Galaxies Like Grains of Sand

I once wrote of Fritz Leiber's _The Night of the Wolf_ (1966) that the parts were greater than their whole. That is, it made a weak-tea "chronicle novel," but the individual stories were worth a look. The same is true of Brian W. Aldiss's _Galaxies Like Grains of Sand_ (1960). Eight independent short stories have been cobbled together into a kind of future history in chapters entitled "The War Millenia," "The Sterile Millenia," "The Robot Millenia," "The Dark Millenia," "The Star Millenia," "The Mutant Millenia," "The Megalopolis Millenia," and "The Ultimate Millenia". This supposedly spans some 40 million years. But the stories themselves do not give one the _feeling_ that they are occurring millions of years apart. They feel like events that could be occurring within a century or two. The original stories are: "Out of Reach" (_Authentic Science Fiction_, 1957); "All the World's Tears" (_Nebula Science Fiction_, 1957); "Who Can Replace a Man?" (aka, "But Who Can Replace a Man?" _Infinity_, 1958); "Oh, Ishrael!" (_New Worlds_, 1957); "Incentive" (_New Worlds_, 1957); "Gene Hive" (aka, "Journey to the Interior," _Nebula_, 1958); "Secret of a Mighty City" (aka, "Have Your Hatreds Ready," _Fantasy and Science Fiction_, 1958); and "Visiting Amoeba" (aka, "What Triumphs?" _Authentic Science Fiction_, 1957). These were some of the stories that Aldiss was turning out when he was first appearing as that Angry Young Brit who was consistently writing sf stories that were putting American science fiction to shame. Three of the stories ("All the World's Tears," "Who Can Replace a Man?" and "Visiting Amoeba") are savagely satirical pieces depicting humans and nonhumans alike engaging in their worst behavior. You won't forget them in a hurry. Two stories ("Gene Hive" and "Secret of a Mighty City") are much more imaginative and complex. They are arguably the best stories in the collection. But all of the stories are worth a read. Highly recommended.

This is easily one of the best sci-fi novel, or just book, that I have ever read. This book is old and I had to obtain my copy via eBay, but it was worth it. The eight interconnected stories come to a surprising conclusion, and overall is very thought-provoking.

A series of short stories, each dealing with a specific era in the human development and future histoy. Alldis is known in his intelligent and philosofic works and this one is not only keeping those high standarts , but stands out as a wonderfull, imaginative story of our race , millions of years into the future. super recommended. enjoy.

I read this book as a teenager, and then many other times. It's a story of mankind spanning millions of years. This book is one-of-a-kind, for the gigantic scale on which is projected, the bold imagination, the long silences between flashes of history that let yor mind fascinated for the untold but imagined. And there is a subtle sadness for those million lives, their joys and despairs... but always life flourishes in unexpected ways. Reading this book is like looking at the sky in a clear night and wondering at the immense universe.

An excellent Aldiss book. It annnotates the history of mankind as told by its replacement. Telling the tale like a geologist would - using million, billion, thousand, and hundred year increments - Aldiss shows how man is the perfect seedling for populating the universe as well as the ultimate vehicle for its self-destruction. Man ruins the Earth, leaves Earth for the stars, tackles the problems of time travel through an intergrated form of speech-like alchemy, rediscovers a still populated Earth but does not belive it to be the Earth of myth, renames Earth as there are already hundreds of planets in the universe laying claim to that distinction, unifies the universe, institutes galactic warfare as a necessary economical device, and destroys the universe in a truely unique battle against man's successor. Time is the constant, and Aldiss makes us aware that we are just a silly soap opera for the infinate to enjoy for but a minute or two.