SOURCE: "Thinking in Fuzzy Sets: The Recent SF of Brian W. Aldiss," in Pacific Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 3, July, 1979, pp. 288-94.

In the following essay, Wingrove examines several of Aldiss's works from the middle to late 1970s, including Enemies of the System and several short stories, and illustrates how Aldiss departs from the mainstream of science fiction and creates a more "literary" subgenre.

Whilst the mainstream has shuffled gently away from the secure paths of 'romantic' realism and now draws from the armoury of sf visions for its literary weaponry, several of sf's tried and truest practitioners have made their presence known in the mainstream. The accolade given to Michael Moorcock, in the form of the 1977 Guardian Fiction Award for The Condition Of Musak, is a sign of the times. The boundaries have blurred and—in Aldiss' words—we have now to "think in fuzzy sets".¹

Within the...