After 37 years on a brutal and dangerous journey through space, a federation of settlers finally arrives on the planet Salt. Thus begins the colonization of this brave new world--a process that inevitably slips into a tragedy of biblical proportions. The two communities who undertook the voyage originally united in peace and a shared vision of a fresh beginning. Once isolated in a landscape of cruel majesty and minimal resources, however, ancient enmities begin to tear them apart. Related alternately by Petja, from the Alsist people, and Barlei (a Senaarian), their different voices, perspectives, and experiences come together to make an unusually rich and complex story about the fragility of life. A remarkable debut novel. "...in the same vein as Frank Herbert's Dune...accomplished, engaging and fascinating."--Locus. "...brilliantly written."--Starlog.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Salt 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 Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Adam Roberts is 33. He is a published academic and teaches English at London University. He contributes regularly to SF academic journals.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A chillingly relevant SF novel,
By
This review is from: Salt (GollanczF.) (Mass Market Paperback)
'Salt' is a story of colonists on a distant planet. But in this common SF setup Adam Roberts tells an uncommon tale. The science is there, but while he gives us the practical aspects of making a planet habitabal, Roberts drives us towards another tale. This is a tale of two human societies, who are so different, that they can hardly understand each other. And from these differences a conflict rises, that grows from heated talk to bloody raids. The novel has two narrators, representing both sides of conflict. From their subjective stories we can try to get an objective picture.
The ending is a bit of a letdown, but it is still an impressive work. The book was written in 2000, and it is chilling how it seems relevant to the current situation in the world, particularly in Iraq. 'Salt' shows how the worldview of one society can be completely different from that of another. And how unwillingness to understand and blind faith in your way of life being the only right way of life leads to terrible consequences for both sides.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By
This review is from: Salt (GollanczF.) (Mass Market Paperback)
Intense, disturbing and prophetic. The fourth Roberts I've read, his first novel, and my second favorite after Gradisil. Ambitious themes, and complex implementation of them. The setup is the relativistic travel to and colonization of an alien planet, the titular Salt with all the material difficulties attendant on that. The main story is two first person narratives of people from two city states of differing ideologies and daily norms. The two communities have built up tensions, and eventually all out war.
One of most interesting things about this is the political parallel. There's a prosperous and plutocratic regime that undergoes a war in the desert to subdue another society, using the justification of faith as well as a recent and galling terrorist attack. It begins its reprisal with a major bombing to break the spirit of the populace, then moves in at force. Overt opposition is easily crushed and victory seems secured after a short time, but then it turns into a long occupation, attritional guerrilla warfare, and a slow disillusionment that causes political unrest. The invading country specifically paints all resistance against it as terrorism, insists such fighters are not legitimate soldiers and reserves the right to counteract such resistance through extraordinary and extrajudicial means. The reason I find this parallel good rather then eye-rolling is because Salt was written in 2000. Roberts had no way of knowing how much his scenario would resemble the reality of 9/11, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War. Here I'd say is a good example of SF's ability to be thematically predictive, and have a continued relevance to understanding the way we operate now and the way we might in the future. In any case, the larger power of the story comes from the way that both main characters, both narratives and both societies are flawed. Things seem at first to be rather balanced in one side, but they each have a lot of problems and injustices that they wear as badges of pride, and in particular there's one rather monstrous action by the 'more sympathetic' character that in retrospect was well set up and that lends a measure of uncertainty to trusting everything about his perspective. Seeing the logic and rationalizations of both sides as they fight and project the worst into their enemy makes for a complex as well as dramatic situation. On a direct plot level the book has no real conclusion, but it says everything Roberts needed to say about the outlined terms of his work. If taken purely as a sort of dual dystopia, the book would be of limited value. In the end it's not that unique or compelling to demonstrate than authoritarian nationalism and conformist anarchy. I'd say the book works beyond that in the way it plays with the form of narrative. In a dystopian novel, there's almost always a level of trust with the story and the viewpoint of the individual existing in opposition to the dysfunctional system. This perspective might come to a point of defiance fairly early on, as occurs in 1984, or it might be near the end, see Kallocain and We, but the sense of opposition exists, and we're encouraged to trust the viewpoint of the individual and distrust the larger society. In Salt, we're encouraged to see faults in the authoritarian and anarchist societies, as linked to and enabling the untrustworthiness of both narratives. Like with Stone the individual is not enough, and here we're given a more direct way that the personal narratives of two individuals becomes linked to the wider social environment. Furthermore the two polities aren't in the stark dichotomy that it first appears--the apparently over-intrusive dictatorship Senaar features a callous abandonment and non-regulation of the poor underclass, while the free Alys ultimately depends on violence and coercion to maintain its effectiveness. This aspect is something neither of the two perspectives come close to perceiving, every element of their stories reinforces the level of separation and mutually exclusive character for the two polities. Another strong element from Salt is the titular environment, and just how stark, materially austere and demanding the planet surface is. That gives a degree of solidity to the account and its drawn out story of personality justification and political conflict, as well as building on one of the more memorable speculative fiction environments. For all the playing with perspective and political models, in the end this book is vivid and engaging at least as much as it's interesting. Better than: Stone by Adam Roberts Worse than: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark debut that presage the awesome later novels from Adam Roberts,
By
This review is from: Salt (GollanczF.) (Mass Market Paperback)
The debut of Adam Roberts which I've had for many years but never found the mood to read; a dark and somewhat depressing novel written in alternate first person narrations from two very different pov's - with an exception at the end that adds a lot - and who resembles an extreme take on The Dispossessed.A very good debut that presages the awesome later novels of Adam Roberts that made him one of the best current sf writers
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
