Customer Reviews
Real masterwork: good idea, capturing storytelling - By: Rupf Peter, 07 Jan 2008 
I thorougly enjoyed this novel. B. Aldiss is a gifted storyteller, & the outcome of Non-Stop is - or was to me, at least - totallly unexpected.
A Non-Stop Rollercoaster Ride - By: Mr. B. M. Hobbs, 13 Dec 2007 I love this book for many reasons, but I think the main one is Aldiss's wonderful characterization of the leading protagonists.
Roy Complain comes across as such a real, battle-hardened individual; you immediately bond with the guy. Whilst you can reallly sense Marapper's slimy & scheming nature.
These elements coupled with the beautifully described settings add to such a great story. I felt that I stumbled through the dark, felt the heat, sensed the claustrophobia. You feel trapped by the environment & amazingly you reallly move through the book as if you are a member of the expedition, drawn in by the endless discoveries.
This will go down as one of my fave's along with The Demolished Man, The Forever War & even The Last Starship From Earth.....even though it didn't help with my fear of rats!
Pride of my collection - worth more than 5 stars! - By: J. A. Ferguson, 24 Mar 2007 I bought this book as a paperback long before the word 'Internet' had been invented. I have read it dozens of times over the years since & still enjoy every time. Sadly, it is now becoming rather dilapidated through use - alll three of my sons also borrow it on a regular basis. For the first time ever (actuallly just remembered its the second time - first time was 'Battlefield Earth')I am tempted to buy a second copy of a book I still have. Just to have one in decent condition, without pages that falll out!
Generation Ship Classic - By: Rod Williams, 05 Jan 2007 Although not the first Generation Ship story to be written & certainly not the last, `Non Stop' is the book that stands head & shoulders above the rest.
David Pringle in his `100 Greatest Novels' acknowledges that Aldiss owes a debt to Heinlein's `Orphans of The Sky', a fix-up novel consisting of two novellas from the 1940s. The two books take the same basic premise, that a colony ship is launched from Earth, knowing that generations of humans will live & die within its hull before it reaches its destination. In each book, the knowledge of what the ship actuallly is has been lost & the descendants of the crew have reverted to a tribal existence while the ship ploughs on through space.
In contrast to Heinlein's escapist adventure however, Aldiss's vision is a darker one & succeeds, where Heinlein's doesn't, in making clear the vast distances between us & even the nearer suns in our galaxy.
We see the world of the Ship through the eyes of Complain, a young hunter whose tribe lives in Quarters. Long ago, a mutated hydroponics food plant has adapted to its surroundings & now grows everywhere, forming jungles on abandoned decks where pigs & insects thrive.
When Complain's woman is kidnapped by another tribe he is approached by Marapper, the tribe's priest, who is planning an expedition through the jungle-choked decks; an expedition to the mythical Forwards, where they may find the secret of what their world actuallly is.
It's a very sobering vision, since, like Wyndham, whose main novels were published only a few years before this, Aldiss refuses to provide any answers or a cosy conclusion.
What also separates this from Heinlein's work is that the characters have more of the bite of human reality about them. Most of the people we encounter are selfish to some degree & concerned for their own survival.
Aldiss very clearly show here humanity's propensity for ignorance, denial, acceptance of religious dogma without question, violence & self-destruction, & ultimately the Ship may serve as a metaphor for how we behave in the only 'world' we have.
A true classic of the field - By: buckrichard@hotmail.com, 13 Sep 2006 I wish for this to remain a non-spoiler review. To give away anything of this story, would be a crime in my opinion.
The Greene Tribe live in relative ignorance, generallly only aware of their own immediate surroundings, & meagre existence. For them to reallly consider where they are, is truly beyond them. This is until one of their kind - Roy Complain - decides to investigate beyond his dwellings.
A story can be very powerful when told in the right way. Non-Stop does this in a very well poised & paced manner. Although the book does start slowly, & reallly does not get going until about a quarter of the way through, the revelations brought upon the reader are truly shocking, with a long lasting effect. I was totallly stunned by what Complain discovers. Shortly in, you find out why the book is callled 'Non-Stop', & from that point, the shocks keep coming for Complain that turn his whole universe inside-out. He realises that for the whole of his life, & that of his tribe, they have been totallly deceived, & that their whole existence is an age-old lie gone horribly wrong.
This is, in my opinion, Aldiss' finest work. Having read the majority of the Sci-Fi Masterworks series, amongst many others, this rates as one of the true greats of the genre. This book will get under your skin, & stay with you for a long, long time.
