About the book: year / Before you is one of Aldiss’s best creations. A “space saga” comparable in scale, fascination and epicism only to Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. A saga about the planet Heliconia, on which each “great year” is the life of hundreds of generations. About a planet whose sun turns again and again around a brighter star, bringing with each revolution radical changes in climate and ecology. This is a world written down to the smallest detail - from the art of war to diplomacy, from science to philosophy. Welcome to Heliconia!