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Adam Roberts

(b.1966)

aka A R R R Roberts

Adam Roberts is a writer, critic and academic. He is the author of sixteen novels and many shorter works, including the prize-winning Jack Glass (2012). He is Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, and has published critically on a wide range of topics, including nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction and science fiction. He lives in the south-east of England.

Awards: Campbell (2013), BSFA (2012) see all

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy, Historical Mystery, Historical, Horror, Fantasy

New and upcoming books

April 2025

Fantasy: A Short History

Series

Cardboard Box of the Rings (as by A R R R Roberts)
1. The Soddit (2003)
The Sellamillion (2004)

Real-Town Murders
1. The Real-Town Murders (2017)
2. By the Pricking of Her Thumb (2018)

Novels

   Salt (2000)
   On (2001)
   Stone (2002)
   Polystom (2003)
   The Snow (2004)
   The Va Dinci Cod (2005) (as by A R R R Roberts)
   Star Warped (2005) (as by A R R R Roberts)
   Gradisil (2006)
   Doctor Whom (2006) (as by A R R R Roberts)
   Land of the Headless (2007)
   Splinter (2007)
   Swiftly (2008)
   Yellow Blue Tibia (2009)
   I Am Scrooge (2009)
   New Model Army (2010)
   The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo (2010)
   Anticopernicus (2011)
   By Light Alone (2011)
   Jack Glass (2012)
   Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea (2014)
   Bete (2014)
   The Thing Itself (2015)
   Bethany (2016)
   The Black Prince (2018) (with Anthony Burgess)
   The Compelled (2020) (with Francois Schuiten)
   Purgatory Mount (2021)
   Middlemarch: Epigraphs and Mirrors (2021)
   The This (2022)
   Stealing For The Sky (2022)
   The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate (2023)
   High (2024)
   Lake of Darkness (2024)
   The Swoon (2024)

Collections

   Swiftly Stories (2004)
   Adam Robots (2013)
   Irregularity (2014) (with Nick Harkaway and Claire North)
   Rave and Let Die: The SF and Fantasy of 2014 (2015)
   Lost Worlds Short Stories (2017)

Novellas and Short Stories

   Park Polar (2001)
   Jupiter Magnified (2002)
   The Lake Boy (2018)
   The Man Who Would Be Kling (2019)
   The Midas Rain (2023)

Anthologies edited

   Pandemonium (2012)
   Classic Science Fiction Stories (2022)
   Tales from Beyond the Stars (2024)

Series contributed to

Imaginings
9. Saint Rebor (2015)

Tales Of The Aftermath
2. Haven (2018)

Non fiction show

Omnibus editions show

Books containing stories by Adam Roberts

Reports From the Deep End (2023)
Stories inspired by J. G. Ballard
edited by
Maxim Jakubowski and Rick McGrath

Shoreline of Infinity 32 (2022)
(Shoreline of Infinity, book 32)
edited by
Teika Marija Smits

No More Heroes (2021)
edited by
Ian Whates

More books

Awards

	2013 John W. Campbell Memorial Award : Jack Glass
	2012 BSFA Award for Best Novel : Jack Glass

Award nominations

	2022 BSFA Award for Best Novel (nominee) : The This
	2021 BSFA Award for Best Novel (nominee) : Purgatory Mount
	2016 John W. Campbell Memorial Award (nominee) : The Thing Itself
	2015 John W. Campbell Memorial Award (nominee) : Bete
	2014 Sidewise Award for Best Short-Form Alternate History (nominee) : Tollund
	2014 Locus Award for Best Collection (nominee) : Adam Robots
	2011 John W. Campbell Memorial Award (nominee) : New Model Army
	2011 BSFA Award for Best Novel (nominee) : By Light Alone
	2010 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (nominee) : Yellow Blue Tibia
	2010 John W. Campbell Memorial Award (nominee) : Yellow Blue Tibia
	2010 Arthur C. Clarke Award (nominee) : Yellow Blue Tibia
	2009 Sidewise Award for Best Long-Form Alternate History (nominee) : Swiftly
	2009 BSFA Award for Best Novel (nominee) : Yellow Blue Tibia
	2008 Philip K Dick Award (nominee) : Gradisil
	2007 Arthur C. Clarke Award (nominee) : Gradisil
	2005 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story (nominee) : Roads Were Burning
	2001 Locus Award for Best First Novel (nominee) : Salt
	2001 Arthur C. Clarke Award (nominee) : Salt

Adam Roberts recommends

Esperance (2025)
Adam Oyebanji
"A gripping mystery about an impossible murder combines with a marvellous story of a strange, possibly alien, odyssey around our present-day world, with all its problems and heritage. Guess the murder solution and you're a better reader than I, though the solution is both satisfying and resonant. Thrilling and sparky writing, extremely readable: a gem of a thriller."

Calypso (2024)
Oliver K Langmead
"Calypso is a brilliant, consistently amazing and utterly original piece of science fiction: intensely readable and absorbing not despite being in verse but because of it, expertly handled and thought-provoking."

Gogmagog (2024)
(Chronicles of Ludwich, book 1)
Steve Beard and Jeff Noon
"Marvellous stuff: a great flowing river of a novel, endlessly inventive, gorgeously written, pungent and haunting and gripping. This is the kind of world that, in all its strangeness, feels very real: you inhabit it rather than read about it. The dragon Faynr: chef's kiss! Can't wait for the next volume."

Three Eight One (2024)
Aliya Whiteley
"A brain-charging voyage through the present and the future, a novel that shepherds the reader out and then brings her back in, changing her in the process. It's like Kafka rewrote Pale Fire as a science-fictional novel. A Pilgrim's Progress through a godless world where the pilgrim is Patrick McGoohan's 'Prisoner.' A dream of a book, in several senses: enigmatic, marvellous, utterly original. Whiteley really is one of the most striking and brilliant writers working today."

Once a Monster (2023)
Robert Dinsdale
"What an extraordinary and wonderful achievement this novel is! I was gripped, and thrilled, and touched, and above all I was completely swept into the magic of the book . . . And the scope of the thing! Such a broad chronological range, such sweep, all with the lightest touch. Just astonishing."

Shark Heart (2023)
Emily Habeck
"A beautifully written, heart-wringing story about love and change, about moving forward--as a shark always must--and what is lost and what gained as we do so. Habeck has an extraordinary command of her writerly instrument, crafting sentence after sentence that feel effortless and yet are eloquent and penetrating and superb. This is the highlight of my reading-year so far."

The Strange (2023)
Nathan Ballingrud
"So I settled down yesterday evening to make a start on this, and when it got going I found I couldn't stop. Very readable, compelling storytelling, a wonderfully engaging central character, full of atmosphere and beauty and strangeness. Thoroughly excellent space-western. Written in the spirit of Bradbury's Mars and capturing something of Bradbury's brilliance."

Neom (2022)
(Central Station)
Lavie Tidhar
"This is Tidhar at his best: the crazily proliferating imagination, the textures, the ideas, the dazzling storytelling. A brilliant portrait of community and its possibilities."

The Dark Between The Trees (2022)
Fiona Barnett
"Superbly tense."

The Last Blade Priest (2022)
(Holy Mountain, book 1)
W P Wiles
"A novel of marvellous scope and inventiveness: fantasy is rarely as smart, immersive or scintillant as this."

Hope Island (2020)
Tim Major
"An exceptional writer."

The Promise of the Child (2015)
(Amaranthine Spectrum, book 1)
Tom Toner
"Humming with energy, this is space opera like you've never seen it before: absolutely brilliant."

Fenrir (2011)
(Wolfsangel, book 2)
M D Lachlan
"Simply the most exciting, visceral and deeply imaginative writer of fantasy working today."

Memoirs of a Master Forger (2008)
William Heaney (Graham Joyce)
"How sheerly pleasurable it is to sink into a really well built, expertly handled novel. Superb stuff."

The Human Abstract (2004)
George Mann
"George Mann has forgotten more about science fiction than most people will ever know, and he puts his expertise and his considerable narrative skills to excellent use in this canny, highly readable tale."

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