Short Science Fiction Story Review – Brian W Aldiss – Criminal Record
1955 – Spoiler alerts
Another early gem from Aldiss, again involving aliens causing problems for people who go shopping.
This time, the main hero finds what he believes to be a rare collectible music recording on Vinyl, and rushes home with it to play it on his music system.
Once there, he discovers it is a disguised criminal record file for a human-Venusian hybrid creature from the future – one who has a habit of destroying the past and future for whole nations as well as individuals – worse, the narrator’s best friend appears to be a future kidnap victim of the creatures, one of who might just be on his way to the house where the record is being studied, right now.
Be careful what you buy – it may not be the bargain you expected.
Image Credit » Cyberman at FAB Cafe Manchester, taken by me
Comments
maxeen wrote on January 9, 2015, 3:52 PM
Things are never what they seem to be ,the young schoolboy on the news today was given a reward for his action on a train ,it was supposed to be a 'Banksy' but not so! Maybe Banksy will pick up on the story and send him a genuine one!!
arthurchappell wrote on January 9, 2015, 4:11 PM
hopefully yes though he could find his fake Banksy gets to be as celebrated as a genuine one through the publicity
stbrians wrote on January 10, 2015, 12:27 AM
Do not buy just for the sale of buying. I agree with you wholeheartedly
BodieMor wrote on January 10, 2015, 4:49 AM
More Aldiss! You are inspiring me to pull some of his books out of my sci-fi collection to re-read. It's been a long time!
arthurchappell wrote on January 10, 2015, 5:00 AM
I'll be doing quite a few Aldiss reviews as I have a collection of his entire 1950's short story output n one hefty volume about 50 stories
Kasman wrote on January 10, 2015, 10:19 AM
Science Fiction is probably my favourite genre of all - closely followed by Science Fantasy, particularly the novels of Terry Pratchett. I also read a lot of science fact.
arthurchappell wrote on January 10, 2015, 12:29 PM
I love Pratchett to Kasman no doubt he'll get a few mentions on these pages too