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 UK's 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. Review“A poison chalice of delights.” -- New York Review of Science FictionProduct DescriptionIn a feat of extraordinary imagination, Adam Roberts creates a universe in which a breathable atmosphere extends out between the planets, aristocrats cruise interstellar space in biplanes, Skywhals make mysterious distant orbits, and a fruitless war has dragged on for years. With bravura plotting, Roberts presents two universes, challenging our very notions of reality.

SUMMARY:"Adam Roberts has got what it takes."--Peter F. HamiltonTighe lives on a wall that towers above his village and falls away below it. Though vast and unforgiving, the Worldwall is all he and his people know, and they cling on for dear life. Until one day, Tighe falls--and falls, and falls...and survives. He finds a new part of the wall, a vast expanse of cluttered ledges packed with more people then he ever imagined existed. More than that, he encounters war, fought by the Popes and their armies. A war he must join, and that will take him on a journey into the heart of the mystery behind the wall. Endlessly imaginative, this novel by the acclaimed author of Salt presents a radically different universe than any you've read about before. "Adam Roberts has got what it takes."--Peter F. HamiltonTighe lives on a wall that towers above his village and falls away below it. Though vast and unforgiving, the Worldwall is all he and his people know, and they cling on for dear life. Until one day, Tighe falls--and falls, and falls...and survives. He finds a new part of the wall, a vast expanse of cluttered ledges packed with more people then he ever imagined existed. More than that, he encounters war, fought by the Popes and their armies. A war he must join, and that will take him on a journey into the heart of the mystery behind the wall. Endlessly imaginative, this novel by the acclaimed author of Salt presents a radically different universe than any you've read about before.

In March 2004 a group led by Nick Du Toit and former SAS member Simon Mann tried to overthrow the tyrannical Obiang Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea. They were working for investors, allegedly including Mark Thatcher and "J.H. Archer", who wanted to seize control of Africa's third largest oil producer. Roberts tells how the coup was set up and abandoned at the last minute, and how the plotters were seized and subsequently tortured. The new material includes an account of Mann's illegal abduction from prison in 2008; his dramatic trial, in which he accuses named individuals, including Thatcher, of being deeply involved in the plot; Thatcher's fears of "extraordinary rendition" to Equatorial Guinea; and Eli Calil's revelatory admission that he supported forced regime change in Equatorial Guinea.

Young Forktongue Davy has visions; epilepsy, his Ma calls it. He's barely able to help around the family farm.But something about the lad is attracting attention: the menacing stranger who might be the angel of death himself; the women-only community at Wycombe; Daniel, sent by the mysterious Guz.They all want Davy for their own reasons.But what use can he be to anyone? He has visions of flight, but how can flight ever be possible in this shattered world?A simple farmboy, caught up in events beyond his power to control—but his visions may be the key to the future.

Product DescriptionDoctor Whom, the grammatically correct TimeLord (or should that be Time Lord? Or is it Timelord?) has come to save our universe from the terror's of sloppy syntax and bad grammar. With his intrepid assistant Lynne: hes here to correct greengrocers sign's, 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 do'nt think so. Will the Doctor save us all? or will his evil nemisises (nemisiss? nemisi?) The Dalek's triumph and rule over a universe where no-one has any clear idea of the correct usage of semi-colons? About the AuthorAdam Roberts is 40 and Professor of 19th century literature at London University. His first novel, Salt, was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. He has also published a number of academic works on both 19th century poetry and SF.

Adam Roberts turns his attention to answering the Fermi Paradox with a taut and claustrophobic tale that echoes John Carpenters' The Thing. Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love-letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant. As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world they debate Kant, reality and the emptiness of the universe. The come to hate each other, and they learn that they are not alone.

FromSalt employs the classic sf situation of colonists engaged in the risky business of settling a new world far from Earth. When the colonists land, they discover that their new home has far less water than was expected, and seemingly endless, desolate, inhospitable deserts of another necessity of life, salt. The story concerns the two different groups of colonists, the Senaarians and the Alsists, and is told in alternation by Petja, an Alsist, and Barlei, a Senaarian. The two peoples are divided over a cultural misunderstanding about the "ownership" of children sired by Senaarians but mothered by Alsists. Begun while in transit to the salty planet, the dispute erupts in full-scale war after the decades-long voyage and first frantic period of settlement. The opponents' language and attitudes ring all too familiarly. A satisfying piece of standard sf that affords a chilling look at how clashes of ideology work out on a harsh world. Regina SchroederCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reservedProduct DescriptionTwo 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.

Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozenof the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countrysidesomewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few yearsaway, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massiveexternal threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction,he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about alienspoised to invade earth ... I want it to be massively detailed, andcompletely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up,then we can create them. But when America is defeated, your story mustbe so convincing that the whole population of Soviet Russia believes init--the population of the whole world!' The little group of writersgets down to the task and spends months working on it. But then neworders come from Moscow: they are told to drop the project; Stalin haschanged his mind; forget everything about it. So they do. They get onwith their lives in their various ways; some of them survive theremainder of Stalin's rule, the changes of the 50s and 60s. And then,in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the survivors gather again, becausesomething strange has started to happen. The story they invented in1946 is starting to come true ... A typically mind-blowing SF novelfrom one of the genre's literary stars.