Squire Quartet
4 primary works
Book 1
The first volume in the acclaimed Squire Quartet., available for the first time on ebook.
Thomas C. Squire, popular presenter of television documentaries, one time secret agent, a hedonist whose worldly success and self-confidence overshadow the lives of his family and friends, faces a mid-life crisis which undermines the stability of his ancient house. This brilliant and sometimes violent novel moves from England to Sicily, Singapore and Jugoslavia.
Brian says: 'A complex and argumentative drama built about the axes of Thomas Squire's attendance at an imaginary contemporary ARTS symposium in Sicily, his extramarital and marital relationships, and his past as a secret agent in Jugoslavia, a land caught between East and West. Includes several humorous portraits of national types.'
First published in 1980 and unavailable for some time.
Book 2
The second volume in the acclaimed Squire Quartet, available for the first time as an ebook.
Spanning fifty years and three continents - from pre-war Suffolk, to the Far East in the 1940s, to Oxford and America in the present day - Forgotten Life is a novel of immense scope, encompassing comedy and tragedy, joy and grief, as its three main characters try to work out the most difficult problem of all - the meaning of their own lives.
Brian says: 'This novel, which in retrospect can be seen to have a similar ground plan to Non-Stop, written thirty years earlier, was more warmly received than any other Aldiss novel, not simply by its reviewers but by readers.'
Features a new introduction by the author.
Book 3
The third book in the Squire Quartet, available for the first time as an ebook.
Russian born Dominic is one of the success stories of the eighties, when yuppies made fortunes on the stock market .
Ray Tebbutt is among the unlucky ones. He was involved in a bankruptcy in the mid-eighties .
Peter Petrik, a dissident Czech film director, lives in Prague, dreaming of making more films when times improve .
The lifelines of these people and others - comic and sad by turns in true Aldiss fashion - converge towards the finality of an IRA bomb epuisode in Great Yarmouth.
Book 4
The final volume of the critically acclaimed Squire Quartet, available for the first time as an ebook.
Having abandoned Britain to its recession, architectural historian Roy Burnell operates out of Germany, attempting to hold the world together culturally. Moving around the more outrageous parts of the globe, his task is to list architectural gems threatened by war, history and human awfulness.
Such is man's ingenuity, however, that Burnell's mind is also threatened. Someone has stolen a chunk of his memory - ten years in fact. This chunk, and in particular the more salacious bits, such as his marriage to Stephanie, has been chopped up, recorded in e-mnemonicvision and sold to lovers of soft porn everywhere.
First published in 1994 and unavailable for some time. Features a new introduction by the author.