It’s often in literature you encounter the unbelievably masculine, overwhelmingly so. The ideological caricature that's meant to incite a reaction.

Similarly with any gender representation in literature, these caricatures infuriate me. It feels reductive, pinning gender to a conservative, insular, hyperbolic form. Ultimately, it's harmful.

What I adore about literature of the late 70’s and 80’s — particularly writing by queer men, or by people working in science fiction — is that you often encounter gentler men. Not without their faults, that’s for sure. There’s the sexism, racism, and the disappointing moments of failing to understand gender expression, the very “of the time” things that appear throughout literature of that period. But in these kinds of works it feels more real, more positioned in a reality that frames masculinity as something dynamic, many-shaped.

These flaws are not hateful. Harmful, yes — but not hateful. And in that distinction I find something strangely hopeful. It leaves open the possibility that these people, given conversation, might contribute to a kinder world simply by understanding where their casual remarks on these things are not necessary to be oneself, to live. It is difficult to read sometimes, myself being non-binary, but important too. To see where we are now in the present, as reflected by the moving towards a kindness kind of past. Aldiss gets criticised for the former quite a bit — reviewers often flag sexism or dated attitudes in his work — but it’s rarely described as driven by hostility. 

There’s a line in Ruins about how the protagonist's oddness reflects only well to women, and I found myself thinking about a lot of the men I’m close to in my own life. They carry a similar kind of safety within them — an innate knowledge of how to give respect.

There’s also an interior monologue in the book that describes things which, in contemporary writing, might quickly become the subject of ideological argument or discourse. Here they are presented in a way that is entirely unreactive. The thoughts simply appear, are processed, and move on. There is no instruction on how you should feel about them. 

Aldiss’s work often tries to reintroduce ordinary human interiority into genres that historically lacked it. Critics frequently note that his writing pushes science fiction toward warmth, compassion, and human feeling rather than heroic masculinity. That’s something I aspire to in my own writing: presenting thought in a way that can simply be received and processed. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree, the idea can move through you without demanding that you attack it with your own intentions. No agreement, no disagreement — just a slow expansion of understanding about the world, and perhaps a slightly better capacity to handle it in others.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong by looking further into Aldiss, or when I finish the novella. But this is 25 pages in, not a deep dive into the everything and anything of it. And shaped by my mood, timing, context and own personal experiences. That's what I love about reading, and reading's early stages too.

Beyond this and into structure, I love the small choices Aldiss makes. The protagonist is the only person referred to consistently by his full name, while others drift between first and last. It’s a subtle technique, but it gives him a strange gravity in the narrative. Writers often do this to create psychological distance or singularity. A character who carries their full name often feels slightly outside the social environment of the story.

The book itself doesn’t really feel of its time. If anything, it feels older. Even in its flaws it carries an older lilt, a touch that feels inherited. It’s an interesting tactic of the writer, who seems to be making the point that the past is how we arrived at the present, and that its faults will continue to echo into the future. Even something as simple as language and posture — the way people speak, the way they carry themselves — becomes a trace that survives across time, appearing again in the failings of the future.

A lot of contemporary (2020’s) writing is obsessed with the short, sharp detail. It's boring, and feels like it came from workshops or social media caption rules, tweets, this abrupt sentence meant to deliver mood through impact alone. Reading Ruins is a useful reminder to me of how that technique actually works when done well. Aldiss uses very simple words, but arranges them so that you feel them physically as you read.

“Creamy plastic.”
“Brightly painted, florally scented.”
“Porcelain to touch.”
“They had a tartan pattern.”
“A palest waiter.”

They are ordinary phrases, but something about the way they sit in the mouth as you read them creates texture. He uses very ordinary vocabulary but arranges it sensorially. You see this in a lot of the British New Wave sci-fi movement Aldiss belonged to. These were writers who were trying to push the genre toward more literary prose and interiority.

simple words → sensory layering → mood

I suppose it's consistent with Aldiss’s broader literary posture. He was deeply influenced by H. G. Wells and early speculative fiction, and he often wrote in a deliberately old-fashioned narrative voice even when writing contemporary material. The novella format too is quite intentional, to preserve that older story-telling rhythm. It's an easy book to be lulled into concentration by. I love that.

There's this attention to sentence rhythm that rewards philosophical patience than short sentences in contemporary lit. A pertinent reminder you do not ever have to pick up a philosophy text book, in order to engage with it at all. Philosophy is thoughts, then allowing yourself to just, move through them. 

I suppose what I've noticed critics saying about Aldiss, is that he often structures stories around men drifting through affluence or aimlessness until some minor encounter forces reflection. Even the official description of Ruins frames it this way — a self-absorbed man confronting the emptiness of his life and beginning to change.

If the novella continues along that line, maybe we'll see some more memory fragments, dreams, encounters with strangers, moral interrogation. 

Either way, I'll certainly finish reading it once I've published this review of the first 28 pages.