Helliconia Summer
We meet Billy Xiao Pin, who comes to Helliconia from a different world – one that still dreams of distant Earth. And we meet the embattled king of Borlien, who, beset by enemies, trusting none but his phagor guard, decides to divorce his beautiful queen and marry instead the child princess of Oldorando. His struggle to do so, while his foes, sensing his weakness, encircle him, forms the plot of this novel, while in the background the Helliconia forests burn.
Part two of the epic Helliconia Trilogy, the breathtaking masterwork of one of the century's greatest masters of imaginative fiction.
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE (1925-2017) was an English writer and anthologies editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for occasional pseudonyms during the mid-1960s.
Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss was a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society. He was (with Harry Harrison) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. Aldiss was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2000 and inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2004. He received two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and one John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He wrote the short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" (1969), the basis for the Stanley Kubrick-developed Steven Spielberg film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). Aldiss was associated with the British New Wave of science fiction.
The Helliconia Trilogy
The Helliconia Trilogy consists of three books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.