Non-Stop

Brian W. Aldiss

Book 33 of SF Masterworks

Publisher: Faber and Faber

Published: Jan 2, 1958

Description:

Curiosity was discouraged in the Greene tribe. Its members lived out their lives in cramped Quarters, hacking away at the encroaching ponics. As to where they were - that was forgotten. Roy Complain decides to find out. With the renegade priest Marapper, he moves into unmapped territory, where they make a series of discoveries which turn their universe upside-down... Non-Stop is the classic SF novel of discovery and exploration; a brilliant evocation of a familiar setting seen through the eyes of a primitive.

In the savage world of the Greene tribe, losing a woman was unforgivable, and Roy had lost his while hunting in the jungle called "the ponics". Disgraced, isolated, he joined the disreputable priest Marapper on a forbidden expedition through Deadways to find the legendary land of Forwards. They were to meet mutants, giants, regimented rats and telepathic rabbits, and the fabled Outsiders. Finally they would confront a secret kept hidden for 23 generations - a secret whose discovery would reveal their origins and destiny even as it destroyed their world!