Adam Roberts (British writer)

Adam Roberts FRSL
Roberts at Salon du livre 2008 (Paris, France)
Born	Adam Roberts (1965-06-30) 30 June 1965 (age 60) London, United Kingdom
Pen name	A.R.R.R. Roberts A3R Roberts Don Brine
Occupation	Academic, critic, writer
Nationality	British
Citizenship	British
Education	PhD
Alma mater	University of Aberdeen Cambridge University
Genre	Science fiction, fantasy, parody
Notable works	Salt , Gradisil , Yellow Blue Tibia , By Light Alone , Jack Glass
Notable awards	BSFA Award for Best Novel 2012 Jack Glass Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee 2001 Salt 2007 Gradisil 2010 Yellow Blue Tibia

Adam Charles Roberts FRSL (born 30 June 1965) ^[1] is a British science fiction and fantasy novelist. In 2018 he was elected vice-president of the H. G. Wells Society.

Career

Born in London, Roberts has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. ^{[2] [3]}

Adam Roberts has been nominated three times for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001 for his debut novel, Salt , in 2007 for Gradisil and in 2010 for Yellow Blue Tibia. ^[4] He won both the 2012 BSFA Award for Best Novel, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, for Jack Glass. It was further shortlisted for The Kitschies Red Tentacle award. His short story "Tollund" was nominated for the 2014 Sidewise Award. ^[5] On his website, Roberts states that an ongoing project of his is to write a short story in every science fiction sub-genre. ^[6]

In May 2014, Roberts gave the second annual Tolkien Lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford, speaking on the topic of Tolkien and Women. ^[7] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. ^[8]

Published works

Novels

• Salt (2000, ISBN   0-575-06896-5)
• On (2001, ISBN   0-575-07176-1)
• Stone (2002, ISBN   0-575-07396-9)
• Polystom (2003, ISBN   0-575-07541-4)
• The Snow (2004)
• Gradisil (2006)
• Land of the Headless (2007)
• Splinter (2007)
• Swiftly: A Novel (2008)
• Yellow Blue Tibia: A Novel ^[9] (2009, ISBN   0-575-08356-5)
• New Model Army (2010)
• By Light Alone (2011)
• Jack Glass (2012, ISBN   0-575-12763-5)
• Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea (2014)
• Bête (2014, ISBN   978-0-575-12768-5)
• The Thing Itself (2015)
• The Real-Town Murders (2017)
• By the Pricking of Her Thumb (2018) ^[10]
• Haven (2018)
• The Black Prince (2018)
• Purgatory Mount (2021)
• The This (2022)
• The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate (2023)
• Lake of Darkness (2024)

Novellas

• Park Polar (2002)
• Jupiter Magnified (2003)
• Anticopernicus (2011)
• Bethany (2016)
• The Lake Boy (2018)
• The Man Who Would Be Kling (2019)
• The Compelled (2020)
• Stealing for the Sky (2022)
• The Midas Rain (2023)
• High (2024)

Short stories and short story collections

• "S-Bomb" in Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory (2008, ISBN   0-9802114-0-9)
• "Trademark Bugs: A Legal History", Reach for Infinity (2014) ^[11]
• Swiftly: Stories (2004)
• Adam Robots (2013)
• Saint Rebor (2015)
• "The Martian Waste Land", Scarlet Traces (2019) ^[12]

Parodies

• The Soddit (2003, The Hobbit )
• The McAtrix Derided (2004, The Matrix )
• The Sellamillion (2004, The Silmarillion )
• Star Warped (2005, Star Wars )
• The Va Dinci Cod (2005, The Da Vinci Code )
• Doctor Whom: E.T. Shoots and Leaves (2006, Doctor Who )
• I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas (2009, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol).
• The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo (2010, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo )
• I, Soddit: The Autobiography (2013, The Hobbit )

Criticism

• Silk and Potatoes: Contemporary Arthurian Fantasy (1998)
• Science Fiction (The New Critical Idiom) (2000, second edition 2005)
• Fredric Jameson (2000)
• Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings (original version by Lin Carter) (Roberts updated the text for the 2003 edition) ^[13]
• The History of Science Fiction (Palgrave Histories of Literature) (2006, second edition 2016)
• The Riddles of The Hobbit (Palgrave Macmillan) (2013)
• Sibilant Fricative: Essays and Reviews (2014)
• Rave and Let Die: The SF and Fantasy of 2014 (2015) (Won the BSFA Award for Best Non-Fiction.)
• H G Wells: A Literary Life (2019)
• It's the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of (2020) (Won the BSFA Award for Best Non-Fiction.)
• Roberts, Adam (2025). Fantasy: a short history. London New York Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN   978-1-350-40785-5.

Poetry

• Wodwo Vergil (2018)

Other non-fiction

• Get Started in: Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (2014, ISBN   978-1-4447-9565-3)

References

1. "Roberts, Adam (Adam Charles)". Library of Congress Authorities. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
2. "Adam Roberts". The Guardian. 20 June 2012. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
3. "Adam Roberts | The Guardian". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
4. "Adam Roberts". MIT Press. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
5. "2014 Sidewise Award Finalists". Locus. 6 June 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
6. Roberts, Adam. "Writing". Archived from the original on 30 April 2019. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
7. Adam Roberts Lecture Podcast Now Available, The J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature, 14 May 2014. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
8. "Roberts, Adam". Royal Society of Literature. 1 September 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
9. • Zuckermann, G. (4 November 2003). Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Springer. ISBN   978-1-4039-3869-5 . Retrieved 17 January 2022. English (gargling with the phrase) "yellow blue tibia". Compare this to Burgess's khoroshô (R xopoulo "all right!, well, nicely, good', 'it is good.
   • If you say 'Yellow Blue Tibia' then it sounds a bit like 'Я Люблю Тебя' – Russian for 'I love you'.
   • Martini, Adrienne (April 2009). "reviews Adam Roberts' Yellow Blue Tibia". Locus Magazine.
10. ""By The Pricking of Her Thumb" Cover Re-Reveal! | www.AdamRoberts.com". adamroberts.com. Archived from the original on 29 May 2018. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
11. Alexander, Niall (12 June 2014). Jonathan Strahan (ed.). "Step into the Stars: Reach for Infinity". Tor.com . Retrieved 13 December 2015.
12. "Scarlet Traces". Rebellion Publishing.
13. Whyte, Nicholas (16 October 2004). "Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings by Lin Carter". Infinity Plus. Archived from the original on 13 December 2004. Retrieved 12 March 2024.

External links

• Academic Biography at RoyalHolloway.ac.uk Archived 23 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine
• Adam Roberts at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Adam Roberts at Library of Congress , with 34library catalogue records
• Don Brine at LC Authorities, with 1 record
• The Valve: A Literary Organ (blog, archived December 2013)
• Bibliography at SciFan (archived December 2014)