The Helliconia Trilogy
by Brian W. Aldiss
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted January 12, 2025
Book 1: Helliconia Spring / 2. Helliconia Summer / Helliconia Winter
A very ambitious series, worldbuilding on a massive scale, from Grand Master Brian Aldiss (his books in the UK do not include the initial). I first read them in the early to mid-80s shortly after publication as they were available from SFBC. This time around it seemed like a completely new book, with just a few scenes sparking memories, although I was thinking one of those was in the second book. Helliconia is a planet about 1000 light years from Earth. It is in a binary star system, revolving around the lesser star Batalix, which in turn revolves around its much bigger partner, Freyr. Helliconia is slightly larger and denser than Earth, with an equivalent higher gravity, and a 25 hour rotation. Its small year (around Batalix) is 480 of its days long, equivalent to about 518 Earth days. The Great Year around Freyr is more than 2500 Earth years. Since Batalix's orbit is highly eliptical, the time it spends far from Freyr is longer, thus Helliconia experiences very long, very severe winters.
The individual titles are out of print, in the US at least, with no listings at Bookshop. Available for Kindle from Amazon. That link is for the complete trilogy in one file, at a very reasonable price at this time ($4), half the price of the first novel alone ($8). A purchase through that link may earn us a commission. Kobo matches that price for the trilogy, but B&N's Nook price is $30, or $10 for each. If you want them in print it would need to be used, so check eBay, bookfinder.com, or your favorite used bookstore. Amazon in the UK has the trilogy in one trade paperback (1328 pages) from SF Masterworks. We would not earn a commission through that link. When I bought the Kindle bundle I donated my book club hardcovers for a library sale. I cannot recall if they included the appendices that the e-book has, but I would hope so. At least for the first book there is very valuable information in those sections, things just hinted at in the novel, due to the characters being unaware of many aspects of their world.
There are 'humans' on Helliconia, and also humans in orbit around it, in the Earth Observation Station Avernus. Inhabitants of that station came to the system only as DNA samples, gestating in artificial wombs after arrival from Earth. We don't get much information about them in the novel, just a few short sections between action down on Helliconia, but there is more in the appendices. For instance, there were 521 at the start of the mission, but the population has increased to over 6000. All are members of different family groups, each of which concentrates on specific studies. Due to threats of viruses and other pathogens, those on Avernus do not go down to the planet, although it is implied that has happened on occasion, but they could not return to the station. They do not refer to the stars by name, but simply as Star A (Freyr), and Star B. In spite of the first book's title, it is not Spring until the very end, most of the book taking place over a hundred years or so at the tail end of yet another long Winter. There are several characters, or at least the memory of them, who comprise the human tale on Helliconia, beginning with Yuli. He is about seven years old when he is separated from his father on a hunt. Remember, the years are longer here, plus the people mature faster. Yuli's age was the equivalent of ten Earth years, and for him it is just before puberty. In addition to the humans, there are animals we are familiar with (pigs, geese, eagles, bats), or at least familiar names are used, which might indicate the story is being written by someone on Avernus. There are also other sentient beings. Yuli's father was captured by phagors, a bipedal, twin-horned, cattle-like species. The first appendix starts with an illustration of a phagor, which looks similar to a minotaur. Yuli knows his father will be either enslaved or eaten. Humans in turn occasionally enslaved phagors, but they never ate them.
The blood of phagors is yellowish-gold, its nature acting somewhat like an anti-freeze for them. They were the dominant species for a very long time, and still are during the winters. One appendix note says Star A originally had a different companion, Star C, which was expelled from the system after Star B was captured. That occurred approximately 8 million years prior to the action in Spring. One thing that is hard to believe is the phagors retained knowledge of that event, referring to it as the Catastrophe. Until the orbit of Batalix settled into its later pattern, Helliconia was bathed in massive doses of radiation from Freyr, causing rapid evolution of many species, including the 'humans,' who derived from an ape-like species. That is why phagors refer to humans as the Sons of Freyr. Over those millions of years human civilizations had risen, very quickly during Spring and Summer, which is comparatively short but brutally hot, and the societies collapse even before Winter returns. Little knowledge is retained between those cycles. Winters last so long they are considered the norm, with people complaining of rapidly growing grasses impeding their hunts as Spring approaches. But it also brings more game, more crops, including grains they had no memory of. Trade increases between settlements, new inventions are created, new ways of doing things to improve productivity.
As I said above, there are several 'main' characters through most of the story, Yuli's taking up about a fourth of the first book. The second section introduced Shay Tal, who was important up to a point, but others superceded her, and her fate is not even known at the end of the book, although a good guess would be she was captured or killed by phagors. Most of human society is reminiscent of those from ancient Earth, tribal hunter-gatherers, and definitely patriarchal. Women were supposed to work and breed, nothing more, but Shay Tal wanted to learn. She created an academy to teach other women, which was opposed by the male leaders. Laintal Ay was the grandson of Little Yuli, who was the grandson of the first Yuli. After his parents died, Shay Tal became his surrogate mother, and he supported her efforts to learn, but also had to abide by rules set for men. He was a good hunter, and one of his accomplishments was taming wild hockneys (sort of a cross between deer and horse), learning how to ride them the way phagors rode their steeds, the kaidaw. That helped for hunting as well as raiding other villages and fighting phagors. Aoz Roon was their leader for a time, after he had murdered his predecessors, two brothers, uncles of Laintal Ay. Aoz Roon's daughter Orye was attracted to Laintal Ay, and vice versa, although neither acted on it for a long time. Orye also supported Shay Tal, but tried to keep that secret (unsuccessfully) from her father. All of these are important to the human side of the story, but more important is the nature of Helliconia and its 'sentinels,' the two suns. Shay Tal was more concerned about esoteric spiritual matters, but one of her students was a true scientist.
Vry was very observant of the suns, calculating when Batalix, which she knew was nearer to Helliconia, would eclipse Freyr. She knew those eclipses would bring changes, and she knew why, whereas the illiterate rabble feared them as omens from their gods. Vry was also the one who figured out one of those gods, Wutra, was actually a phagor god, that the phagors once ruled the area, and likely would again. There are three continents on Helliconia: Campannlat, Hespagorat, and Sibornal. All of the action in Spring takes place on Campannlat, primarily in the village of Embruddock, home to those I have identified. Some people call it Oldarando, which is what the first Yuli called where he had settled near Lake Dorzin, several miles to the north. There are only myths about the other continents, but stories of Sibornal prompted Shay Tal to leave Embruddock in search of the knowledge she hoped was available in that other land. Laintal Ay thinks she was killed or captured, but we don't know for sure, and at this time I don't remember how much time passes to the start of the second book. The situation looks dire for Embruddock, with a large phagor group on its way to reclaim it, and the bone fever killing many of the humans. I will follow up with thoughts on Helliconia Summer soon.
I don't think anything I've written is a spoiler, and there is so much I left out. Highly recommended, and I hope my fondness for the full series is justified on re-reading. Several award organizations held them in high regard too. Both Spring and Winter won the British Science Fiction Association award for Best Novel, and both were Nebula and Locus finalists. Spring also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the Kurd Laßwitz Preis for its German translation. Summer was a finalist for BSFA and Locus.
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