Tag Results: parodies
New Publications
By Adam Roberts | October 4, 2006
Categories: Book News
And here you go.
A new parody. Doctor Whom, or E.T. Shoots and Leaves, about a grammatically correct time lord. He’s trying to keep the ‘grammar’ of time in order, so that trifling things like ‘cause and effect’ are not wholly undermined. That’s not a dalek on the cover, by the way. It’s something else. Something that does not in any way breach BBC copyright.
The book is in part a parody of Dr Who, of course (not an easy call, given that Dr Who is already, in itself, a kind of parody); but also a parody of a certain popular grammar book, the author of which has not proved happy to be parodied by myself or anybody else.
A story in Pete Crowther’s latest collection, Forbidden Planets. My tale is called ‘Me:topia’ and starts with a spaceship crashing onto an unknown and (as you might guess from the title of the collection) forbidden world. The writing's a little fancy, but as author I try to keep a weather-eye on maintaining the appropriate quota of explosions, chase, exploration and general sfnal excitements and brouhaha. [2007 update: Pete's Collection made the Locus Recommended List for 2006; and my story made the list too, under 'novelettes'. Which was nice.]
With today’s post arrived Paul Kincaid and Andrew M. Butler’s collection of critical essays on The Arthur C Clarke Award : one essay per Clarke Award winner, over the last 18 years. I’ve an essay in here on the stonking Fairyland by the estimable Paul McAuley which won the award in 1996 (Such a brilliant novel; such a gifted writer). But my essay on the novel is the least of many excellent reasons to buy this collection; quite apart from the range and insights of the other contributors, all profits go to the Serendip Foundation, which will help keep the Award alive. Buy the book, or go to the Foundation’s website and make a donation. I command you!
Foreign rights
By Adam Roberts | March 4, 2005
Categories: Book News
I've just got news that rights to Salt and On have been sold to Israel; Hebrew translations of those novels should be appearing soon. This makes me think I should report on some of the other non-Anglophone editions of my books that have appeared or might be appearing soon. My parodies have been the biggest successes in this respect, including a German version of The Soddit, Der Kleine Hobbnix, which seems to divide German readerly opinion between '[5 stars] Eine Spitzen-Parodie!!!' and '[Far fewer stars] Krass, ey'. So there you are.
There's also an Italian Soddit, Lo Sghorbit, with an enormous semi-naked woman on the cover who is not in the book, but was evidently in the imagination of the Italian illustrator. The titular Soddit has arms longer than a gibbon's, too, which is at least a fresh interpretation.
There's also this swanky-cover-art'd Czech translation of The McAtrix Derided, McAtrix Recesed. There are also Swedish and Spanish editions of The Soddit to follow, as well as Bulgarian McAtrix, and German, French and Spanish translations of parodies that have not yet been published in English (parodies of Star Wars and The Da Vinci Code, as it happens).