Last Orders

LAST ORDERS shows Brian Aldiss, master of the unexpected, at his most wittily inventive, whether recording the last conversation on Earth, a new Flood about to wash civilization away, the massacre of animals on an unknown planet, or the invention of machines that bring paintings to life.

These stories, either set on the Zodiacal Planets (the zeepees) or cast in the form of "enigmas", are marked by striking and prophetic ambiguities.

LAST ORDERS offers a chilling warning of what we might find if a spaceprobe landed in the human soul...

Contents:

• Author's Note
• Last Orders
• Creatures of Apogee
• Enigma 1: Year By Year the Evil Gains
• Enigma 2: Diagrams for Three Stories
• Live? Our Computers Will Do That For Us
• The Monster of Ingratitude IV
• Enigma 3: The Aperture Moment
• Backwater
• Enigma 4: The Eternal Theme of Exile
• The Expensive Delicate Ship
• Enigma 5: Three Coins in Clockwork Fountains
• An Appearance of Life
• Wired for Sound
• Journey to the Heartland