Adam Roberts at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 13/07/2007

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Adam Roberts - Page 2

First British Edition Gollancz (2004)

Paperback - Gollancz (2004)

Polystom
Two universes, one reality

‘I find the very notion of these superb, barren mountains of fire hanging in nothingness - literally nothingness! - to be poetic and engaging to the highest degree.’

Amongst all his uncle Cleonicles’ notions, his explanation for the stars has always seemed just too fanciful to be true to Polystom, fiftieth steward of Enting.
Yes, his uncle invented the Computional Device, the Greatest Work of Man, the Summation of Human Knowledge, but surely everyone accepts that the air between the planets is without end. How could there be nothing beyond something? Where would air end and nothing begin?
This is but one certainty in a universe of certainties for the fiftieth Steward of Enting. Polystom is certain his new wife will love him. Certain that his servants respect him. Certain that war will bring him the glory he has been looking for.
The death of his uncle is only one of the first shocks to his comfortable view of life ...
Adam Roberts has, in a marvellous feat of the imagination, created a vivid, unique universe. One in which autocrats cruise between the planets in biplanes, in which Skywhals make mysterious distant orbits, in which a fruitless war has dragged on for years.
For it to be any other way is, of course, completely impossible ...

Paperback - Gollancz (2005)

The Sellamillion
LOWERED OFF THE RINGS (voted the Island’s favourite read on SKYE 1’s THE QUITE BIG READ, with 38 votes) and THE SODDIT (voted ‘My dad’s favourite children’s book which I said I liked to keep him quiet’) have secured a place in the nation’s heart for months to come for A.R.R.R. Roberts.
What is little known to Roberts’ quite literally dozens of fans is that he wrote loads of other ripsnortingly exciting epic fantasy that simply wasn’t included (what were we thinking?) in his two most famous novels.
But now, after days of diligent study of our balance sheets for the coming financial year, Gollancz are proud to present THE SELLAMIILION.
Here at last are all the grand legends and myths of Lower Middle Earth that A.R.R.R. Roberts lovingly compiled after we rang him up last Thursday with the promise of another contract. And, err, some poems. In Anglo Saxon. Or is it Norwegian? Anyway, they’re very good.

First British Edition Null (2004)

Paperback - Gollancz (2005)

The McAtrix Derided
Writing as the Robertski Brothers
A Parody
Or is that just what THEY want you to think?
Gordon (or ‘Nemo’ as he’s known in the internet chatrooms) finds himself rudely awakened to the reality of his mundane existence. Far from being a workaday Database Coordinator, he is the inadvertent slave of Evil Machine IntelligencesTM’ who are keeping his body sealed in a virtual-reality pod whilst distracting his mind with an elaborate virtual world. He, like the bulk of humanity (but not you, because you’re reading this book which is about this world being a virtual world and how could that happen?), is trapped in the McAtrix.
But his awakener (the virile though small-framed Smurpheus) wants to do more than just free Nemo from this illusion. He thinks Nemo may be special. He thinks that Nemo just might be the No One, the nonentity whose ego is so insignificant it can confront the celebrity-obsessed McAtrix on its own terms and bring it down.
Gordon tries to get interested in Smurpheus’ plans for the liberation of the whole of enslaved humanity, but the truth is he’s more concerned with trying to summon the courage to ask the gorgeous latex-clad Thinity out …

Are you looking for Nemo? Or are you looking for No One?
Let’s face it, these days, when thrilling, ideas-driven SF epics turn into lame action movies at the flick of a sequel and books like The Soddit by A.R.R.R. Roberts become bestsellers, it’s hard to be sure.
Is this life, this bizarre matrix we’re all caught up in, beyond parody now? Ooh no we don’t think so .. .
Smurpheus pointed to a low table beside his chair. On the table were two small glasses, each roughly the size of a half-pint cup. One of the glasses contained a red fluid, and the other a blue. `You must choose one of these drinks’ said Smurpheus. `Drink the blue drink and you wake up in your bed, where you can think this whole meeting was a dream, and get on with your life. Drink the red one, however, and you’ll find out for yourself precisely what the McAtrix is.’
Gordon looked at the two glasses `What’s the red drink?’ he asked. `Cranberry juice,’ said Smurpheus.
`Right. And the blue one?’ ‘Toilet duck.’

Paperback - Gollancz (2003)

First British Edition Gollancz (2002)

Stone
Sprung from a prison in the centre of a star, the universe’s last criminal is employed to kill the entire population of a planet. And leave the planet itself intact.
It is a crime that will tear apart an interstellar utopia that has existed for centuries. Across known space engineered humans live lives of idle contentment, their every need catered for by the nano-tech machines that teem in their blood.
To keep ahead of detection while the crime is prepared the killer voyages to the numerous worlds where, in exotic and varied landscapes, mankind searches for the excitement of a new experience. And all the time the killer is re-awakening the instincts required for murder. And wondering who is behind the contract.
In a society that has forgotten how to commit crime who could possibly aspire to genocide?
'The king of high-concept. His best to date' Jon Courtenay Grimwood, The Guardian
‘Adam Roberts has got what it takes’ Peter F. Hamilton
Superb. Possibly his best to date' George Mann, Ottakars
`The oddly helter-skelter elegance of On marks the novel as one of the notable SF books of the year - the sort of experiment in form and perspective that the genre sees too rarely . . . Adam Roberts is a purveyor of illusions that underscore the real, a beguiling dispenser of cruel instruction. Heed him. Harsh medicine is not often so entertainingly administered’ Nick Gevers, Sfsite.com

First British Edition Gollancz (2001)

Paperback - Gollancz (2002)

ON
Tighe lives on the wall. It towers above his village and falls away below it. It is vast and unforgiving and it is everything they know. Life is hard on the wall, little more than a clinging on for dear life.
And then one day Tighe falls off the world. And falls, and falls and falls . . . and survives. He finds a new part of the wall; a vast expanse of cluttered ledges packed with more people than he ever imagined existed.
And a war. A war fought by the Popes and their armies. A war Tighe must join, a war that will take him on a journey into the heart of the mystery behind the wall.
ON is a superbly confident novel of a radically different world. It has echoes of A Canticle for Leibowitz and The Book of the New Sun. It is a remarkable feat of Imagination and sustained narrative drive.
‘Fine writing. Well imagined and moving’ The Guardian
`There are echoes in here of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun and Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz but to these greats Adam Roberts has added a twist of high-concept originality.’ SFX
`A fantastic story.’ Scotland on Sunday
‘On’s main attraction is not hard SF worldbuilding, but its skilful subversions of the well-worn story of the picaresque adventures of a magic kid; Roberts’s inverted world is crueller and far less friction-free than most in SF.’ Paul McAuley, Interzone
`The central mystery is a joy to puzzle over, and Roberts’s imagery and style are striking’ Starburst
‘Roberts’s first novel, Salt, was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was widely praised. On looks to be a worthy follow-up and confirms Roberts as a writer to watch’ Sfrevu.com
‘ON is overflowing with style, substance and panache. It deserves to become a classic.’ George Mann, author of The Mammoth Encyclopedia of SF