Before you is one of Aldiss's best creations. A “space saga” comparable in scale, fascination and epic authenticity only to Frank Herbert’s “Dune.” A saga about the planet Helliconia, where each “great year” is the lifetime of hundreds of generations. About a planet whose sun turns again and again around a brighter star, bringing with each revolution fundamental changes in climate and ecology. This is a world described to the smallest detail - from the art of war to diplomacy, from science to philosophy.