Before you is one of Aldiss's best creations. "Space Saga," comparable in scale, fascination and episode only with "Dune" by Frank Herbert. The saga of the planet Gelliconia, on which every "great year" is the life time of hundreds of generations. About a planet whose Sun wraps itself around a brighter star time and time again, carrying with it every turn the fundamental changes of climate and ecology. This is a world spelled out to the smallest detail - from military art to diplomacy, from science to philosophy.