Brian Aldiss, who died in 2017, was best known for his science fiction - and in particular for a short story optioned by Stanley Kubrick, which would, under the direction of Steven Spielberg, become the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Aldiss's first book was published by Faber in 1955.

This brief, late trilogy contains much of his lively humour, one improbable invention, and a pervasive sense of loneliness and longing. 'Sadness is just happiness in reverse,' says someone in a story within the story, 'We humans have to put up with it.'