The world outside: Non-Stop (1958) by Brian Aldiss

A classic showcase of conceptual breakthroughs

A quest or journey to seek answers about the world is an important recurring element in science fiction. Rarely has this been employed to greater impact than in Brian Aldiss’ debut SF novel Non-Stop (1958). A classic of its decade, it launched Aldiss’ career, which saw him become a leading figure in British SF for many years. 

Published in the United States under the title Starship, the novel is a key example of the enduring generation ship theme. Aldiss’ characters are trapped in a claustrophobic world which is as constrained conceptually as it is spatially. Their exciting physical journey is a framework for a chain of thrilling conceptual breakthroughs which transform their understanding of themselves, their world, and the universe.

Non-Stop is classic SF at its best - both an engaging adventure and a probing search for answers rooted in scientific speculation.

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The big something

Roy Complain is a member of the Greene tribe, one of a number of hunter-gatherer factions that eke out a living in the cramped corridors and dank rooms of their world. Theirs is an artificial, inside world - none of Roy’s people have ever seen a sky, nor set foot in any kind of natural environment. An ambitious rogue priest, Marapper, claims that everyone is living on a “Ship”, but can neither prove this nor even explain what it would mean. The Ship is large and mostly unexplored by the Greene tribe, choked by fast-growing plants called “ponics”. Rumours abound of sinister and seldom-seen “Giants”, and of the mysterious “Outsiders”. 

After “his woman” Gwenny is captured in a skirmish with a rival tribe, and after the trade value of meat declines, hunter Roy becomes willingly conscripted into Marapper’s bold and forbidden scheme. Their small group will sneak into Deadways, a neighbouring region of the Ship. If from there they can reach and capture the “control centre” - should such a thing exist - they could acquire unimagined power. 

The way is fraught with dangers, from the ponics, to mutant rats and moths, and the threat of rival factions. Along the way, Roy and his comrades uncover a series of revelations which may lead to “the big something”, the ultimate truth that Roy has been semi-consciously searching for his entire life.

Starship trekkers

The discovery early on in the novel, that Roy and his people are living on a generation starship, is easy to foresee - and not only because of the title of the US version. Prior to Aldiss, the outstanding treatment of this concept was Robert Heinlein’s linked stories “Universe” and “Common Sense”, published in Astounding in 1941. It has since become a common notion that the crew of a generation ship would, after confronting a crisis, experience a collapse of their fragile society and lose the knowledge about the nature of their environment.

Part of what makes Aldiss’ treatment of this idea so compelling is the vividness of his depiction of the ship’s interior. The vessel is vast and complex, experienced as a dangerous and confusing labyrinth by its inhabitants. The mutant animals and plants reinforce the sense of collapse, and hint at the specific disaster which befell the ship. The dank, ominous mess of this setting has likely influenced later starships, not least the Nostalgia for Infinity, an indelible creation of Alastair Reynolds encountered first in Revelation Space (2000).

Breaking through

Including Non-Stop in his book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1985), David Pringle wrote that “the story begins to grip the reader only when Complain and a few of his comrades break free of the tribe and set out on a journey of discovery”. This leads to what Pringle calls “a series of ingenious revelations”, the conceptual breakthroughs which serve as the novel’s framework. Late on, Aldiss literalises the notion of breakthrough when his characters acquire a powerful cutting tool which allows them to melt the walls between sections of the ship.

As Complain discovers more about the Ship and the disaster which befell it long ago, his view of the world shifts and expands greatly. Aldiss mines this process for both its dramatic, as well as intellectual, potential. The conceptual breakthroughs are tightly linked to changes in Complain’s character. Pringle writes that at the outset of the story, Aldiss’ protagonist is “petty, mean, vindictive, and a bit stupid.” Certainly he treats Gwenny very poorly, and seems barely to notice her abduction. His growing awareness of the truth changes Complain - he becomes more thoughtful, cooperative, and proactive as the novel goes on.

Non-Stop suggests that people are a product of their environment. Complain begins as the prisoner of a ruined, claustrophobic, and besieged environment, with morals and attitudes to match. When he encounters a different way of life in the Forwards section, his perspective shifts accordingly. As he discovers, there is no guarantee of a reaching a destination, nor a better future. 

Final destination

Non-Stop has a strikingly fresh feel for a novel published in 1958, and is rightly described by the SFE as “a brilliant treatment of the generation starship topos and the theme of conceptual breakthrough”. Rooted in science and powered by the techniques and effects that make science fiction special, this is a genuine classic of the form.

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• I read the original SF Masterworks reprint edition of Non-Stop, published as no. 33 of that series in November 2000. 
  
• Heinlein’s 1941 generationship stories were belatedly gathered into the novel Orphans of the Sky in 1963, five years after the publication of Non-Stop.