Non-Stop

What a great discovery, this book is available!! I read it about 30 years ago and it has been still in my memory. Action, action, suspense and surprising philosophical ending. Is "reality" that we observe a true reality? Must read for science fiction lovers who concentrate on "worlds within World".

It was with great joy that I found and read "Non-Stop", which is an author-revised version of the classic work called "Starship" from 1958. I read the original when I was perhaps 12 or 13, and now I am 49. It was, therefore, a real treat to relive this amazing tale, with a slightly different twist, but with a more mature ability to grasp the brilliance of this work. First, be forwarned that there are, sadly, a few typos and spelling errors in this edition and even some sentences that are incomplete. (If only I had been his copy-editor! It is so sad that such a gifted writer's publishing house could not do a more professional job on the production side!) On one page the author writes about cutting through the masses of hydroponic plants (ponics) on the lower decks of the ship, but the text reads "ponies" rather than "ponics". Another thing you must accept with this new edition is that Aldiss didn't change very much, and thus the writing style is still very 50's sci-fi. But that was such a Golden Age for the genre! So, I give him a little slack for that. I'm glad he kept closely to the original theme, style, and character development, since the characters were all very colorful and vivid in the original. I had always felt that the original title "Starship" gave away the story too soon--that is, being on or about a vessel. When reading the original book, I found it a tad frustrating, as I had assumed that I had picked up a sci-book about a 'starship,' yet the first part of the story seemed to be preoccupied with agriculture and living in tight spaces with ruffians! So, the new title "Non-Stop" very cleverly gets around this issue. The new edition lets the reader piece the puzzle together page by page (and deck by deck) along with the main character, Roy Complain, as he develops an awareness of his "world". You are part of the journy of self-discovery along with Complain, and it resonants so well with this newer title. This is the brilliance of this story: that man does not fully understand his universe, and life is to be spent in the game of figuring this all out. Really, a fantastic story, and I am hoping this will be made into a movie some day.

Mystery/suspense are seated comfortably alongside sci-fi in this story of a community of people searching for their lost past. Answers are hidden securely along the way, and are ultimately fascinating. The world Aldiss creates is strange and frightening, and the characters are memorable as each struggles for stability among chaos.

This book is among the top 2 SciFi's I've read. Only Asimov's Foundation series kept me even more locked to the couch. But Non-Stop is different from "Foundation".. Extremely good and a very surprizing and spine-chilling end!

This is a great, undeservedly obscure science fiction novel. A gripping, and frequently moving adventure story. The various mysteries and plot threads are brought together in a breathtaking climax that adds new levels of meaning to everything that comes before.