Adam Roberts's Blog, page 10

Aye Write: I Appear

Aye Write 2016 is Glasgow's literary festival, and an excellent and stimulating festival it is too. This year I'll be appearing 12th Mar 2016, 6:00pm - 7:00pm, in the Mitchell Library on Berkeley Street. I'l solve the Fermi Paradox for you, urge you to buy my book, and crack a few jokes. May have a drink afterwards too, if you're around and fancy a swift one.

The Thing Kitsch Self

Over the moon, over the veritable moon, to discover that The Thing Itself has been shortlisted for this year's Kitschies. Here are the shortlists:

The Red Tentacle (Novel), judged by Sarah Lotz, James Smythe, Nikesh Shukla, Nazia Khatun, and Glen Mehn:

The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury)

Europe at Midnight, by Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)

The Reflection, by Hugo Wilcken (Melville House)

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit)

The Thing Itself, by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

The Golden Tentacle (Debut), also judged by Sarah Lotz, James Smythe, Nikesh Shukla, Nazia Khatun, and Glen Mehn

The Shore, by Sara Taylor (William Heinemann)

Blackass, by A. Igoni Barrett (Chatto and Windus)

The Gracekeepers, by Kirsty Logan (Harvill Secker)

The Night Clock, by Paul Meloy (Solaris)

Making Wolf, by Tade Thompson (Rosarium)

The Inky Tentacle (Cover Art), judged by Sarah McIntyre, Dapo Adeola, Regan Warner, and Lauren O’Farrell:

The Vorrh, by Brian Catling, design by Pablo Declan (Coronet)

Monsters, by Emerald Fennell, art direction by Jet Purdie, illustration by Patrick Leger (Hot Key Books)

The Honours, by Tim Clare, design and illustration by Peter Adlington (Canongate)

The Door that Led to Where, by Sally Gardner, art direction and design by Jet Purdie, illustration by Dover Publications Inc & Shutterstock (Hot Key Books)

Get In Trouble, by Kelly Link, design by Alex Merto (Canongate)

The Invisible Tentacle (Natively Digital Fiction), judged by James Wallis, Rebecca Levene and Em Short:

Arcadia by Iain Pears, http://arcadiatheapp.com/ (Faber/Touchpress)

LIFE IS STRANGE http://www.lifeisstrange.com/ (Square Enix)

Daniel Barker’s Birthday, by Frog Croakley https://storify.com/FrogCroakley/the-... (@FrogCroakley)

The Last Hours of Laura K, http://thelasthoursoflaurak.com/ (BBC Writer’s Room)

Bloodborne http://www.fromsoftware.jp/pc_en/prod... (Hidetaka Miyazaki/FromSoftware)

The winners will be announced in a ceremony at The Star of Kings on 7th March, and receive a total of £2,500 in prize money, as well as one of the prize’s iconic Tentacle trophies.

I was one of the Kitschies judges last year, so I have some sense how this award works, and that sense only makes me feel more chuffed at having been shortlisted today. So for instance I know that, because it puts no obstacles in the way of submissions (no entry fee, happy to take self-published titles and so on) this prize gets a lot of submissions, many more than comparable genre awards: 176 titles this year, apparently, which is not far from what we got last year. Some of those titles won't be much cop, but a lot of them will be excellent novels, and selecting two brief shortlists is really really hard. The judges, listed above, are to a woman and man estimable, principled and marvelous people: they will have agonised over this impossible whittling down, as we did last year, and for all the authors who have reached this penultimate stage it is an amazing honour.

Roll on the 7th March!

Darey Dawn’s artwork for the Russian Jack Glass: full image

Beautiful isn't it? The artist, Дарья, posted this to deviant-art earlier today. You may need to click on it to enjoy its full glory.

Guardian review of THING ITSELF

Oh, that photo. Still photographic representation aside, Julian Baggini's actual review says some nice things: 'This is really walking the literary high wire, and Roberts not only keeps his balance, he makes the spectacle compelling. I can’t think of another such ostentatiously clever novel that is so dramatically successful, as rigorous psychologically as it is logically. Like Kant’s thing in itself, Roberts’s eponymous novel does not fit into any standard categories.'

BSFA Award shortlists 2016

The BSFA Awards shortlists for the best SF of 2015 have just been announced. And here they are:

Best Novel

Dave Hutchinson, Europe at Midnight, Solaris

Chris Beckett, Mother of Eden, Corvus

Aliette de Bodard, The House of Shattered Wings, Gollancz

Ian McDonald, Luna: New Moon, Gollancz

Justina Robson, Glorious Angels, Gollancz

Best Short Story

Aliette de Bodard, “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”, Clarkesworld 100

Paul Cornell, “Witches of Lychford”, Tor.com

Jeff Noon, “No Rez”, Interzone 260

Nnedi Okorafor, “Binti”, Tor.com

Gareth L. Powell, “Ride the Blue Horse”, Matter

Best Non-Fiction

Nina Allan, “Time Pieces: Doctor Change or Doctor Die”, Interzone 261

Alisa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce, Letters to Tiptree, Twelfth Planet Press

Jonathan McCalmont, “What Price Your Critical Agency”, Ruthless Culture.

Adam Roberts, Rave and Let Die: The SF and Fantasy of 2014, Steel Quill Books

Jeff Vandermeer, “From Annihilation to Acceptance: a writer’s surreal journey”, The Atlantic, January 2015

Best Artwork

Jim Burns, Cover of Pelquin’s Comet, Newcon Press

Vincent Sammy: “Songbird”, Interzone 257

Sarah Anne Langton: Cover of Jews Versus Zombies, Jurassic London

I am delighted, honoured and amazed (indeed properly surprised) to appear on the non-fiction list. Now, since I am also a BSFA member I get to vote, but here, in hostage-to-fortune style, I'll note that I do not expect my own votes to correlate with the majority. So I plan to vote for: Robson, Okorafor, McCalmont and Langton. I predict the prizes will go to: Hutchinson, Noon, Krasnostein/Pierce (though Nina Allan has an outside chance) and I don't know, maybe Jim Burns, but very possibly Langton. Then again it's the sort of list where both those spreads of results would be fine: Europe at Midnight and Luna are both great novels, after all. Roll on Manchester.

Glassy Dshchek

Russian cover. Nice!

Thing Itself: the Update Itself

I appreciate that endlessly harping on Thing Itself related news is liable to get dull, though I hope you'll indulge me for one more update post. There are a few things to report, you see.

One is this, which is extraordinary, amazing and, for me at least, very exciting indeed.

Another is that the novel made the Locus Online 2015 recommended reading list, which is nice.

Jonathan Strahan's estimable Coode Street Podcast recently talked about the novel, too, with James Bradley and Ian Mond contributing to the discussion; which is even nicer.

There have been a few more reviews, too. Here's the opinion of the Nudge 'Book Geeks' people:

"There are some incredible ideas and boundless leaps of imagination. The plot strands that seem to be disparate all appear to eventually make sense. You’re left wondering about the nature of reality and our place in the universe – themes of all the best science fiction. You’re left reflecting on the book long after you’ve finished. Roberts is one of the best contemporary writers of original science fiction in terms of technical skill, vision and storytelling. The Thing Itself is a brilliant book for many, many reasons."

On the downside, no US publishers have elected to pick the book up (although Gollancz hope to distribute their edition in the States later this year, at least to some extent). Still, I try to console myself with this amazon.com reader's review:

"The cleverest novel I have ever read. Mind blowing in scope and content, you have never heard the ideas he comes up with in between the pages of this book. The last chapter is so... it's just so COOL. No other word to describe it. I put the book down upon finishing and sat back with a smile remembering all the awseomeness that I just consumed. Much more than the synopsis leads you to believe, it has to be read to be appreciated. There was a point in the story, about 60% in on my Kindle when there was something introduced that led me to believe that this could be jumping the shark but I was then floored by the way Mr. Roberts broke convention and used a tired plot device to explain things outside of the human structure of reasoning. I thought we had a Deus Ex Machina but we got a whole other thing completely, and it's totally original in the execution. Fun, smart, intelligent, difficult at times but a completely satisfying read."

And finally, it would be remiss of me not to note Crooks and Kings' 'Review Type Thing' of the novel, which may be the best review I've ever received. I say so despite the fact that it includes the following, on the novel's chapter 6: "I hated this chapter so fucking much. I’d go as far as to say that this chapter is my least favourite thing I’ve ever willingly read". But it also says the following: "This book is incredibly special to me ... This is easily among the greatest books I’ve ever read, and now all I need is to find the right people to recommend it to." Which is nicest.

I'll try to go easy on Thing Its-hard-sell in future.

Review

From:

Like most of Robert's novels, The Thing Itself is a book you need to take your time with, it has so many ideas, written in so many different ways that it would be quite easy to lose your way should your attention falter for just one moment. It is also however a masterpiece of science fiction, the writing is superb and the ideas simply inspired. Once again Robert's has surpassed himself.

What I Did in 2015

Three things, predominantly. Fiction, twice:

Quite taupe, that image, though: isn't it? On the left is my latest collection of short fiction, Saint Rebor (Newcon Press), which contains my two best short stories ('What Did Tessimond Tell You?' and 'Trademark Bugs') along with ten others of varying quality. If you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber you can download this collection for free, it seems; if not it'll set you back £2.99 for the eBook and rather more for the 'collectable' hard-copy.

On the right is The Thing Itself, which came out on the 17th Dec and which I've been plugging earnestly ever since, even unto the point of starting to annoy people, I don't doubt. So I won't go on about it again, here. Beyond, that is, noting that it's £8.99 in paperback at the moment. Scroll back through the last few posts on this very website for reviews links etc. It's probably my best novel, though.

Non-fiction, once:

Collected reviews, with a lengthy all-new intro on the state of the genre in 2014. Same deal with Kindle Unlimited customers, it seems; a little pricier for those who might wish actually to buy the book.

What else? Well, there was a US edition of Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea and a Chinese edition of Jack Glass; I had a story in Penelope Lewis and Ra Page's anthology of original fiction Spindles ('Raveled Sleeve of Care'); and I contributed a story to Rebecca Levene and Lavie Tidhar's Jews Versus Zombies volume. And in December SFX profiled me, with a full-size image of me hanging out with a couple of Ent friends.

So that was my 2015. What of next year? Well, one thing sure to happen is the second edition (very greatly revised and expanded) of my Palgrave History of Science Fiction will be published. Beyond that, plans are more or less fluid. Fluid can be good, though. It depends on the fluid.

What Does Brian Clegg Think of The Thing Itself?

It's the question on everybody's lips. And the answer is to be found here, on Brian Clegg's website. Indicative quotation:

I can say without any doubt that this by far the best science fiction book I've read all year. I can also say that it won't be to everyone's taste - so don't blame me if you don't like it - but to some it will be a revelation of what science fiction can be. This is the kind of science fiction that should be winning the Booker Prize. Simple as that.