The Jonbar Point
by Brian Aldiss

Introduction by Christopher Priest

ISBN 978-1-79472-531-7 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-913451-63-9 (ebook)

Photograph of Brian Aldiss in June 1970 taken by Margaret Aldiss.

The Jonbar Point: Essays from SF Horizons by Brian Aldiss was released by Ansible Editions in September 2020. 27,000 words. Trade paperback 9" x 6", 82pp. £7.50 or $9.99 plus local postage from Lulu.com: click button below. Ebook in the usual formats at £3.00: again, click button below.

The Jonbar Point collects, for the first time, two major essays on science fiction which Brian Aldiss published in the two issues of his and Harry Harrison’s critical journal SF Horizons. Christopher Priest contributes a new introduction.

“Judgement at Jonbar” (1964) is a lengthy analysis on several levels of Jack Williamson’s pulp-era classic The Legion of Time, which gave SF the term “jonbar point” – where alternative timelines diverge. This essay is described in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “one of the most penetrating studies yet written about a pulp-sf novel”.

“British Science Fiction Now: Studies of Three Writers” (1965) examines the work of the contemporary authors Lan Wright, Donald Malcolm and J.G. Ballard – treating the first two somewhat cruelly (though very entertainingly) and the third with measured admiration. This, based on his early work to 1965, was the first substantial critical study of the later very famous J.G. Ballard.

Brian Aldiss himself, one of the most distinguished SF authors of the twentieth century, should need no introduction. The Jonbar Point: Essays from SF Horizons is published by permission of The Estate of Brian Aldiss.