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Latest News
YBT on BSFA Award Shortlist
By Adam Roberts | February 6, 2010
Categories: Awards
I'm more chuffed than a chaffinch (who, I assume, are so-called from their enormous capacity for chuffed-ness) that Yellow Blue Tibia has been shortlisted for the BSFA award. Best of all, just look at the stratospheric calibre of the other three titles! That's pretty pleasing company to be keeping, I don't mind telling you.
‘Hair’
By Adam Roberts | January 2, 2010
Categories: Book News
Gardner Dozois has selected my story 'Hair' for The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection (due out July 2010). I'm chuffed. 'Hair' originally appeared in Geoff Ryman's superlative When It Changed anthology of original fiction. Why don't you buy a copy?
A Note on Cheryl Morgan
By Adam Roberts | January 2, 2010
Categories: Reviews
Back in the days when she ran Emerald City Cheryl Morgan read and reviewed some of my writing. She didn't like it, for a number of perfectly valid reasons, which is, of course, fair enough. The thing is: for many readers that would have drawn the line under any further encounter with what I do. There's no shortage of books published, after all, and enough great writers (certainly better than I) continue to produce the sort of thing she does like to mean that she could easily have decided never to trouble herself with one of my books again. So when I met Cheryl at Finncon last year, and she told me that she had read and enjoyed Yellow Blue Tibia, I was very pleasantly surprised indeed: not just that she liked the book, but to discover that she was not to sort of reader to deal in rigid categories of 'I only like X' and 'I don't and never shall like Y'. There are plenty, in and out of genre, who think that way, but -- evidently -- not her. Since then, and given that I went on to say a number of disobliging things about 2009's Hugo shortlists (Cheryl, quite apart from winning Hugos herself, is an important figure in many SFF cons, Worldcon not least), I would have forgiven her had she chosen to keep her positive opinion of my novel to herself. But that would be to underestimate her. The following paragraph was part of her summing up of the best of 2009:
Kim Stanley Robinson caused a bit of a stir this year when he wrote in The Guardian that he thought the Booker Prize should have been won by Adam Roberts’ Yellow Blue Tibia. “Adam who?” said the literati in unison, though they forgot so quickly that when the BBC caught up with the story they managed to mention the book without mentioning poor Adam’s name. I’m not sure that it is quite a Booker winner, but it is by far the best thing Adam has ever done. Just remember that he’s a British satirist, and such people earn their living by mercilessly pillorying others.
Now go and read her blog.
Black Static on Scrooge
By Adam Roberts | January 2, 2010
Categories: Book News
Black Static is a fine magazine. Here's what Peter Tennant says about I Am Scrooge in the latest ed:
For his latest trick, respected critic and SF author Adam Roberts has great fun producing a pastiche of Dickens's seasonal classic, A Christmas Carol, and the horror afficionado and more general reader will find much to enjoy between the covers of I Am Scrooge, not least the tasteful line drawings of Zom Leech.
I'll pass those words on to Zom. He'll be chuffed.
At first I found this book rather forced and the language slightly stilted, with an uncomfortable tension between the scenes of graphic violence and the spirit of the source material, but the story grew on me as it progressed, the lilting cadences of the mock-Dickensian preose insinuating themselves into my consciousness and soon all objections were swept aside. Roberts ... [is] not a writer to engage the emotions, but he does delight the intellect with a wealth of invention and incidental detail, along the way having huge fun with the tropes of the zombie genre. ... A particular pleasure is Roberts' reinvention of the Christmas story, gifting us with a version in which the Slaughter of the Innocents had to do with stopping a zombie plague and Christmas puddings are a sweetmeat reminder of the brains which zombies love to eat. It's an audacious display of twisted logic, coupled with sly wit, as each detail is neatly slotted into the overall pattern and the feeling takes hold that yes, insane as it sounds, this all makes sense and could have happened exactly as Roberts describes it. Zombies are flavour of the month just now in publishing circles, whilst the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has carved out a niche for reiterations of the classics. I Am Scrooge shows up that work as the rather dull text it actually was, demonstrating what can be done when you apply intelligence and invention and wit to subvert a classic story instead of simply adding a dollop or two of schlock to the mix. It's also, aside from a few typos (unusual for Gollancz) a very nicely produced book, and at the asking price will make a perfect stocking filler ... that will continue to bring the odd chuckle and pleasurable frisson long after the turkey is eaten and the Queen's speech forgotten.
Twenty ten
By Adam Roberts | January 2, 2010
Categories: Blogging, Chitchat
What's coming? A couple of things, since you ask. New Model Army is published on the 10th of April. I'd say it is the best thing I have ever written, and by quite a wide margin too. That may, of course, not be saying very much; but it's a big deal for me.
I'll be appearing at the Scarborough Literary Festival on Saturday 17th April (at 1 pm to be precise, with Tom Holt and Peter Guttridge; but otherwise just knocking about that fine town). I don't often do festivals or cons, so this is also quite a big deal for me. I'll need to get the train up and everything.
A note on my blogging: one New Year's Resolution of mine is to complete the Hugo translation I've been engaged in, off and on, for ages now. It has lain idle for half a year, but I shall restart it. Also, I've rethought Punkadiddle. I've removed the occasional pictures that appeared there, leaving it as a pure reviews blog. I don't have enough blogs, so I've set up another one, Tin Pics, on which to post any sketches or drawings or tinny little pictures I come up with; but I don't expect anybody to follow that, except, perhaps, those members of my immediate family whom I sketch. And even then will probably be uninterested in my Hugo doings. Which is all fair enough.
Paul Cornell is a tall, powerfully-built stallion of a man
By Adam Roberts | December 14, 2009
Categories: Blogging
...with a brain the size of a cement-mixer and taste so impeccable no pecca would come within two thousand miles of it. You can see that this from reading his blog:
My three favourite novels of the year were probably Moxyland by Lauren Beukes, Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts and Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (going by UK publication dates, that is) ... Yellow Blue Tibia is from that interesting place where a new inflationary universe of SF has sprung up, amongst literary fiction. Some of that universe is formed by literary authors who look down on our ghetto and despise it, and some is formed by literary authors who simply don't see why they should enter a ghetto and prostrate themselves just to write about what they like. Adam Roberts, aside from both groups, is an SF writer who can decide, like Aldiss, Ballard, Priest and most of the others from the New Wave, to use the tropes of a literary novel, ambiguity most of all, to enter that universe himself. He's been, frankly, arrogant in the way he told this year's Hugo nominated authors (and artists, even!) that their work wasn't cutting edge enough. But that doesn't change the fact that he deserves more recognition, and that perhaps the SF ghetto should reach out more to embrace that new universe, and redefine, a little, its terms of engagement with literary quality. Yellow Blue Tibia is a wonderful collision between the Soviet way of seeing the world, the SF way of doing that, and the universe of flying saucers. It keeps its foot in the SF genre, right at the end, by offering not a dreamlike wandering off from its road trip through the Russian consciousness, but a nuts and bolts explanation, which might come as a bit of a shock to a literary audience expecting something more like The Magus or Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow. But who knows, they might have liked that shock, they might want more, and we should welcome them with more, and more like this from Adam Roberts.
Miscellaneous
By Adam Roberts | November 19, 2009
Categories: Blogging, Events and Appearances
London Evening Standard. The best books of the year: our reviewers name the titles that have meant the most to them over the past 12 months.FRANCIS SPUFFORD I spent this year finishing a book set in Russia, so I was all ready to delight in the charcoal-black satire of Adam Roberts's Soviet UFO novel Yellow Blue Tibia (Gollancz, £12.95), even before it was tipped as a worthier winner of the Booker than anything on the actual shortlist.
May I not sound too Boraty as I say, in reply: 'nice!'. In other news, and also floated first on Twitter, this:
FORBIDDEN PLANET and Gollancz Publishing are delighted to be hosting an open-format, multi-author signing. Five authors, one event – at 6pm on Thursday November 26th, Forbidden Planet 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London will be playing host to: -• David Devereux
• Paul McAuley
• Justina Robson
• Adam Roberts
• Chris WoodingTo promote the release of Justina’s new book CHASING THE DRAGON, Forbidden Planet and Gollancz Publishing have gathered a host of science fiction and fantasy talent into one event – an event to bring writers and fans together and to promote interest in new and different kinds of fiction.
This is a free-form and open signing, bringing the authors out from behind their tables and giving their readers a chance to meet them and talk to them about their work. An array of fantastic books will be on hand to be picked up and signed – including works by every one of the writers present.
And, as usual with these events, there are likely to be more than a few surprise guests...
...and a subsequent visit to the pub!
Be nice to see you there. Whomsoever 'you' may be.
Seventh
By Adam Roberts | November 6, 2009
Categories: Book News
Nice to chance upon this. Seven is a magic number, after all.
Scrooge screviews
By Adam Roberts | October 31, 2009
Categories: Book News, Reviews
What am I up to? Well, since you ask (and so politely, too) I'm going through another revision of New Model Army, this one occasioned by the characteristically insightful, incisive comments of my editor, Simon Spanton. A good editor is is more precious than jewels and his value is far above rubies or pearls: and Simon is one of the best editors in the business. One more week, and I'll have a final polish I'm happy with.
Until then, I've been noting with pleasure a couple of zombie reviews. Hard, for instance, to think of a more elevating and honourable point of comparison than I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again:
Imagine a historical Shaun of the Dead written with as many bad zombie puns as you can think of – if you’ve got a long memory, add that it’s been written by the I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again team – and you’ve got an idea of the tone. The narrator’s voice occasionally irritates, with one joke repeated a few too many times, but once the plot kicks in, it’s far more in the background. Given that Roberts is a professor of 19th Century literature, it’s hardly surprising that there are multiple references to different stories, some well-known, others obscure. Like Monty Python at its best though, I Am Scrooge doesn’t talk down to its audience – even when it’s about to make possibly the worst Scooby Doo joke ever! [Paul Simpson]
And here's what the Daily Mail thought:
One man stands between Victorian London and a plague of brain-munching undead: Ebeneezer Scrooge. Yep, it’s that Dickensian zombie novel Eng Lit so obviously lacked. In what you could call a fairly free adaptation, Adam Roberts reworks A Christmas Carol into a zombie-slashing gore-fest, with cameo appearances by Jack the Ripper, Queen Victoria and Dickens himself, plus a bravura performance by the Ghost of Christmas Future as a very funny Ali G-soundalike, Lots of corny jokes and groanworthy one-liners, lots and lots of brain-slurping zombies. Clever and daft in equal measure. [Harry Ritchie, Daily Mail 30 Oct 2009]
New Model Army cover art
By Adam Roberts | October 19, 2009
Categories: Book News
This just in. Very cool, in an (appropriately, as it happens) stylish, neo-Mod quasi-fascistic sense.
Dickensian Zombies stagger into shops
By Adam Roberts | October 15, 2009
Categories: Book News
I Am Scrooge is now available for purchase in shops that sell books. Buy a copy, or I'll eat your brains. I will do it, personally.
OUP Book Blog
By Adam Roberts | October 5, 2009
Categories: Blogging
Another contribution to another blog: follow this link to a piece I wrote for the OUP Blog, on Adam Foulds' Quickening Maze and Tennyson. My friend Doug Cowie knows Foulds a little bit, and says he's the nicest man imaginable. He's certainly a very gifted writer. On reflection I now consider this punkadiddle review of his novel too negative.
Guardian Book Blog
By Adam Roberts | September 25, 2009
Categories: Awards, Chitchat
And by way of following up the previous post, here's something I wrote for the Guardian Book Blog on that very subject. Let the record show: the final portion of the last sentence of the first paragraph read, when I submitted it: '...my reaction was compounded of one part vainglorious ego-puff, one part genuine pride and three parts fanboy squee.' Some dastardly subeditor changed the last word to the dull 'enthusiasm' without consulting me. Grr, I say. Also all my italics seem to have been stripped out. Ah well.
Booker Prize 2009
By Adam Roberts | September 21, 2009
Categories: Awards, Book News
Or, rather, nothing to do with the Booker prize 2009. Kim Stanley Robinson has edited a New Scientist science fiction special, which starts with a Robinsonian editorial:
British science fiction is now in a golden age.I say this as a happy fan and an awed colleague: the range, depth, intensity, wit and beauty of the science fiction being published in the UK these days is simply amazing. The eight wonderful writers featured here are only a representative sampling of a community of artists so strong that it is hard to explain. Add to these Brian Aldiss, Neal Asher, Iain Banks, Christopher Evans, Alasdair Gray, Colin Greenland, John Courtenay Grimwood, Peter Hamilton, Nick Harkaway, M. John Harrison, Robert Holdstock, Gwyneth Jones, Garry Kilworth, Doris Lessing, Ian R. MacLeod, China Miéville, Richard Morgan, Christopher Priest, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Jennifer Rohn, Brian Stableford, Charles Stross, Lisa Tuttle - and no doubt others I have forgotten, or am unaware of (sorry) - and one has to ask, how is it that a group of such intellectual power could be working at one time, and our time at that.
I was enormously chuffed to see my name in there, part of that genuinely exalted company. Now, if somebody staged a four way hike-off between Robinson, Le Guin, Delany and Gene Wolfe for the title 'world's greatest living science fiction author' I'd put my money on Robinson; something that only made the name-check sweeter. But then I turned the page.
Oh, I know there is a Booker prize, I've heard of it even in California - supposedly given to the best fiction published in the Commonwealth every year - but there are no Woolves on those juries, and so they judge in ignorance and give their awards to what usually turn out to be historical novels. Sometimes these are fine historical novels, written by tremendous writers; I particularly like Roddy Doyle, John Banville, Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh, and my favorite was Penelope Fitzgerald. But working, like all of us, in the rain shadow of the great modernists, they tend to do the same things the modernists did in smaller ways. A good new novel about the first world war, for instance, is still not going to tell us more than Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford. More importantly, these novels are not about now in the way science fiction is. Thus it seems to me that three or four of the last 10 Booker prizes should have gone to science fiction novels the juries hadn't read. Should I name names? Why not: Air by Geoff Ryman should have won in 2005, Life by Gwyneth Jones in 2004, and Signs of Life by M. John Harrison in 1997. Indeed this year the prize should probably go to a science fiction comedy called Yellow Blue Tibia, by Adam Roberts.
At which point I fell off my chair.
Is SF Handwritten?
By Adam Roberts | September 7, 2009
Categories: Lit Crit
'Is SF Handwritten?' is the title of an article I wrote for the latest edition of the online academic journal Writing Technologies [2:2 2009] a 'special issue on Heidegger, writing and technology' edited by James Holden. It's a piece of Heideggerian/Derridean theoretical speculation about the genre, as you'll see if you click through. So, is SF handwritten? Turns out that the answer is more complicated than you might think. Here's the link to a pdf. file of the paper.
September
By Adam Roberts | September 1, 2009
Categories: Chitchat
Back from holiday, now, and ready for the new month. I have grown a beard. It makes me look older than Christopher Lee, but I quite like it nonetheless. More news soon.
Routledge 50 Key Figures Out Now
By Adam Roberts | August 12, 2009
Categories: Book News, Lit Crit
Spotted in the wild: Mark Bould, Andrew M Butler, Sheryl Vint and my Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction (Routledge Key Guides, 2009). Hurrah! £14.99 in paperback, but, well, clearly more valuable than that. How much more valuable? My esteemed co-editor Andrew M. spotted this (since rescinded, I think):
Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction (Routledge Key Guides) (Paperback)
by Mark Bould (Author), et al. RRP: £14.99Or available via Amazon for £1,848.69
+ £2.75shipping
* Seller: paperbackshop1
* Rating:92% positive over the past 12 months (11406 ratings.) 116028 lifetime ratings.
* Delivery: In stock. Dispatched from United States. International delivery available. See Delivery Rates. See return policy.
* Comments: Brand new book delivered in the UK in 7-10 days. Please note: this book may not be in English.
If it weren't for that extra shipping charge ...
We Are Scrooge proofs in
By Adam Roberts | August 11, 2009
Categories: Book News
What the top-hatted individual is trying to tell you is ... I've received the proofs of We Are Scrooge now; and I'm going through them now. Returning them by the end of the week.
Catch-up 2: Sideways
By Adam Roberts | August 10, 2009
Categories: Awards
I was, as I reported, chuffed to have been nominated for the Sideways award; but I did not expect to win it. The reason for this was that the shortlist contained two books that were, I thought, clearly better than mine: Terry Pratchett's Nation and Jo Walton's Half a Crown. I genuinely expected one of them to win. But then real-life tossed off what I believe is known as a curve ball: Chris Roberson's nice-but-mediocre, very much not the best book on the list took the prize. Gosh! Still, there's something nice about this amazon reader's review in retrospect:
The book is consistently okay, and the author makes a good attempt at character development, but the problem is he attempts to tell the story of all nine characters and move the plot along, it's just too much for one book so everything feels too quick. There's more pages spent discussing the trip to their objective, or more correctly discussing the personal histories of the various characters, than there is in their training or the mission itself ... In any event, it's not a bad read, but it's not going to win any awards.
Wrong! Funny old world, ain't it, though?
Catch-up 1
By Adam Roberts | August 10, 2009
Categories: Book News
A while since my last post here (though there's been a deal of business here, here and here). A quick newsy catch-up, then.
I have a picture of a Finnmug to share; but am having trouble getting the image posted. Before the end of the week, though, surely.
I finished a working draft of my next novel, to be called New Model Army: at the minute my editor has it, and I've also sent it to three of the most deftly expert novel-readers I know, who have, with fantastic kindness, all agreed to have a read too. In the light of their feedback I shall revise.
The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF (which I'm in, and which I praised here) has been the occasion of a heated SFSignal thread. Commentors noted that all the contributors are white men. This is, clearly, not good. Some commentators attempted a defence of this aspect of the collection, which in turn inflamed the tempers of other commentators, and it all became rather shouty. My view is bound to be a little compromised by virtue of the fact that I have a story in the volume; but in many respects it is close to what Al Reynolds (also a contributor) says. Like him, when Mike Ashley approached me to see if I wanted to contribute a story, I had no idea who else was being asked, or what the overall collection would look like.
You should read the whole thread, really; it's interesting, if often intemperate. So: I believe there should be more diversity in published SF, especially in terms of gender and non-white ethnicity. It's a shame this anthology doesn't do that; but the claims of several of the more choleric contributors don't seem to me tenable, specifically (a) accusations that Mike Ashley is sexist, or actively misogynist: I really don't believe he is; and (b) the belief that this anthology deserves to be held up for particular rebuke (instead of, let's say, the 2009 Hugo best novel shortlist) because it claims to be in some sense representative of SF. I don't think it does; not even in terms of the cover tagline's characteristic publishing-hyperbole (I don't know if the editor was responsible for this tagline anyway; probably not).
Actually, I think Jonathan M's first comment (also on that thread) may be closer to the truth: the problem isn't this anthology as such, it's a more generalised sexism and racism in SF publishing; and the point of getting so angry here, and of throwing so much vitriol around, is to turn this book into a deterrent case: to make future editors think twice. I can see some merit in that, although it seems to me hard that Ashley, a decent and conscientious man, must have this torrent of anger poured onto his head. It also seems to me a shame that Paul di Filippo gets so roasted in the thread, given that he is to the best of my knowledge neither a sexist nor a racist: his attempt at genial 'let's all calm down' commenting sparked some furious and indeed frumious responses. One interesting thing to come out of it, though, was a specific suggestion from Reynolds: a genuine ethical question that I am currently pondering ... should authors who are approached to contribute to anthologies make their agreement conditional on the finished product including an appropriate diversity of other authors? I wonder how that would work, practically: whether it falls within an author's responsibility; whether, indeed, it would tag the author in question as 'difficult' and reduce future commissions; and whether that would be a price worth paying for the larger good. What isn't discussed in that thread, and indeed can't be since, by their own admission, most of the people commenting neither have nor ever (on principle) will read the stories it includes, is literary quality. That seems to me high, although my judgment is of course, as noted, of course problematised by the fact that I'm also a contributor.
Routledge SF Companion: reviews
By Adam Roberts | July 18, 2009
Categories: Lit Crit
Gary K Wolfe in Locus doesnae like it very much: 'occupies a hazily defined territory ... there seems to have been a limited attempt to avoid overlap between the essays ... the index reveals Donna Harraway is cited 17 times and the Star Wars trilogy 26 times, Gene Wolfe is mentioned on four pages'. My own essay, on the Copernican Revolution, is 'an oddity', which is either good or bad, but presumably the latter.
But, look, here's Nick Hubble in Strange Horizons, who likes it a good deal: 'The editors ... are to be highly commended for assembling a superb team of contributors and producing a volume that is both an outstanding work of reference in its own right and a comprehensive guide to science fiction and the scholarship surrounding it. This is a book which will last, informing and challenging scholars at all levels for many years to come. Its success will not be measured simply in sales or the number of subsequent editions, but in the work it will inspire as SF continues to grow as an academic field.' Excellent!
Finncon 2009
By Adam Roberts | July 8, 2009
Categories: Events and Appearances
Tomorrow I get an early plane, no, wait, scrub that, a very early plane ... to fly to Finland for Finncon 2009. As you'll see from the link, that's 'Europe's largest science fiction & fantasy event'; and as you'll also see my status is somewhere between being a GoH and being some other manner of interloper ('Guests of Honour George R.R. Martin, Alastair Reynolds, and Special Guest at the Research Workshop Adam Roberts'). I'm there to talk about SFF criticism; but if you're attending the gig, in any capacity, do come up and say hello.
---
[Update, Sunday 12th July] I'm back, and what a splendid con it was: the Finns are hospitable and personable to almost parodic levels. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Special thanks to Merja for looking after me with such deft proficiency and charm; to Aleksi for some above-and-beyond driving and interviewing; and to Jukka for overall organisation and for just being so extraordinarily, I don't know, massy and sculpted and impressive-looking. And thanks to all the people with whom I had such interesting connish interactions. Aleksi's English is very good, by the way. When he suggested we take some time, during the car journey to the con, to 'fool around', I believe he knew what he was asking.
The Human Genre Project
By Adam Roberts | July 8, 2009
Categories: Book News
A very neat notion from the estimable Ken MacLeod (who gives the backstory here): The Human Genre Project site has now gone live. I've contributed two things, a 1200-word story called 'The Chrome Chromosome' and a 10-line poem called 'Chromosome Poem'. Perhaps you can see what I'm doing with those titles. But this looks like it'll be a splendid site, and you should (a) bookmark it, (b) check back regularly, and (c) maybe think about contributing something. Yes, you.
My review of Tolkien’s Sigurd & Gudrun posted on SH
By Adam Roberts | July 6, 2009
Categories: Lit Crit
It started out as a simple Strange Horizons review of "the latest title from the seemingly bottomless supply of posthumous Tolkieniana to be edited for publication by his son, Christopher". It turned into a mammoth, Lonesome Dove-style trek through the wastelands of criticism dragging the much-loved dead body of traditional-sequential characterisation after me. I dare you to shadow me the whole distance. I double-dare you.
Now on Twitter
By Adam Roberts | July 4, 2009
Categories: Events and Appearances
Despite being a white man deep into middle-age, I've decided to take the plunge on Twitter.
This has nothing to do with providing myself with work-avoidance fodder, although I have just spent a minute coming up with the following faux-etymology. Twitter. v & n From Latin, tuito 'a taking care of, keeping, guarding, preserving, defense, protection, preservation.'
Have yourself a zomberific Christmas
By Adam Roberts | July 3, 2009
Categories: Book News
Christmas? I know, I know; we're only just into July. It went like this:
ZOMBIE EDITOR: We here at Zombie Publishing feel there aren't enough zombies in literature today. BRAAAAAIII...
ME: I see.
ZOMBIE EDITOR: ...IIINNNS! and accordingly we were wondering if you might BRAAAAAIIIINSS! write us a little stocking-filler book for the Christmas market; Dickens's A Christmas Carol, with added Zombies. Yes?
ME: By all means. Given that this won't be out until Christmas, and that Christmas is a long long way away, when will you need me to deliver the manuscript?
ZOMBIE EDITOR: MAAAAAAAAAY!
ME: I'd better get cracking then.
ZOMBIE EDITOR: Do you mean cracking in the sense of cracking open peoples' skulls in order to get at their BRAAAAIIINS? Or in the sense of moving swiftly along with the writing, hilarity and drawing the illustrations?
ME: The latter.
ZOMBIE EDITOR: Fair enough.
And here's the cover. I particularly like the bloodstained thumbprints.
On Today tomorrow
By Adam Roberts | June 28, 2009
Categories: Events and Appearances
In the wake of the general media buzz about Al Reynold's splendid million pound advance, tomorrow's Today programme [Monday 29th June; 6-9am] will be interviewing both Al and myself, on the pressing current affairs questions of Space Opera. We're to be on 'between 8:40 and 9', I'm told. Assuming we don't get bumped, as sometimes happens.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
By Adam Roberts | June 18, 2009
Categories: Chitchat
I suppose it's fair to say that Denis Bayle is less well-known as a science fiction writer than he ought to be. Over at Futurismic, I've reviewed a fictionalised version of Bayle's biography: supposedly written by 'Thomas Hidgekin', who I'm not sure is a real-life figure. My review of this problematic title is already causing some friction in the comments thread. Check it out.
Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF
By Adam Roberts | June 16, 2009
Categories: Book News
Two contributor copies of Mike Ashley's new anthology, The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF, arrived in the post yesterday. Lovely cover, and a splendid collection of stories from all the genre greats. Most are reprints (but what reprints! masterpieces!) although Mike also commissioned five new stories for the vol., from Steve Baxter, Eric Brown, Paul Di Fillipo, Robert Reed and me. Mine is called 'Anhedonia' and this is what it's about: nearish-future humans, on a Mars base, encounter aliens, who in turn promise to gift mankind the wherewithal to travel ftl to the stars. But the aliens have taken away the crew's ability to experience pleasure, and they're an elusive, weird set of entities, so it's not clear why they have done so, or why they're prepared to hand over this galaxy-opening tech, or what their hidden agenda might be. It's a good story, actually, though I say so myself; but the whole collection is chockful of great stories, and you really should buy a copy.
Richard P on YBT
By Adam Roberts | June 16, 2009
Categories: Book News
Rich Puchalsky, over on his blog, reports reading Yellow Blue Tibia with a temperature of 101. He thinks it 'an amusing book that people should read', but doesn't actually like it: 'it's the wrong book for me, right now.' One of the things I love about Rich's writing (and, despite the fact that he does have his own blog, that writing is mostly to be found in the fugitive pieces of comments on other people's blogs) is the way he is intellectually incapable of fundamentalism; his mind works dialectically, in creative opposition to other peoples' and even to his own positions and beliefs. Which is a roundabout way of saying that this is one of the nicest negative reviews I've ever had.
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