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Brian Aldiss is best known as an author of science fiction and an expert critic of the genre. His latest book, When the Feast is Finished, is different. It is the tale of his wife’s courage and unselfishness when approaching death from cancer and his own reactions to this after thirty years of marriage. It is frank, lacerant and almost too intimate to read. Cathartic, yes, but a publishing necessity? Published by Little Brown, £16.99, ISBN 0316648353.