Following the death of her father, author Brian Aldiss, Wendy Aldiss realised that in a way she could continue to photograph him – by making images of his possessions. Wendy went on to photograph everything he owned in 2018, right down to his paperclips. This labour of love and grieving has resulted in a fascinating and complete record of the items owned by a man of 92 years; a writer, a poet and an artist.

My Father’s Things is a beautifully produced selection from the resulting 9,000+ photographs, containing full colour images and fold-out plates, with a foreword by Christopher Priest and an essay by Dr Margaret Gibson.

Brian Aldiss was a deep and brilliant writer, and over the last seventy years he helped shape Science Fiction, as an editor, as a critic, as a commentator, and by example. When Brian stepped off the stage, I am glad Wendy Aldiss was able to chronicle who Brian was and the space he had filled by the things he left behind him. Paints and cards, books and records, press clippings and convention badges and maps and old photographs and authors’ copies of books, belt and braces and shaving brush. Even the bullet that hit him in 1945. And the cumulative effect is one of grief and remembrance, of celebration, and, at the end, of love. It’s like being welcomed in. It leaves me wondering what I’ll leave behind. -Neil Gaiman