Adam Roberts's Blog, page 29

SFX

The latest 196th issue of SFX (out now, in May; so obviously the cover says the issue is 'July 2010'...) contains a lot of interesting things. But there's also an interview with me (mostly given over to me talking twitter), and this photo of me sitting on the steps outside my house.



I'm joking! Of course that's not my house! Actually, it's the shed at the bottom of my garden.

Monday 10 May Piccadilly Waterstones 5:30pm

Come along!

The SFX Summer of SF Reading

Stephen Hunt Adam Roberts, Dan Abnett Graham McNeill, China Mieville Michael Cobley

WATERSTONE'S PICCADILLY
Monday, 10 May 2010, 5:30PM
To celebrate the launch of The SFX Summer of SF Reading we are delighted to host authors from the across the [sic:] SF spectrum. Access to the queue is on a first come first served basis, please arrive early to avoid disappointment. The duration of signing is discretionary. To win tickets to an exclusive post signing...

Guardian Review

I knew there was going to be a very short piece by me in today's Guardian Review about Terry Pratchett's Who-related ruminations. I knew that because I wrote the piece on Wednesday (though it doesn't appear to be online ...) What I didn't know, and didn't expect, was that the Guardian would carry the following Keith Brooke review of the mass-market paperback release of Yellow Blue Tibia:

It's a simple solution: the war is over and we need a new enemy, so ask a bunch of science fiction...

Forbidden Planet Signing May 13th

Forbidden Planet, but not forbidden to you. You're more than welcome to come along:

Forbidden Planet and Gollancz publishing are delighted to bring you one of our now-celebrated, open-format, multi-author signings! At 6pm on Thursday May 13th, Forbidden Planet 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London will be playing host to: -

• Stephen Deas

• M D Lachlan

• John Meaney

• Sarah Pinborough

• Adam Roberts

This is a free-form and open signing, bringing the authors out from behind their tables and giving...

New Model Army signing

I'll be signing copies of New Model Army at Waterstones in High Wycombe, on Saturday the 15th May from 11am. Unaccountably, High Wycombe somehow escaped the depredations of my NMA in the novel itself, although nearby Maidenhead gets hammered. Perhaps the good citizens of High Wycombe wish to thank me for sparing their borough ...?

There have been some other reviews. I was particularly pleased with this David Hebblethwaite review:

I can safely say that New Model Army is like no other book...

Clarke result

... and the winner was: Miéville's The City and the City, as if you didn't know. Ah well: it's a superb novel.

The ceremony was as it always is: good to see lots of people there, meet old friends and put faces to a couple of internet names. Stephen Hunt reports that Sean Pertwee was there:

The actor Sean Pertwee – aka Mutant Chronicles, Doomsday, Equilibrium, Dog Soldiers, and the upcoming The 4th Reich – was sitting directly in front of me, close to China Miéville on the left of the cinema...

Clarke Award tonight

Very exciting. For the record, I predict a win for either Miéville or Jones, with Robinson running a good race and coming up on the right hand side. I haven't yet got around to reading Far North, so can't say whether it does or doesn't have a chance, or does or doesn't deserve the prize on merits. But I've read the other five, and that means I know that it's an unusually strong shortlist this year. Which is a little frustrating ... why do I have to get shortlisted alongside so many superb ...

New Model 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...

Clarke Award Shortlisting for YBT

I am absolutely delighted to be shortlisted for this year's Arthur C Clarke Award.

Spirit by Gwyneth Jones

The City & The City by China Miéville

Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts

Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson

Far North by Marcel Theroux

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

As I was saying to somebody else, the thing that makes me particularly chuffed about appearing on this list is the sheer excellence of the other nominees. It means that my happiness at being shortlisted in the first place ...

New Model Army

In the post this morning: the first two of my author copies of New Model Army (available from all good internet bookshops and so on and so forth). Very handsome volume; good cover, nice type, sits lovely in the hand. I opened it at random on p.128 and found a typo in the first line, which, I choose to believe, is one of those omens like William the Conqueror falling over when he got off the boat at Pevensey -- which is to say, by this typo I seize England with both hands! Certainly...