Necromancy February 5, 2009
Posted by nutritionalsupplementnews in : Uncategorized , trackbackMeet Adam Roberts: the King of High Concept
Adam Roberts is one of my favorite science fiction writers going. He is the author of ten science fiction novels Compre cialis en España and two novellas, all of them brilliant works of epic scope and scale. Adam jumps from hard SF to biting satire, from the ends of time to the decades just ahead. Jon Courtenay Grimwood called him, “the king of high concept SF,” and I couldn’t agree more. He’s also the author of a number of critical works, including the the Palgrave History of Science Fiction. Under the pseudonym A.R.R.R. Roberts he even writes a series of parody novels. (Of the lot, my favorite title is Doctor Whom: E.T. Shoots and Leaves.) DeathRay wrote of him recently that, “You never know exactly what you’re going to get with an Adam Roberts novel, and that’s a strength: each of his books is very different in feel from the last.”
I certainly think it’s a strength, but somehow?I’m ashamed to say?refusing to do the same old thing over and over can hurt you over here in the States when it comes time to building a dedicated readership. And Adam excels at difficult protagonists, often employing people whose values are starkly out of contrast with our own, and he loves utilizing the “unreliable narrator,” someone who has reason to lie and therefore can’t be entirely trusted. It’s a technique that is very familiar in the mystery genre, but doesn’t always go down well in SF. Honestly, I think if he’d been published over here by a mainstream publisher, he’d be regarded as a serious literary genius like Michael Chabon. As it is, I hope he will forgive me if I say he’s something of a well-kept secret. But perhaps that’s beginning to change.
[Get the goods on Adam…]
I first encountered Adam in an interview in which he was discussing his novel, On. It’s a brilliant work about a boy named Tighe who lives on the side of an impossibly vast wall. How vast? It’s called the “WorldWall.” The son of a local chieftain and goat-herder, his self-assurance is rocked when he falls off the wall, plunging for miles and miles until he is miraculously saved in a manner I won’t spoil.
Whereupon, Tighe discovers an entire civilization that he never knew existed and is soon drawn into its latest war. I was intrigued by the interview. The interviewer was asking Roberts if the Wizard of Oz vibe he was Levitra picking up on in the text was deliberate. Adams responded that the book was about a world turned on its side, and that he should turn the novel’s title on its side as well. That’s when I knew I had to read this guy.
Numb and numb-er: Is trillion the new billion?
I was in the middle of editing my first fully-professional anthology, Live without a Net, and I knew if I waited until I’d read On it would be too late to get him involved, so I emailed Adam something like, “I’ve never read you, but I just bought both your novels and I think you’re a genius, and if I wait to find out for myself it will be too late, so can I have a short story?” I’m a little better at sweet talking writers these days, but nonetheless he responded with a story. In fact, he sent two: “New Model Computer” and the longer “Swiftly.” They were both great. I chose the shorter, strictly for space reasons, then changed my mind and emailed him back within 24 hours, only to find that Ellen Datlow had already accepted “Swiftly” for Sci-Fiction. (Damn!)
I’ve been a fan of Adam ever since. And yes, I did go on to read On, and loved it utterly. And I’ve worked with him every chance I get. When I edited the dear-to-my heart-but-commercial-failure Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film, an anthology of new and original essays on SF&F by authors of same, he wrote a brilliant piece on The Matrix Trilogy, arguing (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that, “these films are in a vital sense about the monstrous surplus that overwhelms any pigeonholing reduction at the level of the symbolic.” (Whazzat?) He also allowed me to reprint his essay, “Delany: Nuances of a Theme by Stevens,” which argued that Samuel R. Delany’s “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” must be understood in context of Wallace Stevens’ 1923 poem, “The Emperor of Ice Cream.” Man, he convinced me.
Meanwhile, his novel,
Related posts: Market braces for ‘awful’ news, Oprah.com downloads, Premier leauge, Midwinter, Obama grandmother
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?