Non-Stop

“Slash and burn” is a type of agriculture where small nomadic communities clear and farm a patch of jungle for a season before moving on, allowing wild plants to regrow. The tribes that depends on this most primitive form of agriculture would only be able to approach the concept of a starship through analogy, if at all.

The members of the Greene tribe, whose grim existence is depicted in the pages of Non-Stop, have a vague notion of what a starship is, but only because they happen to be living in one. Some primal catastrophe struck their ship generations ago, leaving the inhabitants in a battle for survival against the forces of what might be called nature, for want of a better word.

Their home, Quarters, is a section of corridor which they have reclaimed from dense plant growths called the ponics. The tribespeople clear a way ahead to make room for their crops, and thus slowly advance, drawing up their rear barricades behind them. The idea of a generation ship overrun with jungle inside is a striking image.

Roy Complain is a hunter. He’s not too smart, but somewhat discontented with the authoritarian culture in the tribe. After his wife is captured by strangers on a hunting trip, Complain is punished by the ruling Lieutenancy. He plots to escape the village with the priest, Marapper, and thus begins the exploration of this vivid self-contained world.

As Complain and his companions explore their world and its various factions of mutants, Forwards, Outsiders and Giants they uncover revelation after revelation. This is just the kind of science fiction I like, and the book easily bears rereading as new light is shed on the early stages of the book.

Non-Stop (also known as Starship) was Brian Aldiss’ first science fiction novel, and it marked him as a talented and highly imaginative author. His contributions to the field since then have been enormous, and include some seminal explorations of classic science fiction themes.

In his genre debut, Aldiss included ideas that he would draw out in later work such as Hothouse (1961) (also known as The Long Afternoon of Earth), and his Helliconia series. These include the adaptation of human life and culture to the environment, the subjectivity of morality and the sterility of technocratic society.

Aldiss’ satirical voice comes across in the harsh religion of the tribe: a kind of cult of psycho-analysis, where impulsiveness is a virtue and tribe members are encouraged not to suppress their ‘morbid impulses’ such as fear and anger. Their holy trinity includes ‘Froyd’ and ‘Yung’, and their Litany holds such wisdom as ‘Leap before you look’.

Non-Stop has stood the test of time, with a little shaky science, and remains an quality science-fiction novel, and is deservedly recognised as an important book in the history of the genre.

One minor flaw I found in the work is that Aldiss’ tribal characters are occasionally too sophisticated in their speech, and sometimes improbably anachronistic (‘I thought this was going to be an expedition, not a Punch and Judy show’).

Like so many classic works, it’s quite a slender volume, but has a lot packed into it: mystery and suspense, and a sense of claustrophobic tension as the various spaces of the ship are explored. I recommend the book to those looking for fairly fast-paced (non-stop?) idea-filled science fiction.

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