Most Popular Books by Adam Roberts

In Middlemarch, George Eliot draws a character passionately absorbed by abstruse allusion and obscure epigraphs. Casaubon’s obsession is a cautionary tale, but Adam Roberts nonetheless sees in him an invitation to take Eliot’s use of epigraphy and allusion seriously, and this book is an attempt to do just that. Roberts considers the epigraph as a mirror that refracts the meaning of a text, and that thus carries important resonances for the way Eliot’s novels generate their meanings. In this lively and provoking study, he tracks down those allusions and quotations that have hitherto gone unidentified by scholars, examining their relationship to the text in which they sit to unfurl a broader argument about the novel – both this novel, and the novel form itself. Middlemarch: Epigraphs and Mirrors is both a study of George Eliot and a meditation on the textuality of fiction. It is essential reading for specialists and students of George Eliot, the nineteenth century novel, and intertextuality. It will also richly reward anyone who has ever taken pleasure in Middlemarch.

''For those of us who have to live with terrorism, when we leave home in the morning there is no guarantee that we will come back.'' Thus Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka''s Foreign Minister, foreshadowed his own assassination in 2005. He was an astute and brave thinker and practitioner on many key issues in international politics. Long before 9/11 he warned Western democracies that they were too passive about the activities on their soil of foreign terrorist movements and their front organizations. He was a strong advocate of democracy and human rights, conducting the first-ever Amnesty investigation into the problems of a particular country - Vietnam. He was uniquely effective in countering the propaganda campaigns of the separatist Tamil Tigers in his native Sri Lanka - the movement which ultimately took his life. This definitive work explores the continuing relevance of his ideas for the modern world. Democracy, Sovereignty and Terror presents Kadirgamar''s distinctive voice in his major speeches. It also offers a convincing picture, by those who knew him, of a scholar-statesman who was both a realist and an idealist. He showed that these approaches can be combined in both thought and action.

First published in 1999, this is a guide which provides easy access to a fairly complete range of the long poetry written in the Romantic and Victorian periods: epics, narrative poems, verse-novels and other work of over a certain length. The format provides title, author, length of work and prosodic description. Texts are then summarized according to the internal divisions. Each poem is accompanied by an objective summary and the poems as a whole are preceded by an introduction which advances a particular argument as to why the nineteenth century was so fascinated with the length that was the ultimate aesthetic rationale for the long poem.

A gothic tale of murder and corruption set in 1840s Victorian London, taking inspiration from our most famous 19th century writers. 1848, the spectre of revolution stalks London… “The story of the death of Sir Martin Malprelate acquired, from its earliest telling, a phantasmagorical quality, shrouding the violence of the assault in an embellishment of diabolic spectres and uncanny mystery.” Struck down in a Camden street, the railway magnate never lived to see his dream of a line from London to Middlemarch. But who was to blame? An angry mob? Or were the witnesses who swore he was struck by a demonic train, wheels ringing on rails where no rails lay, to be believed? A hated man who many wished dead? An impossible death? Truly a case for the father of all detectives. From award-winning author Adam Roberts comes a gothic murder mystery like no other; a gripping novel set in the tangled realms of 19th century fiction. In a world woven from the imaginations of Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Arthur Conan Doyle the inexplicable death of a railway magnate opens endless possibilities.

This study constitutes the first to analyse the remarkable surge in popularity of Arthurian literature and art in the modern period from a broad range of instances of cultural production. More novels with Arthurian themes have been published since the war than in any previous period, and Silk and Potatoes provides detailed readings of some of the most famous, including works by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anthony Burgess, C.J. Cherryh, Guy Gavriel Kay, Mary Stewart, Jack Vance and T.H. White. In addition to examining Arthurian fiction (with chapters on the general novel, Historical fiction and Science Fiction), this study examines the key cinematic examples of Arthuriana (Boorman’s Excalibur, Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac, Rohmer’s Perceval Le Gallois and Monthy Python and the Holy Grail). A further chapter goes on to look at the myriad other forms of cultural production based on Arthurian themes; from Bugs Bunny to Pop Music, from the Camelot of JFK to the British National Lottery. This is a study that touches on many aspects of Arthuriana whilst developing two connected arguments about (on the one hand) the necessary anachronism of any modern Arthurian Literature, and (on the other) the aesthetic-political implications of this literature’s success. The whole, whilst rooted in the scholarly debates on the enduring appeal of King Arthur, is written in an accessible and entertaining style. It will be of interest to students and teachers of Arthurian literature, film and popular culture.

In The Man Who Would Be Kling, award-winning author Adam Roberts delivers an intriguing story that evokes the spirit of the Strugatsky Brothers'' Roadside Picnic while also paying homage to both Rudyard Kipling''s classic tale and to fans of Star Trek.

Alma is a private detective in a near-future England, a country desperately trying to tempt people away from the delights of Shine, the immersive successor to the internet. But most people are happy to spend their lives plugged in, and the country is decaying. Alma''s partner is ill, and has to be treated without fail every 4 hours, a task that only Alma can do. If she misses the 5 minute window her lover will die. She is one of the few not to access the Shine. So when Alma is called to an automated car factory to be shown an impossible death and finds herself caught up in a political coup, she knows that getting too deep may leave her unable to get home. What follows is a fast-paced Hitchcockian thriller as Alma evades arrest, digs into the conspiracy, and tries to work out how on earth a dead body appeared in the boot of a freshly-made car in a fully-automated factory.

Solaris Rising 1.5 continues the exciting new series of SF anthologies from Solaris and editor Ian Whates, with an exclusive ebook! An anthology of nine short stories from some of the most exciting names in science fiction today. From both sides of the Atlantic – and further afield – these nine great writers offer you everything from a mystery about the nature of the universe to an inexplicable transmission to everyone on Earth, and from engineered giant spiders to Venetian palaces in space. So settle in, and enjoy yet more proof of the extraordinary breadth and depth of contemporary SF. Featuring Adam Roberts, Aliette de Bodard, Gareth L. Powell, Mike Resnick, Sarah Lotz, Phillip Vine, Tanith Lee, Paul Cornell, Paul di Filippo.

Adam Roberts'' new novel is a terrifying vision of a near future war - a civil war that tears the UK apart as new technologies allow the world''s first truly democratic army to take on the British army and wrest control from the powers that be. Taking advances in modern communication and the new eagerness for power from the bottom upwards, Adam Roberts has produced a novel that is at once an exciting war novel and a philosophical examination of war and democracy. It shows one of the UK''s most exciting and innovative literary voices working at the height of his powers and investing SF with literary significance that is its due.

It is one of the world’s most iconic cities, the center of romance, cuisine, and high culture, a place we are all implored to visit in spring and then forever hold in our hearts: Paris. But behind these familiar notions lies a bustling and deeply complex metropolis, one that offers visitors an unending array of surprises. This book takes readers and travelers to this other Paris, a city of love and danger alike, a city imbued with over 2,000 years of history, which Adam Roberts lovingly recounts alongside an expert tour of the city’s sights, sounds, and flavors. Roberts tells the story of how a provincial backwater rose up to become one of the richest, most powerful, and most visited cities in Europe, a world leader in fashion, the arts, and gastronomy. He takes us back two millennia to when roaming Celtic tribes first set up camp on the banks of the Seine, and from there moves through turbulent centuries full of the fates and fortunes of kings, marked by invasions, revolutions, and magnificent buildings constructed one after the other. He explores the city’s renowned gothic architecture, the urban planning that has been revised throughout history, the mammoth museums that have been erected to preserve its artistic legacy, and the vibrant street culture that hosts markets, performers, and Paris’s own flâneurs every single day. Along the way, he points out countless hidden gems travelers rarely make it to: from a vintage candy shop to a museum of romantic life, from a hidden garden inside a hospital to a converted hair salon that hosts—of all things—table tennis tournaments. And of course he shows readers where to eat, catch a show, and go for gorgeous sunset strolls. Offering a comprehensive but easily digestible overview, Paris is the perfect book for anyone planning a visit to the city or anyone who simply loves it from afar.

We know Stanislaw Lem, whether or not we consciously know that we do. He may only be recognised in the West as the author of the twice-filmed novel, Solaris, but the influence of his other work is legion. From computer games (The Sims was inspired by one of his short stories), to films (the red and blue pills of The Matrix owe much to his Futurological Congress); from the space comedies of Red Dwarf to the metaphysical satires of Douglas Adams... the presence of this masterly Polish writer can be traced far and wide. Nor was his genius confined to fiction. Lem''s essays and pseudo-essays borne out of the military industrial tensions of the Cold War have outlived their original context and speak to the most current developments in virtual reality, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. To celebrate his name, as well as his vision, this anthology brings together writers, critics and scientists who continue to grapple with his concerns. British and Polish novelists join screenwriters, poets, computer engineers, and artists, to celebrate and explore Lem''s legacy through short stories and essays - two literary forms that, as Lem knew well, can blend together to create something altogether new. As one of the barriers to Lem''s fame was language, this book also features specially commissioned translations: three stories never to have appeared in English before. Lem was always ahead of us. It''s time we caught up.

Adam Roberts'' The Soddit was a Sunday Times bestseller and sold 150,000 copies. But what happened to the Soddit after his adventures, and after his account of them was published ...?

THE LAND OF THE HEADLESS is set in a far future where mankind has taken his religious dogma and the divsions that result from it out into space. On a planet where society is shaped by a strict adherance to the word of God as laid out in the Old Testament and Quran a poet is accused of the rape of a woman. Found guilty he must face the punishment laid down in the Good Book; beheading. Beheaded, he is fitted with a neck valve, ordinator and basic sensory equipment and sent out into the world. But he bears a terrible and very visible stigma. the only way he can make a living is to join the army and serve in the war against the neighbouring planet. And plan his revenge against the man he believes is really guilty. LAND OF THE HEADLESS is a searing satire of religious fundamentalism, a novel of love and war and a study of self-delusion. It is an elegantly written, thought-provoking and unique SF novel.

« Partout, on pouvait voir ces structures nouvelles, petites et grandes, larges et hautes ; des monolithes, des dômes et des sphères bâtis par Obligation, se dressant fièrement au-dessus des pâturages comme les lettres d’un texte inédit, colossal et impénétrable. » Il y a quelque temps, insidieusement, le comportement humain a changé. Des hommes et des femmes, que rien n’apparente les uns aux autres, ont commencé à déplacer des objets du quotidien vers des lieux précis, mus par un sentiment d’obligation contre lequel il semble impossible de lutter. De quelques dizaines d’individus dans un premier temps, leur nombre est passé à des milliers à travers le monde, s’activant pour répondre à cette étrange injonction dont la cause est à ce jour totalement inconnue. Si certains objets semblent parfaitement inoffensifs, tels un vieux modèle de téléphone ou bien la capsule cabossée d’une bouteille de bière, d’autres sont bien plus complexes et déroutants : la turbine d’un moteur à réaction expérimental ou le processeur d’un superordinateur. Ceux qui se sentent obligés de transporter tous ces objets ne se contentent pas, une fois arrivés à destination, de les empiler comme des ordures. Les Obligés sont en effet capables de connecter ces éléments sans rapport manifeste entre eux, comme les pièces d’un puzzle tridimensionnel. Les structures qu’ils conçoivent semblent d’ailleurs dotées d’un potentiel mécanique et technologique destiné à servir à quelque chose. Mais... à quoi donc ? Nouvelle futuriste écrite par l’écrivain britannique Adam Roberts et transcendée par les grandioses illustrations architecturales du Belge François Schuiten, « Compulsion » offre un panel de personnages hétéroclites, coincés dans d’inextricables situations, et dont les réactions créent une tension habilement construite.

Something fishy is going on in the world of artistic scholarship. How can there possibly be a link between the hidden cod of Leonardo Da Vinci''s paintings and the over fishing of the North Atlantic fish stocks? Could it be that Leonardo Da Vinci, the greatest genius of his age and inventor of the photocopier and mouse mat, had a chilling insight into European Union Fishing policies. Only one man can find out. Robert Hangdog, international scholar, master spy and action hero. Oh and Bezu Fish.

Sharp''s Dictionary of Power and Struggle is a groundbreaking book by the "godfather of nonviolent resistance." In nearly 1,000 entries, the Dictionary defines those ideologies, political systems, strategies, methods, and concepts that form the core of nonviolent action as it has occurred throughout history and across the globe, providing much-needed clarification of language that is often mired in confusion.