Brian Aldiss, OBE, is a fiction and science fiction writer, poet, playwright, critic, memoirist and artist. He was born in Norfolk in 1925. After leaving the army, Aldiss worked as a bookseller, which provided the setting for his first book, The Brightfount Diaries (1955). His first published science fiction work was the story 'ÂeÂ~Criminal Record'ÂeÂ(tm), which appeared in Science Fantasy in 1954. Since then he has written nearly 100 books and over 300 short stories.