UK Edition
Author Brian Aldiss dead at 92: Neil Gaiman and Graham Coxon pay tribute to the sci-fi master
Award-winning author Brian Aldiss has died aged 92, his family confirmed today.
Aldis was one of Britain's most respected science-fiction writers, author and editor of more than 100 books, including novels, non-fiction and poetry. His 1969 short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long inspired Steven Spielberg's 2001 film AI: Artificial Intelligence.
Announcing the author's death via his Twitter account, his family wrote: "It is with great sadness we announce the death of our beloved father & grandfather. Brian died peacefully at home on his 92nd birthday [August 18]".
Neil Gaiman, Adam Roberts and Darran Anderson are among the many authors who have used the social media site to pay their respects to the late writer.
Graham Coxon, guitarist of Britpop band Blur, praised Aldiss as a "great genius".
In a 2015 interview with The Telegraph, Aldiss said that he began writing chilling stories as a way to deal with bullying at school. "My father was very unfeeling when I was growing up, and sent me off to boarding school when I was six," he said. "I was so upset that I used to wet the bed in the dormitory. To stop other boys teasing me, I told terrifying stories. If any of them cried out in horror for me to stop, I had triumphed; they were never going to mock me. Eventually I wrote the stories down. I intended to charge a penny per read, such was the demand. Unfortunately, everybody wanted to read, but they weren’t so happy to pay."
Born in Norfolk in 1925, Aldiss served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War. "I was posted to the Far East and had my 19th birthday on the harbour frontier in Bombay," he told The Telegraph. "I fought in what became known as the Forgotten Army. We saw so many explosions, so much death and hardship, but I also made friends for life and grew fond of Asian culture. You can’t ever truly escape memories of war, however, and in a way I was fortunate to have my stories to funnel some of those images into."
In his writing career, Aldiss knew CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, and became a regular drinking companion of Kinsley Amis. In 2000 he was named a grand master by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, and in 2005 he was awarded an OBE for services to literature.