New Model Reviews
By Adam Roberts | April 20, 2010
Categories: Reviews
A few reviews of New Model Army have appeared. This is what Brigid Cherry at Total SciFi Online has to say:
Roberts’ intriguing and spectacular work is less a novel than a philosophical treatise. If that sounds like a turn-off, it certainly shouldn’t be, for New Model Army is written in stunning prose that is often lyrical, if not poetic. Roberts has a wonderful grasp of language and uses it to stunning effect on every page.
Keith Brooke didn't like it so much, in the Guardian:
The year is 2030 and Tony Block is fighting for Pantegral, a New Model Army hired by the secessionist Scottish government to fight against their English oppressors. Block, a gay English intellectual, is a mercenary fighting for the cause of democracy: the NMA is truly democratic, a band of free-thinkers with no command structure. Their opponents are the British army and, as Bloch sees it, the outmoded, hierarchical, feudal English political system. Much of the narrative charts the running battles with the conventional army, the NMA's resounding victories, and Bloch's love for his straight companion-in-arms Simic. But this is a novel by Adam Roberts, intellectual enfant terrible of British SF, and he transforms what might have been a conventional war story into a series of investigations into the nature of democracy, love, war and, ultimately, revolution. The result is frequently revelatory but also bafflingly self-indulgent.
And Jason Baki over at his estimable Kamvision blog, is positive:
I found New Model Army to be funny, tragic, infuriating, completely self absorbed; and yet by turn acutely self aware. A rare thing happened to me with this book, and I can think of no higher praise: as soon as I finished it, I actually wanted to re-read it. The more I thought about it after I completed it, the more I liked it. This is a fantastic piece of contemporary writing: edgy, relevant and strangely moving. I highly recommend it to those who like to be challenged as well as entertained.
And here's another thing: Jason sent me some perceptive questions, and I responded by email, and the result is called 'an interview'. You'll find that at his blog too.
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April 28th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
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