Brian Aldiss. Who Can Replace A Man? (1965)

     Brian Aldiss. Who Can Replace A Man? (1965) Aldiss tried his hand at most of the sub-genres of SF. These tales show his skill as well as his powerful and off-kilter imagination. I’ve read many of them in various anthologies; they were worth re-reading. Aldiss focusses on the human costs of technologies and/or encounters with unexpected glitches in the workings of the universe. He’s very good at making even the most bizarre premises work. Man In His Time posits that a cosmonaut returning from a first exploration of Mars exists about 3 minutes ahead of Earth time. The most difficult thing is for Earth-time people to plan what they will do 3 minutes from now. Psyclops deals with aliens ho can mimic human form, but cannot of course mimic humanity. A Cold War story about infiltration by the enemy, it evokes the fear of the mysterious and dangerous Other. Old Hundredth is an elegy on the passing of Man, leaving behind an earth peopled with genetic experiments, animals with powers beyond any current human’s, and yet unable to follow humanity to whatever plane of existence humans have achieved.
     A good introduction to Aldiss’s universes, in the UK the book was titled Best Science Fiction Stories of Brian Aldiss. I can’t quarrel with that title. ***

2019: minor corrections.