83. Helliconia Winter by Brian Aldiss
Review
“Helliconia Winter” by Brian Aldiss is the third and final book in the series about the planet of Helliconia. As the title describes, winter is coming to Helliconia and this time it is the blistering summer of the Great Year. Humanity is experiencing internal strife and conflict as the warm season of summer has led to a large expansion across the planet and the different nations and world-views are aggressively disagreeing.
This third book in the series manages to expand on the world of Helliconia, but also looks into the philosophical perspectives of our own Earth several thousand years in the future. It promotes a pacifist approach to life, which is in itself very compelling and is exemplified very well with Helliconia, where war and aggression are the core of existence. It argues that aggression drives possession, which in turn drives conflict. In the long term it is argued that this is a futile approach, as the universe in the end does not care greatly for who owns what.
Now that I’ve read the entire series I find that the best comparisons to make are to Adrian Tchaikovsky and his Children of Time-series along with Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycles in terms of style. A comparison to “Star Maker” by Olaf Stapledon can also be made, but it is not the first comparison I would make as the objective seems quite different. In terms of the changing seasons I find that “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin could also be compared and I would imagine that the dear George could’ve drawn some inspiration from the ideas of this book.
Score: 8/10
This third book is a great way to finish the series and it becomes clear that the amount of research that has gone into this series is immense, especially from a biological perspective. Perhaps it was this focus on biology in terms of cosmic events, which confused me throughout the first two books, where I was looking for purpose. Purpose, that was never meant to be there and this is in itself the purpose of the book. Biology does biological things in response to the world that surrounds it, but these things are not necessarily logical or purposeful, but are done simply in order to survive.
I find that this final book is the best of the series and it shows the immensity of the effort that the author has put into creating a world, which is harsh and brutal, yet somehow life still prevails, through the most impressive biological inventions.