Swiftly: Stories That Never Were and Might Not Be [Hardcover]

Adam Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2005

From the Land of Lilliput to Jupiter Magnified In 2000, British author Adam Roberts published his first SF novel, Salt, to wide acclaim. Locus magazine described Salt as "... in the same vein as Frank Herbert's Dune." And in 2001, the beginning of a new millennium, Salt was named a finalist for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of the year. Now, five SF novels later, Adam Roberts presents us with Swiftly, his first short fiction collection. These twelve handpicked tales - eight published here for the first time - showcase Roberts's authorial expertise at interweaving world-building with style, tone, and image. Roberts, whom award-winning author Jon Courtenay Grimwood calls "the king of high concept," is the rare hard-sf writer who emphasizes character over construct. In "Swiftly," the title story to this collection, mid-1840s Europe is at the height of its manufacturing prowess, due in large part to the finely honed skills of the enslaved Lilliputian-like people. But the French Army threatens the English shore, and one British citizen dares to assist the French in order to free the enslaved. In the sequel story, which closes this collection, "Eleanor" marries manufactury owner Jonathan Burton, only to observe her husband's demise at the hands of his own Lilliputian workers. To learn if she's been a good mother, a pregnant woman telephones her (unborn) daughter sixteen years into the future in "The Time Telephone." (The telephone call cost more than $15,000, and several hundred digits needed to be dialed!) And when "Jupiter Magnified" fills the Earth's skies, scientists' opinions on the cause of the phenomenon abound, ordinary citizens contemplate the end of the world, and one man's personal relationships become all-encompassing. From the psychological collapse of a prominent scientist ("Stationary Acceleration") to the impact of a secret military experiment on its human host ("Blindness and Invisibility") to an ascent from the levels of Hell ("Dantesque"), Swiftly transcends hard-sf as it conveys us to the heights and depths of the human condition. Contents * Swiftly * Dantesque * Stationary Acceleration * Tour de Lune * The Time Telephone * Blindness and Invisibility * The Siege of Fadiman * Allen Met the Devil * The Question of [?query term] * New Model Computer * Jupiter Magnified * Eleanor

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The dozen stories in this impressive collection from British author Roberts (Salt), his first U.S. publication, form a natural progression. The style echoes classic British speculative fiction with its focus on individual characters, each meticulously drawn and authentically voiced (particularly the non-Brits). They all steal the spotlight from fantastical surroundings, from the woman in "Dantesque," who has become bored with heaven and begins to look for a way back to hell, to the man in "The Time Telephone," who is so caught up in thoughts of his ordinary life that he dismisses a cry for help from the future. These simple, honest tales showcase heroism, forgiveness and understanding, while not shirking from stark portrayals of error, cowardice and clumsiness. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but this fiction feels strange because it's determined to tell the truth. Unfortunately, it's the same truth every time—in essence, that people remain people no matter where they are—leaving one feeling a bit sledgehammered on reaching the otherwise satisfying conclusion. American readers may be caught unprepared by Roberts's departure from the plot-driven norm, but perhaps this change of pace is just what they didn't know they were looking for.
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From Booklist

The title story in Roberts' first collection of short stories, which is also the British novelist and Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee's first original publication in the U.S., brings Jonathan Swift's outlandish lands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag to life again, with an alternative-history twist, for England has exploited Dr. Gulliver's discovery by enslaving the diminutive Lilliputians and nearly exterminating the giant Brobdingnagians. In "The Time Telephone," Roberts imagines a novel breakthrough in telephone technology whereby one can communicate with one's past self, with potentially disastrous results. "Jupiter Magnified" explores what happens when gigantic Jupiter suddenly fills Earth's sky due to an unexplained atmospheric phenomenon; the unexpected event produces equally unexpected, even comical, effects on humans' views of the world and one another. May the display of boldly original ideas Roberts makes in these stories attract the larger audience he well deserves. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 247 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books (July 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892389711
• ISBN-13: 978-1892389718
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,415,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)