Best Science Fiction Novel of 2024 so far LAKE OF DARKNESS Adam Roberts Review
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Steve reviews what may be the only new hardcover SF novel he'll buy this year- the stunning new Hard SF novel from Adam Roberts - plus a look at his Roberts collection with some asides for collectors...
#bookcollecting #fictionbooks #sciencefiction #dystopianfiction #booktube
Alastair Reynolds (under 60) and Peter F. Hamilton (just over) are two British writers, who are still producers of great Sci-Fi.
Stylistically both are way behind Roberts and have tended to repeat the same space opera and hard SF tropes or decades. I've met them both and they are good guys, but in a literary sense are way behind Roberts, Chris Beckett, Dave Hutchinson and the mighty M John Harrison.
Wow thanks for your video. I had (dare I say it) the audiobook of Adam’s Lake of Darkness, and had just started listening and saw a link to your CZcams on Science Fiction Face book Group.
I have a room full of hardback Sci fi and have got to the point where I can’t find room for hardbacks any more, except ones I want to pass on to my partner. Despite giving boxes of books regularly to a charity bookshop.
But I loved seeing your collection and your review of Adam’s Dark lake is so interesting and intelligent. I still have my large format paperbacks of Adam Robots and Yellow Blue Tibia and have found a space for them on a recently cleared bookshelf.
I have now bought the hardback book of Lake of Darkness to join my other books by Adam Roberts.
Oh wow, CZcams actually recommended a great channel to subscribe too. Thanks for the recs.
I'm glad to hear this meets AR's usual high standards. We can only hope he has his breakthrough moment soon, like Tchaikovsky did a few years ago. AR is criminally underrated, and no one else is doing anything similar at such a high level.
I love The Thing Itself, Red Letter Media, a movie and tv review y.t. show mention it in the their top Carpenter movies ranked.
I don't think Adam will ever be as popular as AT, Al Reynolds and Hamilton- for example- he's simply too good and the audience who'll appreciate his work probably isn't a mass one- but we can hope!
Terrific review and overview of Adam Robert's work - he's so so good and as you say wildly underrated. Lots I've not read from the first half of his career (I started with The Thing Itself), clearly. I would put a shout out (for those who want to dive into his work a bit further) for his "History of SF", from which I learned a huge amount about the genre and found some gems I'd never heard of (like McAuley's Confluence books). And also "Sibilant Fricative" his collection of critical essays, which is full of zingers. His sisyphean, masochistic read through of the Wheel of Time is very funny (uness you're a Jordan fan, I suppose)
Yes, Adam's history of the genre is excellent, though I need to buy the revised edition as mine is the first edition hardcover. I must get that book of essays....
This review was absolutely astounding in detail and although I do own a large number of Adam's books I will now endeavour to obtain all that I am missing.
Thank you. There are a lot more detailed reviews here than this one, watch the one of 'Land of the Headless' linked at the end of this video.
Going to try and find some Adam Roberts' books! Great review as always
Just to nit pick a bit, Jack Glass won BSFA award not Clarke. Adam was shortlisted for Clarke a few times but never won. By the way, where is Haven, his sequel to Dave Hutchinson's Sanctuary?
I'm pretty sure you won't agree, but in my opinion Roberts was in part influenced by Stephen Baxter's work. Not when it comes to style, but by the way his ideas and narrative reveal tend to generate great sense of wonder, just like Baxter's. Adam often highly praises Stephen's work, he wrote the introduction to his Mayflower II, and the two are good friends. But that's just my theory based on the Adam's novels that I have read. So I could be wrong.
You're right of course re the BSFA, I tend to go from memory and freewheel on these things, my bad. 'Haven' is shown at the end of the video, so you clearly tuned out too soon- shame Solaris have changed the covers on the series, they've done themselves no favours, great books.
Adam is clearly influenced by the corpus of SF and I won't deny a Baxter influence and I'm sure Stephen wouldn't deny he inherited that from Clarke. I'm not keen on Baxter's prose- though he is favoured in my book '100 Must Read Science Fiction Novels'- but I met him once and did an event with him in a bookshop, very nice guy. That 'sense of wonder' is common in lots of SF, it's what the Romantics described as 'the sublime', the awe, admiration and terror of the sometimes frightening beauty of nature- and as SF is about the natural rather than the supernatural, it applies. I talk about this in my 'Elements of SF' videos and in my video 'Mary Shelley was never cancelled: Frankenstein, Cyberpunk and the Sublime'. Adam touches on this in his Ted Talk - here on youtube- in which he says SF is like poetry and invokes the imagery of the genre as sublime.
do you know, I read The Man Who Would Be.... earlier this month and I read it as King not Kling! Didn't notice the extra "L". doh. Glad to see you focus on Adam once more, a favourite of mine too, I was fortunate to have a chat with him a few weeks back, lovely guy as well as being outrageously prolific and at a high standard too. I have Splinter, but just the signed limited edition, not the accompanying Verne book or the slipcase. I'm not sure if it was also issues on its own like that, or if somewhere there is an orphaned, incomplete slipcase kicking around somewhere. My collection is nearing completion, I'm missing a couple of the novels, the short story collections and a few of the novellas. I will find them! Cheers Steve, looking forward to reading Lake, my copy of which arrived on Thursday.
As an Adam fan of many years standing, I pretty much always enjoy his work and he's the only living British SF author I really admire that I haven't met- I didn't get around to featuring him in my last round of SF events where I work (this was between 2016 and 201b, at which point I 'retired' from author events -again) though I emailed him and asked him if he was keen - he was- and I was going to interview him on my channel last year but we didn't get around to it, which was my bad.
I'm not sure what the bibliography of 'Splinter' was, but I doubt very much that Solaris did two limited variants, that's the kind of thing that the real small presses of the 1980s did and no-one's done it that way since with a tiny number of exceptions.
I think if you're dilligent you'll complete, I suspect you might find the Night Shade Books 'Swiflty' the hardest to find but who can say. Best of luck!
Hello again Stephen. I was truly floored by this episode. I should probably be embarrassed that I'd never been aware of Adam Roberts until recently when I followed up another of your episodes by reading The Thing As It Is.
I'm still evaluating what I just experienced in reading it. I enjoyed the read not knowing what to expect. I think you'll agree, he can be a bit hard to follow if you've not been exposed. At first I was almost angry with Adam thinking "WTF Roberts!" I've decided I need to reread the last third of the book then come to a conclusion but I know I'm gonna like Roberts works generally.
I was astounded at the breadth and the various themes of the books you exposed me to in this episode. I cannot decide which book to read next.
So I went from never having heard of Robert's to now having a lengthy list of what will probably be must reads.
Salaam my friend!
Glad you liked 'The Thing Itself' - yes, Adam is challenging, but that's his strength- as an SF writer he brings in ideals from many disciplines -especially those from the Human Sciences so often ignored by Hard SF writers, so in that sense, the legacy of New Wave is alive and well within him.
Having just read land of the headless as a first read of adam roberts , I would like to add my praise to his work , strange and disturbing images of headless criminals and unusual military forever war feel in parts. Really enjoyed it ,so much so I’ve pick up the thing itself ,Snow and On. . I feel this is an author who I may well end up reading through a lot of his work . Many of these titles such as the this and stone will be acquired and read in the not to distant future . The thing it’s self will be top of the list . Great stuff as ever steve👍🏻
Adam is the real thing- he doesn't patronise the audience with comfortable cliches, instead he goes for the wonder nerve.
You've easily inspired me to check him out. Thank you.
I added this one to my wish list. I really like this channel and your recommendations man! I'm from Argentina and from my country I strongly suggest you ti read a sci-fi graphic novel called The Eternaut, maybe the best that came out from Latin America. It is about an alien invation happening in Buenos Aires but I can tell you that is nothing like you ever read before.
Greetings!
Sounds good, thank you!
DAmn! You FIRED UP!
Are you printing that review somewhere as well?
I have yet to read Roberts (he does NOT appear in the churn over here) and yet I'm trying to figure what I can afford to buy!
Awww, what *AM* I on about?
Your collection looks so good it makes me want to go hardback happy & I still haven't read him! This is clearly a "Me" problem.
The are numerous Roberts delights to sample. Take your time, breathe deeply....
I don't read enough current SF. But I know where to get the good recs. This sounds great.
Thank you. Check out my 'top tens' etc - there's a playlist, there are a couple at least about contemporary SF
Exemplary review Steve. I certainly want to read it! I've got The Thing Itself and The Man Who Would be King on my TBR, but I'll get to this eventually. Somebody at my SF Group was kind enough to give me a signed copy of TMWWBK!
Nice!
Wha..What is this sorcery, Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea sounds like a book that was written for me specifically. Grew up reading Verne among others. This book sounds like it ticks all the boxes. I am holding you personally responsible sir, for the ever increasing inflation of my to read pile! Keep doing it please =]
I was not aware of this author, now I am extremely intrigued.
I've mentioned about a good half dozen other times here, so check the backlist 'Twenty Trillion...' is great fun, about a submarine on an endless descent, you'll love it.
I read Polystom by Roberts a few months ago. Its world-building reminds me of Bob Shaw's "The Ragged Astronauts", but it has that conceptual breakthrough you're talking about, which completely changes the perspective on the world Roberts places the protagonist Polystom in - or maybe not. I found the possible consequences for our world at the end of the novel quite funny. I'm not a native speaker so forgive me for any errors in English.
You phrased it well- and I know exactly what you mean.
Good to see Deleuze get a shout out!
Adam Roberts is on my TBR now, thanks Steven
Will reply to yr emails soon, Chris, snowed under currently-thanks!
I really enjoyed your carefully thought through review of the book.
Not even half a day up and 900 views and over 30 comments. Soon you wont hear me over the din!
I'm not saying anything bad, but I'm a little gun-shy seeing so many pun based titles. I don't do cutesy or humorous SF well: is there any AR I should steer clear of?
Adam is witty rather than 'funny' as it were- and the wit is often dry and subtle, though he has knockabout moments, but they're well balanced against other emotive and intellectual expressions, so have no fear. I didn't show any of his numerous early parodic books here- which he clearly wrote for the cash, such as 'The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo' for example....
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Yes, that is one of the titles that gave me the Pratchett twitches. . .
Still thank you again for putting this together. And letting us know about the new book!
Interesting, the idea of humans, or humanoids, being able to synthesize food from sunlight, like algae, was used in Gene Wolfe's BOTNS series, maybe the second book? and in Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden, if I remember corectly. Will definitely check out By Light Alone. The only Adams I've read, Stone, was imaginatively impressive - remeinded me a little of Ian M. Banks in its wild, improbable but thrilling ideas - but not a patch, from a literary standpoint, on John M Harrison, but then who in contemporary SF is? Hopefully it's not his best book and I have wonders to discover. His books are nearly always superbly produced and your collection is a marvel to behold, and your summaries perfectly pitched to intrigue. Consider me intrigued!
Yes, 'The Child Garden' - an old favourite I read hen it was first published, GR has done some great stuff- does that thing and I'd forgotten Wolfe doing it too, so long since I've read the whole BOTNS.
'Stone' is not Adam's best- it was only his third novel- and yes, MJH is still way ahead, but I think you'd really get off on 'The Thing Itself' and 'The This' as deep dives into the AR brain!
I've read The Thing Itself, The This, Purgatory Mount, and Land of the Headless all on your recommendation, and I'm not disappointed. Adam Roberts is magnificent. I look forward to reading more of his ouevre (reading Salt right now), especially Lake of Darkness. You need to do an interview/video with AR.
Glad you're enjoying his work, Dan. Have you watched Jon's interview with Adam at Sci-Fi Scavenger. Me and Adm meant to talk last year here, but didn't get around to it. Maybe in future....I'd love to meet him, I have a ton of books I'd like signed as you've seen. I have suggested to the organisers of Bath LitFest for next yr that Adam might be the ideal curator/guest for an SF day....
@@outlawbookselleroriginal yes, I watched the interview/video you mention, fascinating. I also have Adam Roberts' literary biography of H. G. Wells which is on my TBR pile.
@@danieldelvalle5004 I don't have that actually, I must get a copy...
Thanks for these videos, very helpful for orientation in the genre
Pleasure.
Thanks again Andrew, I've enjoyed many of your recommendations.
At 11:41 you mention a shelf of "interesting books", do we get a look at it sometime?
It's Steve. You can see the 'interesting shelves' in one of my very early shelf tours- they are black shelves, so tend to stand out and have a real eclectic mix of titles, which are crammed together due to their generally larger formats.
Goes on sale tomorrow here but there is an Audible and Kindle today. Sounds great for a hardcover
At least in the UK, the Kindle Edition isn't available until 25th July. It's another one where the Kindle Edition is more expensive than the paperback.
The paperback will not appear until 2025.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal ah, didn’t notice that. Ta.
@@MattMcQueen1 Always look at the dates. A listing does not mean 'available'. Standard timelag of a year from hardcover to paperback still holds, though some appear after 6-9 months. Thank you too, for watching.
I do have a trade pb of Splinter, looks like same cover, also from Solaris, also from 2007.
Thanks for that. I may have a false memory of it somewhere! I don't think it was in print long, shame.
Not familiar with his work, but it sounds like it could be right up my street. I think I will add "The Thing Itself" to my TBR.
See my review of his 'Land of the Headless' and consider reading that or 'Stone' as first strikes unless you are way beyond entry level with literary SF- otherwise, go for it!
Matthew Hughes is coming out with a new Dying Earth novel titled Margolyam.
..and he is a self-published author, which does not betoken well. Very few self-published writers (except those whose work was once pro published but have gone out of fashion) turn out to be great writers. Adam Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and been a cutting edge SF writer for 25 years.
I've been an Adam Roberts superfan ever since I read Stone and Jack Glass during the pandemic, and have worked my way through all of his books since. I will ready ANYTHING he writes and was completely enthralled by The This. As an American, I just ordered this most recent one from the UK and cannot wait to read. I share your enthusiasm for this author and I agree on Dave Hutchinson as well, another one of my favorites. I tend to prefer the British SF writers, but have struggled a bit with your other two recommendations in Beckett and Harrison. Any others you recommend on the high level of Roberts and Hutchinson? I have found myself really loving the older books of Roger Levy and the recent novels of Daniel Godfrey - The Synapse Sequence and The Calculations of Rational Men... I'm struggling to find other novels of this depth and Tchaikovsky, Reynolds, Hamilton, recent Hugo and Clarke nominations, American authors, etc just haven't scratched that itch unfortunately
Btw you HAVE to read Real-Town Murders and Pricking! Two of my absolute favorites by Roberts out of a very, very crowded field
What have you read by Beckett? 'The Holy Machine' is his toughest, 'Marcher' is most like Hutchinson, 'Tomorrow' is his most experimental. M John Harrison has been a leading literary SF writer in Britain since the end of the 1970s-again, I'd like to know what you've read by him.
@@sama.4471 Well, they're not going to sit on the shelves unread forever...
Great. This (and writer) is going on my to be read list.
He'll open up your head. You might want to try 'Stone' first.
Oh my, what do I read when I've finished Rule Britannia (DdM)
Maybe Adam Roberts. I have yet to read his work. Where to start, where oh where?
'Stone' or 'Land of the Headless' are good starters. Then 'The Thing Itself' or 'The This'.
I have a paperback of Splinter!
Yeah, someone else mentioned it here already, I can't recall it myself.
hard? literary? sounds like the kind of book i have been waiting for this year. hopefully it will be available here in the united states. i love, love, love that it's a singleton! i've read a few of his novels and enjoyed them. now, of course, i want to read more. as always, thanks, steve!
Pleasure. Hope it gets issued over your way, it's a great one.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal steve, i'm currently reading the opposing shore by julien gracq and hoping to read a dark stranger soon which is by him as well. do you know his work?
your recent video on nyrb made me think they should publish his work, certainly these two. just wondering if you have any thoughts on gracq.
as always, thanks. cheers
@@athoszubiaur2144 I know of his work and have always fancied trying it, but never got around to him, but I will sometime, he's a name that looms large.
Just out of interest you wouldn't rate Adrian Tchaikovsky as one of the best under 60 British SF writers? I have only read Bete by Adam Roberts and videos like this remind me I really have to read more of his stuff, I have The This waiting on my kindle so I'll read that next!
I've read six of Adrian's books - look back a few months here (April) and you'll see me interviewing him at a bookshop event for 'Alien Clay'- and my basic issue with him is that I think he writes too much and too fast, which I believe hampers his stylistic development. He's not in my top 5 SF writers under 65, but he comes up in my top SF novels of this century with 'Dogs of War', which I thought was front rank, superb book. However, his other work -including 'Bear Head', sequel to 'dogs' doesn't quite cut it with me...and I also think his work suffers from an obsession with series and too few singletons. 'Children of Time' is unnecessarily long, I felt and I rarely hear anyone raving about the two follow-ups, proving again that most SF series are done for commercial not artistic reasons. I liked 'The Expert System's Brother' a lot and 'Alien Clay' was good, but could have been trimmed by forty pages and polished up in terms of prose. He has a good heart, a strong moral vision and is inventive, but I think the demands of the market- books which are too long and that have too many successors where familiarity of scenario breeds staleness and contempt are his problems. Nice guy though and a better writer than Hamilton and Reynolds for my money.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thank you for your rationale; funnily enough I can't seem to get along with his fantasy efforts for much of the same reasons but I do really like his SF - Children of Time, Dogs Of War, Cage Of Souls and a few of his novellas.
@@BobbyHall-eu1xv Perhaps Fantasy is just not your thing - Fantasy is, despite being lumped in with SF for historical reasons, totally different in its rationale to SF; Fantasy is the anchronistic and traditional, Supernatural as opposed to Natural, Magic as opposed to Science. SF is Natural rather than Supernatural, Modernist rather than traditional. They're two totally different things philosophically.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I think your right as my favourite fantasy is A Song Of Ice And Fire which in my opinion is almost like Historical Fiction dressed up as Fantasy, or to put it another way the political intrigue takes the centre stage with the fantasy elements in the background.
@@BobbyHall-eu1xv Yes, there is very little Magic as such in SOI&F- it's more Fantasy in a broader sense in that it takes place in an unspecified imagined realm. And since GRRM has not yet finished it and explained why the winters are so long, I suspect an SF explanation based on the cosmology of the planet it is set upon- or is it perhaps set in The Ice Ages of human prehistory- the map of Westeros is rather like that of Great Britain viewed in a mirror.
Ordered Lake of Darkness on your recommendation then got a little bit worried when I saw some unfavourable reviews on Goodreads mentioning themes of religion and the paranormal. This could be a deal-breaker for my enjoyment as I hate religion and woo-woo.
The book addresses religion, but it is SCIENCE fiction and any 'conclusions' made in the story are Fiction, of course. SF by definition is not religious as Science is an examination of the objectively provable - i.e. the natural- while Religion is Supernatural and thus non-objective and unprovable. At the point it is provable, it ceases to be Supernatural (Fantasy) and becomes Natural (Science). Try reading an earlier Roberts first I'd say- I'm not big on woo-woo myself.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thanks for your reply - I appreciate your expertise and time. I've ordered it now so will give it a go.
The algorithm only just delivered up to me that John over at @SciFiScavenger interviewed Adam Roberts!
I'm sure you already knew this, I'm just happily surprised!
What a great one to punch.
Yes, a few weeks back. I was going to interview Adam around a year plus ago and he was up for it, but then I cooled off after often having techncal problems with online interviews, most notably when Chris Priest and I talked. This is down to poor internet where I am, my own technical cack-handedness and nerves about losing everything (although this never happened). I also found at that stage that interviews didn't initially get high views, though my CP and MJH ones have now done very well indeed. Interviews with SFF writers don't generally get huge viewing figures, which is strange, I feel.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Perhaps, but it does provide a wonderful infrastructure for such a content-based channel.