Cheap Greybeard (Book) (Brian Wilson Aldiss) Price

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Customer Reviews of Greybeard

The explosion of radioactive weapons in space has disrupted Earth's protective van Allen Belt, saturating the planet with massive doses of radiation. This has resulted in sickness, deformity and sterility for the human race. In the years following the "Accident" civilization has been in steady decline, as there will be no more future generations.

Algernon Timberlane (better known as Greybeard) was six years old at the time of the disaster. He has grown up in a world that has become increasingly primitive and quiet as people succumb to old age or cancers caused by the fallout. By the time Greybeard is in his mid fifties he is one of the youngest people left in the world. England has become a wilderness thinly populated by tribes of old people living with untreatable ailments. Savage animals, no longer afraid of man, roam the countryside in packs. Some people claim to have seen goblins lurking in the shadows. With each passing year people grow more frail and feeble-minded.

This is the first novel I've read by Brian Aldiss, the man who identified John Wyndham with the "Cosy Catastrophe". "Greybeard" is a novel John Wyndham would certainly have approved of. The catastrophe that shaped this decrepit future is, however, far from cosy. A book like "Greybeard" would be a good way to argue in favour of the need for human cloning. It could well save our species.

Generally slow read, touching at times.
The story follows the lives of a small group of human survivors of a nuclear accident. The "Accident", as it is referred to, has made male humans infertile. As the surviving population slowly dies off, the remaining groups of elderly people struggle to find hope in a bleak environment. One group, led by a man called Greybeard, have lived for many years in a small, isolated town along the river. They decide to venture down the river, to seek out the truth of rumors spread by travelers that children and fertile humans still survive in isolated pockets of the land. This is mostly a dark novel, with a few moving moments, and some beautifully descriptive writing. It is short on action.

One of the great science fiction classics
One of the best of the "end of the world" books, written by one the select members of the group known as the "world destroyers" back in the fifties and sixties. I began reading science fiction before I was even in junior high, and for me, this was one of the most memorable. It is still one of the best (I can count those I would consider 'the best' on one hand). The atmosphere that Aldiss creates for us begins on the first page, in the first paragraph, in the first sentence. This book will stay with me for the rest of my life. (Several years ago, I managed to find a first edition. Now, if I could just get it signed...)