Adam Roberts (1) (1965–)
Author of Yellow Blue Tibia
For other authors named Adam Roberts, see the disambiguation page.
Adam Roberts (1) has been aliased into A.R.R.R. Roberts.
About the Author
Image credit: Roberts at Salon du livre 2008 (Paris, France) By Georges Seguin (Okki) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3716186
Series
Works by Adam Roberts
Works have been aliased into A.R.R.R. Roberts.
Cardboard Box of the Rings: "The Soddit", "The Sellamillion", "Bored of the Rings" (GollanczF.) (2004) 21 copies, 1 review
Shoreline of Infinity 32: Science fictional fairy tales and myths (Science Fiction Magazine) (2022) 3 copies
Swiftly [short story] 3 copies
Petrolpunk {short story} 2 copies
Anhedonia (Short story) 2 copies
What Did Tessimond Tell You? 2 copies
War of Another World [short story] 2 copies
The Time Telephone {short story} 2 copies
The Swoon 2 copies
Poem in Four Parts 2 copies
lo sghrbit 1 copy
Dick Does Time 1 copy
New Model Computer 1 copy
The Order Of Things 1 copy
Balancing 1 copy
And Future King 1 copy
Man You Gotta Go 1 copy
In the Night of the Comet 1 copy
Noose (short story) 1 copy
Gross Thousand (short story) 1 copy
Review: Thomas Hodgkin. Denis Bayle: a life. (Red Rocket Books 2003) 321p. £20. ISBN: 724381129524 [short fiction] 1 copy, 1 review
Mocputer (Short story) 1 copy
Moon Poem (poem) 1 copy
Saint Rebor (short story) 1 copy
The Sixth Star (short story) 1 copy
Recursitopia 1 copy
Between Nine and Eleven 1 copy
Associated Works
Works have been aliased into A.R.R.R. Roberts.
The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) — Introduction, some editions; Introduction, some editions — 3,050 copies, 87 reviews
The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904) — Introduction, some editions — 1,209 copies, 19 reviews
Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology (2008) — Contributor — 356 copies, 16 reviews
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection (2010) — Contributor — 287 copies, 6 reviews
Flirting with Pride & Prejudice: Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit Masterpiece (2005) — Contributor — 237 copies, 8 reviews
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Annual Collection (2003) — Contributor — 234 copies, 2 reviews
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection (2013) — Contributor — 222 copies, 3 reviews
Star Wars on Trial: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time (2006) — Contributor — 188 copies, 5 reviews
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection (2015) — Contributor — 176 copies, 7 reviews
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven (2013) — Contributor — 141 copies, 3 reviews
The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year's Best Science Fiction (2019) — Contributor — 135 copies, 1 review
The Anthology at the End of the Universe: Leading Science Fiction Authors on Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to… (2005) — Contributor — 130 copies, 2 reviews
Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction (2011) — Contributor — 126 copies, 4 reviews
So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica (2006) — Contributor — 84 copies, 2 reviews
Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles and the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek (Smart Pop… (2006) — Contributor — 81 copies, 5 reviews
Glorifying Terrorism, Manufacturing Contempt: An Anthology (2006) — Contributor — 69 copies, 3 reviews
2001: An Odyssey in Words: Celebrating the Centenary of Arthur C. Clarke's Birth (2018) — Contributor — 55 copies, 13 reviews
Solaris Rising 3: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction (2014) — Contributor — 43 copies, 6 reviews
Dislocations: Nine Stories of Speculation and Imagination (2007) — Contributor — 36 copies, 2 reviews
Celebration: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the British Science Fiction Association (2008) — Contributor — 34 copies, 1 review
The Unauthorized X-Men: SF and Comic Writers on Mutants, Prejudice, and Adamantium (Smart Pop series) (2006) — Contributor — 33 copies, 1 review
Investigating CSI: An Unauthorized Look Inside the Crime Labs of Las Vegas, Miami and New York (2006) — Contributor — 22 copies
King Kong Is Back!: An Unauthorized Look at One Humongous Ape! (Smart Pop series) (2005) — Contributor — 18 copies
Solaris Rising 1.5: An Exclusive ebook of New Science Fiction (2012) — Contributor — 15 copies, 1 review
Beta-Life: Short Stories from an A-Life Future (Science-Into-Fiction) (2014) — Contributor — 14 copies
Stories of Hope and Wonder: In Support of the UK's Healthcare Workers (2020) — Contributor — 11 copies, 1 review
Crises and Conflicts: Celebrating the First 10 Years of Newcon Press (2016) — Contributor — 5 copies
Scarlet Traces: An Anthology Based on The War of the Worlds: A War of the Worlds Anthology (2019) — Contributor — 5 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Roberts, Adam Charles
- Other names
- Roberts, A.R.R.R.
Roberts, A3R
Brine, Don - Birthdate
- 1965-06-30
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- England
UK - Birthplace
- Croydon, London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
London, England, UK - Education
- University of Aberdeen (BA - English)
University of Cambridge (PhD) - Occupations
- professor
critic
novelist - Organizations
- University of London
- Agent
- Anne Perry
- Short biography
- Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated three times for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001 for his debut novel, Salt, in 2007 for Gradisil and in 2010 for Yellow Blue Tibia.
Members
Reviews
High by Adam Roberts
Richard Stark's "Parker" working in a dystopian cybernoir state and sent to Mars? Almost -- but in the end something a bit stranger. Very readable and fun.
Enjoyable novel about a science fiction writer who is recruited by Stalin after WWII to help create an alien invasion scenario that can be used to unite the people, and what happens 40 years later when it seems to be coming true. The revelation of what the title means is fun, as are lots of scenes. The book's resolution is fun, if a little bit hard to understand, or maybe it was just late at night when I read it. Still, a good book and often quite funny.
This fast-paced novella has the feel of an introductory episode, although I don’t think there is a sequel so far. We follow the not especially sympathetic Fosse/Starman through a heist that (of course) doesn’t go as expected. I enjoyed seeing how his plans played out when other characters and factions were introduced to the mix, though I was a bit disappointed by the McGuffin.
Stealing for the Sky probably works best if you don’t think too hard about the “why” and just sit back and enjoy the action.… (more)
Stealing for the Sky probably works best if you don’t think too hard about the “why” and just sit back and enjoy the action.… (more)
It is genuinely uncanny that I happened to read [b:Alexandria|52310896|Alexandria|Paul Kingsnorth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1583267977l/52310896._SY75_.jpg|73035795] by [a:Paul Kingsnorth|406864|Paul Kingsnorth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1507092300p2/406864.jpg] and [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] by [a:Adam Roberts|23023|Adam Roberts|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1222988832p2/23023.jpg] consecutively. From the blurbs and my prior familiarity with both authors, I expected them to be utterly different novels. In style, structure, and genre, they are. However, both have the same central theme: conflict between embodied individual humans and disembodied posthuman collective hiveminds. That is a little odd, but what I found really weird is that the two books have the same ending. After prolonged debate and conflict between the two sides, human and posthuman, the latter appears to triumph thanks to technological superiority and irresistible appeal. After all, it's hard to resist immortality, eternal companionship, and an escape from humanity's worst impulses. Then, at the end, the posthuman collectives discover that their immortality is antithetical to, for want of a better word, god. In both novels, this entity is an emergent property that appears at the very end of the book to explain why humans must die. [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496]:
[b:Alexandria|52310896|Alexandria|Paul Kingsnorth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1583267977l/52310896._SY75_.jpg|73035795], titled after a disembodied posthuman hivemind:
The same thing stated in two very different styles! This similarity would be less odd had I come across such an ending before these two novels; I had not. I'm tempted to ascribe some significance to it as an expression of contemporary existential and technological anxieties. The overlap may also stem from Hegel, whose work I know very little about (and that filtered through later philosophers). Roberts explicitly characterises [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] as a 'Hegel-novel' to match his 'Kant-novel', [b:The Thing Itself|26187256|The Thing Itself|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440860820l/26187256._SY75_.jpg|46157684] (which I recommend). Either way, it's an extraordinary coincidence that I read the two adjacently. I love this type of reading serendipity.
Returning to [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] itself, the title is awkward but the novel is excellent. I associate Roberts with well-executed high concept sci-fi and I think this is one of his best. I much preferred its more engaging, thorough, and thoughtful treatment of the theme to that of [b:Alexandria|52310896|Alexandria|Paul Kingsnorth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1583267977l/52310896._SY75_.jpg|73035795]. [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] initially appears to be a satire and critique of social media, then becomes steadily more existential. Chapter two has a convincingly inane twitter feed as a footnote throughout, which was particularly amusing to read on a long weekend when I'd logged out of twitter for the first time in years.
The narrative extends forwards and sideways in time, as usual with Roberts novels via the perspective of Some Hapless Man. Although I wish he'd try a Some Hapless Woman protagonist for variety, I enjoyed the depiction of mundanity in a world where upload to an immortal posthuman hivemind is an option. This jaded angle on the future of technology is from a [b:Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street|22416|Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1 Back on the Street|Warren Ellis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320606005l/22416._SY75_.jpg|23442]-esque vision of the future:
A war between humans and posthumans is also shown strikingly via a grunt trooper. The last few chapters stand out as the highlights.I love the concept of there being exactly thirteen stable alternate universes, one of which is George Orwell's [b:Nineteen Eighty-Four|5471|Nineteen Eighty-Four|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617559981l/5471._SX50_.jpg|153313] with each continent as a posthuman hivemind. Chapter seven is the most original and interesting riff on Orwell's classic that I've come across for a very long time and my favourite part of the book. I think it would stand alone as an excellent short story, were the final line modified slightly. It begins just brilliantly:
[b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] constantly juxtaposes philosophical abstractions and human pettiness, to alternately funny and profound effect. There is nothing more mundane than death, I suppose, as it comes to us all. The plot is cleverly structured and the world-building full of arresting details. Novels by Roberts are always focused on exploring abstract ideas in a somewhat fantastical material context. I think [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] does so in a particularly satisfying and memorable way.… (more)
"Permit me to explain how the world works, my friend. Human beings live. Then they die. That's the natural process, passing through life into death and again into life."
[...]
"Actually functioning material immortality is a big problem for me. I exist as the sum of the natural flow in which every individual consciousness passes through their myriad deaths. People opting out of that process, especially large numbers of people... Well, it blocks that flow, it prevents me even coming into my absolution. Do you see?"
[...]
"I'm Molochesque, I'm afraid. I must have my deaths. There can't be any exceptions."
[b:Alexandria|52310896|Alexandria|Paul Kingsnorth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1583267977l/52310896._SY75_.jpg|73035795], titled after a disembodied posthuman hivemind:
you know the world is minded
the universe is minded also
All we know is a great mind, a giant thought
when any conscious creature dies
its mind shifts to another part of the whole
mind is an energy which must circle
all of your small minds are part of the great thought
cells in the thinking body of the whole
by locking human minds away
i denied the great thought its fuel
i broke the cycle
the flow blocked, the balance skewed
Alexandria was a dam
blocking the great river
and so it is is dyin
it is not dying
it is dead
it has fallen?
in sorrow and in gentleness
i have broken the dam that sickened the river
i have made restitution
The same thing stated in two very different styles!
Returning to [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] itself, the title is awkward but the novel is excellent. I associate Roberts with well-executed high concept sci-fi and I think this is one of his best. I much preferred its more engaging, thorough, and thoughtful treatment of the theme to that of [b:Alexandria|52310896|Alexandria|Paul Kingsnorth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1583267977l/52310896._SY75_.jpg|73035795]. [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] initially appears to be a satire and critique of social media, then becomes steadily more existential. Chapter two has a convincingly inane twitter feed as a footnote throughout, which was particularly amusing to read on a long weekend when I'd logged out of twitter for the first time in years.
The narrative extends forwards and sideways in time, as usual with Roberts novels via the perspective of Some Hapless Man. Although I wish he'd try a Some Hapless Woman protagonist for variety, I enjoyed the depiction of mundanity in a world where upload to an immortal posthuman hivemind is an option. This jaded angle on the future of technology is from a [b:Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street|22416|Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1 Back on the Street|Warren Ellis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320606005l/22416._SY75_.jpg|23442]-esque vision of the future:
Toys everywhere. The toy event horizon. Adan had his toys. He had a library of seven thousand virtual virtual games he had played, some of which he returned to and replayed many times. He had hundreds of thousands of screen dramas to watch, and millions of songs he could listen to, and more online platforms on which he could pass his time arguing with strangers than he could ever visit. Most of all he had his phone, and in this he was like an increasing number of people. Because the iron law of the Toycene was this: kids want their toys to be their friends and adults want to fuck their toys.
A war between humans and posthumans is also shown strikingly via a grunt trooper. The last few chapters stand out as the highlights.
There are only three people alive in the world. Two of these are stronger and one of them is weaker. It's just the way things are. [...] The two people are called Oceania and Eurasia. We need not bother with the name of the third.
[b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] constantly juxtaposes philosophical abstractions and human pettiness, to alternately funny and profound effect. There is nothing more mundane than death, I suppose, as it comes to us all. The plot is cleverly structured and the world-building full of arresting details. Novels by Roberts are always focused on exploring abstract ideas in a somewhat fantastical material context. I think [b:The This|58950899|The This|Adam Roberts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639950958l/58950899._SY75_.jpg|92907496] does so in a particularly satisfying and memorable way.… (more)
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 126
- Also by
- 93
- Members
- 5,873
- Popularity
- #4,205
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 244
- ISBNs
- 271
- Languages
- 14
- Favorited
- 12
