Category Archive: Book News
Previous EntriesEllison, and on, and on
Saturday, January 14th, 2012Through the frontdoor post-hole this morning: my copy of the Gollancz 'SF Masterworks' edition of this great classic of the genre, Edited By Harlan Ellison, by Dan G. Rous Visions. 600 pages of stories that changed science fiction: £9.99 on the back cover (£5.29 from amazon right now, I see), unmissable. This new edition incorporates [...]
Langer’s Science Fiction and Postcolonialism
Monday, December 19th, 2011Here's something to take not of (erm, '... of which to take note') if you're interested in SF. The brilliant Jessica Langer's brilliant Science Fiction and Postcolonialism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) is now available. Three things you should do. 1. Buy a copy. 2. Check out io9.com tomorrow (Tuesday, around 10 AM North American time), who [...]
Adam Robots
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011Luke Yexley is a talented individual presently doing an A-Level in design. As part of his coursework, and in consultation with me, he has designed a cover for a collection of my short stories. And here's the result -- very nice, I think. I'd suggest you click-to-embiggen the above brother-of-simon Jay Pegg, and decide for [...]
Solaris Rising
Thursday, November 10th, 2011After three previous volumes (two of which contained stories by me) Solaris is rising again, thanks to the metaphorical yeast of Ian Whates, that excellent individual. My contribution this time is a story called 'Shall I Tell You The Trouble With Time Travel?' In this story, I tell you, the reader, the trouble with time [...]
Jahr Jahr Binks
Saturday, October 22nd, 2011Sascha Mamczak, Wolfgang Jeschke (eds) Das Science Fiction Jahr 2011 (Heyne 2011) -- Es kam in der Post. Es war groß, sehr groß und gefüllt mit SF - inklusive einem Interview mit "Adam Roberts" von Sascha Mamczak. Voon. Der. Bar. (Seriously -- 1312 pages! How do they do it? Amazing)
SFE3
Saturday, October 15th, 2011Very exciting: the long-awaited, much-expanded 3rd edition of the genre's standard reference work, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (edited John Clute, Peter Nicholls and David Langford) has at last gone live -- or at least, its Beta edition has (you can find out what the 'beta edition' is, here). I've made some miniscule contribution to [...]
Gollancz 50
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Here are 10 titles you have already read, or if you haven't you (a) ought to be ashamed, and (b) ought to read them at once. Gollancz have yellowed them up nicely, and put them on sale: check them out. One of them has an introduction by me! But I won't tell you which. Oh, [...]
Wasson and Alder (eds) Gothic Science Fiction 1980-2010 (Liverpool 2011)
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011Dev Wasson-Gothic Science Fiction (2) Nice cover, what? This collection of ver interesting essays is now available, from Liverpool University Press. Its own extensive merits recommend it, without any need for my puffery; although I mention it here because I furnished a brief preface to the volume.
Karel Čapek Gollanč Masterwork
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011In today's post: extra-handsome SF Masterworks edition of two Karel Čapek titles ('R.U.R.' and 'War With The Newts') with an introduction by me. The intro covers various things, although doesn't have space for Čapek's famous collaboration with Jimi Hendrix, the concept album 'R.U.Rxperienced?', nor the 'special advisor' role Ken Livingstone played in the gestation of [...]
Term
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011That time of year again: a new academic term, which will (of course) soak up the lion's share of my time and energy until Christmas. I'll try not to go wholly silent here (or over here, either; here will keep on plodding its daily plod, regardless), but posting may de-frequentify. Still: news is -- I've [...]
Anticopernican
Monday, September 12th, 2011Still available for e-download, at the ridiculously inflated price of £0.86p (or 99c), my dwarf novel Anticopernicus has been reviewed in a few places. For starters, Rich Puchalsky has turned his acute critical intelligence upon it [the review contains spoilers]: The whole point of SF being a literature of ideas is not that it's supposed [...]
By Light Reviewed
Thursday, September 8th, 2011I've been neglecting this website: apologies. I'll make things a little busier here, starting off with some reviews of By Light Alone. Here's Stuart Kelly, at the Scotsman: TWO years ago, Kim Stanley Robinson declared that Adam Roberts ought to have won that year's Man Booker Prize. Roberts, like writers as diverse as China Mieville, [...]
Lightalone
Friday, July 29th, 2011Author copies arrived today. Looks even more beautiful when held in the hand than it does online. You can pre-order a copy, or wait until the 18th August when it hits the shops. Another thing occurs to me: I'm proud of this one.
Anticopernicus
Thursday, July 21st, 2011Adam Roberts, Anticopernicus (2011). £0.86p, or equivalent. Available for Kindle download on Amazon now. Update: also available for download in EPUB format from Wizard Tower books (same price). While you're there, you may want to check out their other many excellent books. A tentative dipping of one of my toes into the world of e-publishing, [...]
Nová Dobrodružství Julese Verna II
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011Eh? Ah!
Herbert, Hellstrom’s Hive (1972)
Monday, June 20th, 2011The latest handsomely-covered Gollancz Masterwork reissue (with an introduction by me) popped through the door. Interesting lesser-known Herbert, well worth checking out -- a snip at £6:39.
Justina Robson, Heliotrope (2011)
Saturday, May 7th, 2011In the post today: the excellent Justina Robson's first collection of short fiction [published by the Australian press Ticonderoga; in the UK you can buy it from amazon]. I get a copy because I wrote the introduction (Justina in her acknowledgements is kind enough to call it 'insightful', and too kind to point out that [...]
Hyperion. And on. And on.
Thursday, April 21st, 2011Through the letterbox today: lovely new VG Masterworks edition of Simmons' Hyperion, with an introduction by me. Trundle over to Punkadiddle for some thoughts on this title (and, if you're so minded, longer thoughts on the sequel volumes). Worth buying, if you're looking for a good read.
Sawyer & Wright (eds) Teaching Science Fiction (Palgrave 2011)
Monday, April 4th, 2011Just in: this promising looking collection of essays by many luminaries of contemporary SF criticism: The importance of science fiction to undergraduate literary studies cannot be underestimated. Its capacity to challenge students' social, political and cultural perspectives makes it invaluable in highlighting the contingent nature of contemporary society and the potential for change. Teaching Science [...]
DIY Cover Design
Saturday, April 2nd, 2011I'm wondering about putting out an ebook edition of an as-yet unpublished book. Not sure about it, to be frank; but I am at least wondering. And following this piece of good advice from [namedrop] Paul McAuley [/namedrop] ('one bit of advice - covers. Even a 70p short story needs a good cover. If you [...]
By Light Alone
Saturday, March 26th, 2011The copyedited MS of By Light Alone has arrived. I'm going through it now. I think I shall change the ending a little bit. Just a little.
Jeter’s Morlock Night (1979)
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011Isn't that a lovely piece of cover design? You can, as the Germans put it, 'embiggenklick' that image to make it larger. What's more, Angry Robot Books have done a similarly impressive job on another Jeter re-release, Infernal Devices (see for yourself). I'm mentioning this particular piece of SF Classic Reissuance not just for the [...]
Reading ‘Graphs, Maps and Trees’
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011Through the letterbox comes this handsomely produced volume: Reading Graphs, Maps and Trees: Critical Responses to Franco Moretti, edited by Jonathan Goodwin and John Holbo [Parlor Press 2009]. Go to the site, there, to download the book under a Creative Commons licence, or buy it for the cheap-cheap price of $18. It is, as it [...]
Zyskish
Monday, February 14th, 2011So here are “Projekt Stalin” and “Opowieść Zombilijna”, two of my novels rendered into the ancient and beautiful language of Poland and published there by the excellently-named publisher, Zysk i S-ka. I can't judge the skill of the translation, lacking Polish; but I can report that these are lovely examples of book-production, inside as well [...]
By Light Alone
Sunday, December 19th, 2010I'm pleased as a peacock (are peacocks pleased, proverbially speaking? Have I got the wrong end of the tailfeather?) to have finished my next novel, By Light Alone. It's presently with my editor: July 2011, it seems, is the most likely release date. In the meantime, I look about this old place and think to [...]
Tattooed Dragon, out now!
Saturday, November 27th, 2010In all good bookshops. There's also a map.
CATASTROPHIA
Friday, November 19th, 2010A copy of Allen Ashely's top-drawer collection Catastrophia popped through the door today. As a contributor (my story is called 'Noose') I got the fancy-pantsy traycased polyautographed hardback edition -- you can see what it looks like over on Ian Sales blog. But you can get your own edition, a full £30 cheaper than that, [...]
Opowieść Zombilijna
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010More Polish splendour. But wait: they haven't translated my name!
Projekt Stalin
Friday, October 15th, 2010Jest to bardzo ekscytujące. The publishers of my soon-to-appear Polish translation of Yellow Blue Tibia, the to-be-called 'Project Stalin' by the to-be-called 'Adama Robertsa', have put together the above promotional You Tube fillum. Is it cool? It is very cool.
Aéroplane
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010As you can see, this is the Chinese language edition of my Palgrave History of Science Fiction. Nice to see it being disseminated into such a large and important realm, and the 400 pages of ideograms look beautiful, if incomprehensible, to me. If I'm honest, I am pleased that this book, with its (original, I [...]
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