Science fiction author, artist and poet Brian Aldiss OBE, whose story inspired Steven Spielberg’s A.I. film, has died aged 92.

Mr Aldiss, a former literary editor of the Oxford Mail and author of a string of British science fiction classics died in the early hours of Saturday in his home in Oxford.

His ‘Supertoys’ short stories were adapted for the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence on which he collaborated with Stanley Kubrick for over a decade before its completion by Spielberg in 2001.

His novel Frankenstein Unbound was also made for screen by Roger Corman.

He was born in Norfolk on August 18, 1925 and died shortly after celebrating his 92nd birthday at the weekend.

Having moved to Oxford shortly after the Second World War as a bookseller he became the literary editor of the Oxford Mail from 1958 to 1969.

Around that time he also won the Observer prize for a short story set in 2500.

A friend and drinking companion of Kingsley Amis and correspondent with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Aldiss was a founding member of the Groucho Club in London and a judge on the 1981 Booker Prize.

Awarded the Hugo Award for Science Fiction in 1962 and the Nebula Award in 1965, Aldiss's writings were well received by the critics and earned a strong following in the United States and in Britain as well as being widely translated into foreign languages. 

In 2000 Mr Aldiss was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Reading University and was given the title of ‘Grandmaster’ from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

He was made an OBE by the Queen in 2005 for services to literature.