Adam Roberts

Sprung from a prison in the centre of a star, the universes last criminal is employed to kill the population of a planet. It is a crime that will tear apart an interstellar utopia. Keeping ahead of detection and preparing the crime, the killer voyages to numerous worlds and hones the instincts required for murder. And wonders who is behind the contract.Roberts new novel is an extraordinary fusing of ideas, exotic locations, personal drama and an enquiry into the nature of crime in a society that thinks it has forgotten how to commit it.

Two narrators tell the story of the simmering tensions between their two communities as they travel out to a new planet, colonise it, then destroy themselves when the tensions turn into outright war.Adam Roberts is a new writer completely in command of the SF genre. This is a novel that is at once entertaining and philosophical. The attitudes and prejudices of its characters are subtlety drawn and ring completely true despite the alien circumstances they find themselves in. The grasp of science and its impact on people is instinctive. But above all it is the epic and colourful world building that marks SALT out - the planet Salt rivals Dune in its desolation and is a suitably biblical setting for a novel that is powered by the corrupting influence of imperfectly remembered religions on distant societies.From the early scenes set on a colony ship towed by a massive ice meteorite, to the description of a planet covered in sodium chloride, to the chilling narrative of a world sliding into its first war, this is a novel from a writer who shouts star quality.

¡Álzate, Leviatán, pues ha llegado tu momento!Pantegral ha tomado la ciudad.La tecnología ha llevado la democracia al ámbito militar, y proliferan los ejércitos nuevo modelo, fuerzas de choque igualitarias adeptas en guerrilla urbana que se alzan como modernos leviatanes frente a las milicias regulares, incapaces de responder a la fluidez tactica de las mentes colmena. Y asi, cuando Escocia se proclama independiente, el Parlamento secesionista contrata a Pantegral, un ENM, para liberarse del yugo de la Corona britanica... por la fuerza de las armas.Novela de accion vertiginosa y metafora directa de las guerras por el control de la informacion, Ejercito nuevo modelo es una reflexion sobre los propios principios de la democracia, una novela belica ambientada en un futuro cercano que vuelca cargas de profundidad sobre nuestro presente. Por suerte para nosotros, las replicas del tipo de leviatan que presagia y que hemos podido ver en las calles han sido todas pacifistas. Hasta hoy.

A long time ago in galaxy far, far away a really quite good SF film, a sort of western in space, was launched. The special effects were pretty shoddy but it did have some quite good actors in it. And Mark Hammill. A second and third film that were actually the fifth and sixth films followed and they werent quite so good but they were still quite fun (especially when the teddies got blasted by the Imperial stormtroopers). Then, the first, second and third films followed and they were actually fairly dreadful though by now the special effects were much better. And the actors were still better than average too. And Mark Hammill was too old to be in it plus his character hadnt been born yet so that was OK.A Gollancz parody was inevitable. And here it is. An epic told in six chapters. An epic of good versus evil. Of dark versus light. Of hairy co-pilots and green gurus. Of bizarre hair styles, steel bras and camp robots. An epic that starts in the middle. And thats the original!

Gradisil is a multi-generational story of murder, betrayal and revenge. It is told through the eyes of three characters and against a background where mankinds rush into space has faded away leaving individual pioneers to force their way independently into space after the collapse of the big government space agencies.They ride up into space on the lines of electromagnetic force that flower into space from earth like the mighty Yggradisil - the earth tree of Norse myth. Leaving their weight behind they still carry a cargo of enmities and hatreds.Roberts has a unique approach to SF and is one of the genres premier stylists. This is one of his most original novels yet.

Bingo Sac Grabbins is asked by the coughing wizard Gandef and some (oddly Welsh) dwarves to help them relieve the great dragon Smug of his gold.SF author and Tolkien scholar Adam Roberts has written a parody that is both hilarious and intelligent. With knowing digs at the fantasy genre in general and the mystique that has built around Middle Earth in particular this will make Tolkiens 21st century readers laugh in a way that BORED OF THE RINGS made his fans of 1969 laugh.

Tighe lives on the wall. It towers above his village and falls away below it. It is vast and unforgiving and it is everything he knows. Life is hard on the wall, little more than a clinging on for dear life. And then one day Tighe falls off the wall. And falls, and falls, and falls ...Lavishly praised everywhere from Asimovs magazine to Interzone, ON is proof positive that Adam Roberts is a new author whose potential for greatness is rapidly being realised.ON is at once a vertiginous concept novel, a coming of age saga, a picaresque journey across a changed world and an epic adventure in the very best traditions of SF.

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.

Adam Roberts fourth novel is his most ambitious yet. In a feat of extraordinary world building he creates a universe where a breathable atmosphere extends out between the planets, where aristocrats cruise interstellar space in biplanes and skywhals make mysterious distant orbits. Then, with bravura plotting, he undermines our own notions of reality and leaves the reader unsure which universe to believe in. Gaining a reputation as one of the UKs leading SF stylists and masters of the high-concept, Roberts, shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke award with his debut novel SALT, confirms his extraordinary potential with POLYSTOM.

Adam RobertsThe 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 ...?

Doctor Whom, the grammatically correct TimeLord (or should that be Time Lord? Or is it Timelord?) has come to save our universe from the terrors of sloppy syntax and bad grammar. With his intrepid assistant Lynne: hes here to correct greengrocers signs, popular fiction and government memos (memoes?) before inaccurate and lazy communication rips apart the very fabric of the space time continuum.Is it any wonder that the rise of global warming has coincided with the decline in the teaching of Latin in our schools? I dont think so.Will the Doctor save us all? or will his evil nemisises (nemisiss? nemisi?) The Daleks triumph and rule over a universe where no-one has any clear idea of the correct usage of semi-colons?

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 Vincis 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.

Here, collected together for the first time in eBook (because quite frankly, who would want to carry all of these around as actual books? Imagine the scorn on the bus!) are seven of Adam Roberts superb parodies of popular culture. From the Soddit and his not-a-shameless-cash-in journey to the cavern of Smug the dragon - during which he finds a ring, which may well feature in later books and/or films - to the dragon with a girl tattoo (look, it was very popular at the time, OK?), here you will find lovingly crafted, affectionate (well, sometimes) takes on some of the most loved - or at least financially successful - "works of art" of our time.Contains THE SODDIT, DOCTOR WHOM, THE DRAGON WITH THE GIRL TATTOO, THE McATRIX DERIDED, STAR WARPED, THE SELLAMILLION and THE VA DINCI COD.

It is 1958 and Frances first nuclear submarine, Plongeur, leaves port for the first of its sea trials. On board, gathered together for the first time, one of the Navys most experienced captains and a tiny skeleton crew of sailors, engineers and scientists. The Plongeur makes her first dive and goes down, and down and down... Out of control, the submarine plummets to a depth where the pressure will crush her hull, killing everyone on board, and beyond.The pressure builds, the hull protests, the crew prepare for death, the boat reaches the bottom of the sea and finds... nothing.Her final dive continues, the pressure begins to relent, but the depth gauge is useless. They have gone miles down. Hundreds of miles, thousands...And so it goes on. And on board the crew succumb to madness, betrayal, religious mania and murder. Has the Plongeur left the limits of our world and gone elsewhere?Contains 33 full-page pen and ink illustrations by acclaimed artist Mahendra Singh, who previously illustrated an edition of THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK.Adam Roberts and Mahendra Singh have revisited Jules Vernes classic SF novel, and together they have come up with a unique vision.

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 LondonThe 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.