The structure is typical of what Peter Nicholls in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls "conceptual breakthrough" stories. This one is impressive because Aldiss, knowing that the reader knows the fundamental element the main character doesn't know from the beginning, still manages a continuing series of surprises, an increasing sense of revelation, and manages to make the surprises and the ultimate "truth" thematically worthwhile.
For this edition Aldiss has made a number of minor revisions. As he writes:
"The adventure remains the same.... Only a few words have been changed. But of course words make all the difference."I've checked out a few of the changes against my copy of the American edition (including a change in the very last sentence), and I think the changes are improvements which don't alter the fundamental feel of the book. Aldiss rings several clever changes on the general concept of the generation ship. The book is full of revelations, some expected by the experienced reader, some quite surprising. By and large, it's a worthwhile and original novel, though there are weaknesses. The opening sections, despite a fair amount of action, drag a bit. The closing sections move very quickly, but partly this movement is propelled by some plot silliness (a hard-to-believe, and late-introduced, love story, Complain getting accepted into Forwards society too easily, and some silly biology to drive the critical crisis that first caused the ship's problem, and which then leads to the moving final situation).
Still, in the context of 50s SF, the scientific silliness is pretty much par for the course, and it's used in the service of a striking and rather bitter conclusion. It's definitely early Aldiss, and by no means his best work, but Non-Stop is nonetheless worth reading, and quite a significant contribution to the long SF history of generation ship novels.
