The primal urge - Brian W. Aldiss

How would you like to have a disc set in the middle of your forehead which glowed pink whenever you felt sexually aroused?

This is the basis of Brian Aldiss' amazingly funny and original novel, first published in 1961 and set in a near-future Britain where the discs are to be made compulsory - but not before a lot of hilarious and even frightening events occur, suggesting that perhaps it's not such a good idea to wear one's, er, 'heart' on one's forehead.

Brian Aldiss, OBE, is a fiction and science fiction writer, poet, playwright, critic, memoirist and artist. He was born in Norfolk in 1925. After leaving the army, Aldiss worked as a bookseller, which provided the setting for his first book, The Brightfount Diaries (1955). His first published science fiction work was the story 'Criminal Record', which appeared in Science Fantasy in 1954. Since then he has written nearly 100 books and over 300 short stories.

'The titan of science fiction' TELEGRAPH