Stone (SF) - Adam Roberts ****

I'm beginning to think that Adam Roberts holds the same position in science fiction writing as Gene Wolfe does as the ultimate fantasy writer. Although some of Wolfe's books are delights to read, others are hard work - but often rewarding. Some seem not to quite hit the mark, but this is inevitable because he pushes the boundaries so effectively. Every time I read a new (to me) Adam Roberts title, there's something new and interesting, even in the ones that don't quite make it.

This is one of Roberts' early titles, which I hadn't come across until a friend reviewed it. I'll say straight away that it is somewhat limited by its format, made up as it is of a series of letters addressed by the main character to the titular stone. (Yes, a pebble.) However, that's part of the way that Roberts regularly plays around with the way fiction works. And it doesn't get in the way of some fascinating content.

In part, Roberts is examining the impact of an apparently Utopian future society. This is done in style, down to having lovely little footnotes explaining limitations in the translation from their language Glicé (a long-term descendent of American English). But we're also taken on a trip through the mind of a psychopath, prepared to wipe out the inhabitants of a whole planet to achieve his aims. And to make it more fun, he starts off in a prison that is inconveniently located beneath the surface of a star.

And that's not all. The society is maintained by collections of nanotech devices in human bodies which modify them at will and keep them alive in most circumstances - making them distinctly difficult to kill. Such nanotechnology has featured in other SF before, but rarely in such an original way.

At times the storyline can drag a little, especially because of the indirect mode of presenting the narrative, but it all seems worth it when reaching the denouement, which is excellent. This is where Roberts can get ahead of Wolfe, who often is so brilliant and mysterious through the majority of the text that his endings can disappoint.

Overall, not the best reading experience amongst Roberts' titles, but without doubt including some of his wonderfully original thinking.

Sadly out of print except the Kindle edition, though secondhand copies are available.

Paperback:

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Roger Highfield - Stephen Hawking: genius at work interview

Roger Highfield OBE is the Science Director of the Science Museum Group. Roger has visiting professorships at the Department of Chemistry, UCL, and at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a member of the Medical Research Council and Longitude Committee. He has written or co-authored ten popular science books, including two bestsellers. His latest title is Stephen Hawking: genius at work . Why science? There are three answers to this question, depending on context: Apollo; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl; and, finally, Nullius in verba . Growing up I enjoyed the sciencey side of TV programmes like Thunderbirds and The Avengers but became completely besotted when, in short trousers, I gazed up at the moon knowing that two astronauts had paid it a visit. As the Apollo programme unfolded, I became utterly obsessed. Today, more than half a century later, the moon landings are

Space Oddities - Harry Cliff *****

In this delightfully readable book, Harry Cliff takes us into the anomalies that are starting to make areas of physics seems to be nearing a paradigm shift, just as occurred in the past with relativity and quantum theory. We start with, we are introduced to some past anomalies linked to changes in viewpoint, such as the precession of Mercury (explained by general relativity, though originally blamed on an undiscovered planet near the Sun), and then move on to a few examples of apparent discoveries being wrong: the BICEP2 evidence for inflation (where the result was caused by dust, not the polarisation being studied), the disappearance of an interesting blip in LHC results, and an apparent mistake in the manipulation of numbers that resulted in alleged discovery of dark matter particles. These are used to explain how statistics plays a part, and the significance of sigmas . We go on to explore a range of anomalies in particle physics and cosmology that may indicate either a breakdown i

Splinters of Infinity - Mark Wolverton ****

Many of us who read popular science regularly will be aware of the 'great debate' between American astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis in 1920 over whether the universe was a single galaxy or many. Less familiar is the clash in the 1930s between American Nobel Prize winners Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton over the nature of cosmic rays. This not a book about the nature of cosmic rays as we now understand them, but rather explores this confrontation between heavyweight scientists. Millikan was the first in the fray, and often wrongly named in the press as discoverer of cosmic rays. He believed that this high energy radiation from above was made up of photons that ionised atoms in the atmosphere. One of the reasons he was determined that they should be photons was that this fitted with his thesis that the universe was in a constant state of creation: these photons, he thought, were produced in the birth of new atoms. This view seems to have been primarily driven by re

Search This Blog