Adam Roberts's Blog, page 20

The Hobbit at 75

Jane Johnson, Brian Sibley, David Brawn and I will be talking about "The Hobbit" at the British Library tonight, 6:30-8pm: why don't you come along?

Chet for the win

Yesterday's rather vulgarly pluggy post went against the grain, rather, if I'm honest. I'll be a touch more circumspect today in this, another post catching up on stuff of mine that has appeared over the summer. The first thing is to direct you to the site of the excellent Pandemonium press, run by good people, and with its heart in the right place ('Pandemonium books are released as both limited editions and ebooks, with a portion of all proceeds from our sales going towards charitable causes'). The next thing is to point you in the direction of their Novelettes (scroll down). There I am!

I wrote a story about a trip to the moon, a lunar adventure, an encounter with strange aliens (all that). Then I bethought me of the good old days when my novels were called things like Salt, On, W and !. Now there was a naming convention! Accordingly I named my new novelette An account of a voyage from World to World again, by way of the Moon, 1726, in the Commission of Georgius Rex Primus, Monarch of Northern Europe and Lord of Selenic Territories, Defender of the Faith. Undertaken by Captain Wm. Chetwin aboard the Cometes Georgius. I think this might catch on, as a new novel-naming convention.

Saucy Jack, he’s a haughty one, saucy Jack, he’s a naughty one

Buy from: amazon.co.uk; other retailers; kobo ebooks.

So, how've you been?

Yes, yes, it's been a while. I shall keep things more up to date around here from now on, I promise -- starting with this post about my latest novel Jack Glass. This is pure plug. Impure semi-plug and other posts to follow.

Anyway, this is the book with, by general opinion, the nicest cover of any of my novels (thank you, Blacksheep). More, according to the entirely disinterested opinion of, er, my wife, it's my best novel yet. You wouldn't want to call my wife a liar, now, would you? Less subjectively it is a mash-up Golden Age SF space opera and Golden Age whodunit. If you don't like those two things then you won't like this, but if you do like them, then ... who knows? Maybe my wife is right. Here's one reader's amazon.com opinion: from a certain N. O. Tasockpuppet: 'This is most excellent stuff, this triptych of "locked-room mysteries". Inspired by both the "Golden Age of Sci-Fi" and similarly classic whodunits, Adam Roberts has fashioned a Space Opera that satisfies both the imagination and the intellect.' See?

There have been a few published reviews as well, and I'll run briefly through them. To start with the less than enthusiastic: Saxon Bullock, at SFX, was lukewarm -- the review isn't online, I'm afraid, but in a nutshell it was: 'this is a book in three parts; it's good but the first part is exceptionally good so the whole thing is a failure, 2 stars out of 5'. Which is hard to argue with. The estimable Guy Haley, despite opening his review with one of the nicest things I've ever read about myself ('Roberts' books are truly difficult to rate, because there isn't anything else like them in the modern SF genre') overall blows as cool as he does hot about the novel. And the great Christopher Priest reviewed the book in The Guardian. It's a review that's difficult to excerpt, and, as you'll see if you click the link, manages to be both positive and rather puzzled and negative at the same time. I tend to the view that it's as close as Priest will come to a dithyrambic review of my writing, given the parameters of his Reviewer's Voice, and his mixed reaction to my writing more generally. But maybe I'm fooling myself.

Other reviews are more straightforwardly positive. Niall Alexander at Tor.com calls it 'magnificent' (' ... perfectly plotted, winningly worded, and as rewarding, despite everything, as anything you’re apt to read this year, this trifecta of golden age goodness is yet another example of Adam Roberts’ tremendous talents').

Paul di Filippo says nice things about my writing, and this novel, in a locusonline review; wondering as he goes why 'Roberts’s books slide under everyone’s radar, consumer and reviewer alike ... drastically ignored by peers (no Nebula nominations) and fans (no Hugo nominations). But why? His work is always elegantly written, thought-provoking, suspenseful, ingeniously speculative and deftly plotted. He knows the history of the field inside and out (having written a big critical history of our lineage). He honors mainstream fiction as well. I find his characters eminently lifelike, his tone droll and acerbic and yet not insensitive to common human passions. In short, he seems the very model of a modern SF writer.'

Harry Ritchie, at the Daily Mail, says: 'The ingenuity factor is impressive enough, but this is a novel that also manages to shift our sympathy towards the infamous culprit, as we discover not only who done it and how but why, for this is a mightily oppressive future where trillions are governed by a dictatorial elite and capitalism at its rawest. Startlingly clever - a maestro’s performance.'

Liviu Siciu, over at Fantasy Book Critic: '[To say] "it is an extraordinary novel" is quite the understatement. A top 10 novel of 2012 for me.'

The Material Witness blog wasn't sure what to say: 'It's been about a month since I raced through Jack Glass in the space of 24 hours, and the reason it's taken me this long to review it is that I simply haven't been able to figure out how to write about it. That has nothing to do with the writing of Adam Roberts, which is exquisite throughout - smart, witty and addictive - nor the brilliance of Jack Glass, which is a fascinating, compelling and challenging tale of personality, politics and socio-economics. I have enjoyed no novel more during 2012.'

John Clute has some spontaneous jactitations over at Strange Horizons. he breaks open the R S Thomas (that great poet), amongst other things.

And finally, the hugely perceptive and rather neglected critic Dan Hartland, despite making cruel aspersions about my male pattern baldness ('... and between you and me, my hair is thinning a bit ...'), says some very interesting things.

Forthcoming

Ian Whates, that excellent man, has just sent this through; the cover-art for the forthcoming Solaris Rising 1.5, including a story from me. Runs, ahem, rings around most short-story-collections cover art.

Next Stop, Utop

This is where I'm at for the next few days:

13th International Conference

UTOPIAN STUDIES SOCIETY

Tarragona, 4th-7th July 2012



I'll be giving the opening keynote; very exciting. There's a wine reception afterwards!

Adam Robots

That thing Keats said about a thing of beauty? It applies here.

This is the latest iteration of the cover for my forthcoming Collected Short Stories, which Gollancz are putting out next year. It is, in a nutshell, yet another blinder played by the genius people at Blacksheep. I'm very conscious how lucky I have been with my cover art, and each of the last few (all Blacksheep designs) have upped the bar. I didn't think it was possible to get any better than the cover for Jack Glass, but this comes close to topping it.

Resurrection Engines

Nice cover! Who's inside?

"The anthology will feature sixteen brand new stories from some of the most exciting names writing in genre fiction today, and will be Steampunk ‘reimaginings’ or ‘retellings’ of classic works of literary fiction. Below is a list of the authors contributing to the book, along with their chosen literary work. "Resurrection Engines: Sixteen Extraordinary Tales of Scientific Romance" will be published in hardback on June 30th, then released in paperback in time for Christmas!"

01 - Brian Herbert & Bruce Taylor (H.G. Wells)

02 - Lavie Tidhar (Alice in Wonderland)

03 - Adam Roberts (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

04 - Philip Palmer (Wilkie Collins)

05 - Juliet E. McKenna (H. Rider Haggard)

06 – Jonathan Green (Moby Dick)

07 - Alan K. Baker (Journey to the Centre of the Earth)

08 – Roland Moore (White Fang)

09 - Scott Harrison (Jekyll & Hyde)

10 - Alison Littlewood (Silas Marner)

11 - Jim Mortimore (Robin Hood)

12 – Cavan Scott (Snow White)

13 – Kim Lakin-Smith (Peter Pan / The Island of Doctor Moreau)

14 – Paul Magrs (Wuthering Heights)

15 – Simon Bucher-Jones (A Christmas Carol)

16 – Rachel E. Pollock (Treasure Island)

Sharing an anthology with Rachel Pollock? I'm happy. Also: it comes out on my birthday, which is nice.

Martin Citywit

Captures my mood rather well at the moment, actually: artwork by the estimable Gary Northfield based on a short story of mine called 'Martin Citywit' which will be appearing in Pandemonium: Stories of the Smoke, a collection of SF shorts based on Dickens and edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin. The book is out soon, and you should buy it, for a portion of proceeds will go to PEN, which is a very good cause. But more proximately, you should pop over to the Pornokitsch site right now and take part in the auction. Gary N. has very generously donated all the half-dozen illustrations he did for the volume; and they are things of beauty indeed. Bid, I bid ye! Bid!

Heman Chong

A friend sent me the link to the latest Rossi & Rossi exhibition: some splendid, beautiful canvases by Heman Chong, a snip at £2300, including the Headless and Snow images, below. Speaking as an author: I'm flattered to be included in such company, and to have provoked such fine art.

Vec-tor and the Snow-Dog

The new Vector is out; and the obscure music-related pun in this post title, up there, is my way of indicating that I've an article in it: 'On Science Fiction Music', pp22-28. Worth the price of admission on its own, I'd say.