’s “sequel” to Mara and Dann.

044 is a letter from Aldiss to Lessing. He complains about publishers. Mentions Lessing’s son Peter. Recounts an amusing incident from the doctor’s waiting room, and compares it to a Gary Larson cartoon.

045 is a letter from Aldiss to Lessing. He mentions talking about Lessing on BBC Radio 3’s Night Waves. Complains about the poor reputation of science fiction. Disparagingly mentions “little Miss” Margaret Atwood and “Jimmy” Ballard [J.G. Ballard]. Praises John Wyndham. Describes family affairs.

[2004]

046 is a letter from Harry Brack to Lessing reading: “BRIAN ALDISS / Thank you for your letter dated 17th [January] 2004. Yes, a letter of support from you would be most helpful”

047 is an undated signed note from Lessing to Brack, recommending Aldiss for an honour: “I do find it very odd that this man who is regarded by so many as a kind of national treasure, has not been honoured adequately before.”

[2005]

048 is a letter from Aldiss to Lessing. It features “O.B.E.” in the letterhead. He mentions that Hesperus Press will not accept his novel Walcot. He writes he will write a science fiction novel about British and American torture and black sites as part of the War on Terror.

[2006]

049 is a short puff piece by Lessing for two of Aldiss’s stories: “one a grim tale for our times, the other the escape fantasy of a man under torture”.