Adam Roberts
@adamroberts.bsky.social
Writer, FRSL. Prof, RHUL. Literature and science fiction.
https://profadamroberts.substack.com/
Latest novel "Lake of Darkness": https://store.gollancz.co.uk/products/lake-of-darkness
https://profadamroberts.substack.com/
Latest novel "Lake of Darkness": https://store.gollancz.co.uk/products/lake-of-darkness
Not his best play, but marvellous stuff. Witty, well observed, politically astute. The academic-really-interested-in-football stuff strikes home.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5MY...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5MY...
Play of the Week - Professional Foul (1977) by Tom Stoppard & Michael Lindsay-Hogg
YouTube video by Play For Forever
www.youtube.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Not his best play, but marvellous stuff. Witty, well observed, politically astute. The academic-really-interested-in-football stuff strikes home.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5MY...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5MY...
Alas.
Tom Stoppard has died. Buggeration
November 29, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Alas.
My more-or-less philistinical reaction to the latest Nobel laureate's work.
profadamroberts.substack.com/p/krasznahor...
profadamroberts.substack.com/p/krasznahor...
Krasznahorkai, Krasznahorkai, Tiny Little Thing/ Krasznahorkai Dance, Krasznahorkai Sing
Nobels and Whistles
profadamroberts.substack.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:07 PM
My more-or-less philistinical reaction to the latest Nobel laureate's work.
profadamroberts.substack.com/p/krasznahor...
profadamroberts.substack.com/p/krasznahor...
I like that she's keeping her cannonballs sealed inside a plastic bag. Got to keep that ordnance fresh!
November 29, 2025 at 10:55 AM
I like that she's keeping her cannonballs sealed inside a plastic bag. Got to keep that ordnance fresh!
Reposted by Adam Roberts
Please share: I am delighted to release the programme for the July 11 2026, Symposium on the work of Frances Hardinge, at Kings College, London. We can't manage virtual attendance but we do offer cheap conference proceedings. Tickets at Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-one-day-...
A One Day Symposium on Frances Hardinge
Politics, Ethics and the Material World: the Interrogative Fiction of Frances Hardinge.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 29, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Please share: I am delighted to release the programme for the July 11 2026, Symposium on the work of Frances Hardinge, at Kings College, London. We can't manage virtual attendance but we do offer cheap conference proceedings. Tickets at Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-one-day-...
Guide price £80,000 - £120,000. If anyone is wondering what to get me for Christmas ....
they're auctioning Blake's Tyger next week
seems impossible, like selling a comet or a shooting star
www.christies.com/en/stories/t...
seems impossible, like selling a comet or a shooting star
www.christies.com/en/stories/t...
November 29, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Guide price £80,000 - £120,000. If anyone is wondering what to get me for Christmas ....
To quote the Michael Zager Band:
"Your party, my party
Everybody work your party
Your party, my party
Everybody work your party"
"Your party, my party
Everybody work your party
Your party, my party
Everybody work your party"
"Your Party asks members to pick between four names: Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance and For The Many"
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana’s Your Party reveals shortlist for official name
Leftwing party asks members to pick between Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance and For The Many
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 8:56 AM
To quote the Michael Zager Band:
"Your party, my party
Everybody work your party
Your party, my party
Everybody work your party"
"Your party, my party
Everybody work your party
Your party, my party
Everybody work your party"
You say arrowhead, I see a Happy Ghost
November 28, 2025 at 3:24 PM
You say arrowhead, I see a Happy Ghost
The headline is descriptive, but would also work as an imperative. "Rebel, octogenarian Austrian nuns! Win reprieve!"
www.rte.ie/news/newslen...
www.rte.ie/news/newslen...
Rebel octogenarian Austrian nuns win reprieve
Three rebel nuns in their 80s who made headlines after fleeing their care home to take back their Austrian convent are being allowed to stay in the nunnery "until further notice", church officials hav...
www.rte.ie
November 28, 2025 at 1:47 PM
The headline is descriptive, but would also work as an imperative. "Rebel, octogenarian Austrian nuns! Win reprieve!"
www.rte.ie/news/newslen...
www.rte.ie/news/newslen...
'You can't park there, mate'
November 28, 2025 at 1:29 PM
'You can't park there, mate'
Reposted by Adam Roberts
Feed: "Substack-ships On Fire, Off The Shoulder Of Orion"
By: Adam Roberts on Wednesday, November 26, 2025
By: Adam Roberts on Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Some Tschichold Penguins
‘Tschichold!’ ‘Gesundheit!’
profadamroberts.substack.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Feed: "Substack-ships On Fire, Off The Shoulder Of Orion"
By: Adam Roberts on Wednesday, November 26, 2025
By: Adam Roberts on Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Reaching the end of this. It's only 280 pages, but I feel like I've been reading it for a hundred years. And not in a good way.
November 27, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reaching the end of this. It's only 280 pages, but I feel like I've been reading it for a hundred years. And not in a good way.
Also the bit where Chow Yun Fat is set on fire and the baby saves him by weeing on him. That's parenthood, in a nutshell. When my kids were that age I wd sometimes growl at them "you saved the day there, you little pisspot".
Having a child has really made me appreciate the part in Hard Boiled when Chow Yun Fat tucks a baby into his jacket then shoots a bunch of ppl and jumps out a window
November 27, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Also the bit where Chow Yun Fat is set on fire and the baby saves him by weeing on him. That's parenthood, in a nutshell. When my kids were that age I wd sometimes growl at them "you saved the day there, you little pisspot".
Today in proverbs.
November 27, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Today in proverbs.
... and that's how Finnegans Wake came about.
November 27, 2025 at 8:19 AM
... and that's how Finnegans Wake came about.
*sings*
Hold me closer Tiny Dennis
Count the headlights on the calendar
Lay me down in sheets of linen
Hold me closer Tiny Dennis
Count the headlights on the calendar
Lay me down in sheets of linen
November 26, 2025 at 7:10 PM
*sings*
Hold me closer Tiny Dennis
Count the headlights on the calendar
Lay me down in sheets of linen
Hold me closer Tiny Dennis
Count the headlights on the calendar
Lay me down in sheets of linen
If that's Welsh then I'm so fluent it reads to me just like English. Which is remarkable, since I don't speak Welsh.
November 26, 2025 at 12:33 PM
If that's Welsh then I'm so fluent it reads to me just like English. Which is remarkable, since I don't speak Welsh.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
His aqualung was the wrong size.
His aqualung was the wrong size.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell
Just wondrous
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell
Just wondrous
November 26, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Full fathom five thy father lies;
His aqualung was the wrong size.
His aqualung was the wrong size.
Can confirm.
almost every novelist you read who's not from the airport fiction or bestseller sections is working a full on day job, including multi-award winners and absolute legends, or they have a spouse or trust that supports them. virtually across the board. just normalize in your mind that's how it works.
I know we know this, but authors need to get better at talking about how they actually make their money. Stop pretending it's from the books.
November 26, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Can confirm.
Be
Our
Guest
Be our guest
Put our service to the test
Our
Guest
Be our guest
Put our service to the test
Brass candlestick in the shape of a bearded man holding candle sockets in his outstretched hands, German, early - mid 16th century
(V&A Museum, London)
(V&A Museum, London)
November 25, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Be
Our
Guest
Be our guest
Put our service to the test
Our
Guest
Be our guest
Put our service to the test
I was chair of judges for the Orwell Prize (the fiction one) a few years back. Glad to say I didn't have to work with Gove.
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
Michael Gove Made Orwell Prize Judge Despite Record of Attacking Journalists and Dodging Scrutiny
Critics say "Orwell would have enjoyed the irony" of the former Conservative minister's appointment
bylinetimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 1:13 PM
I was chair of judges for the Orwell Prize (the fiction one) a few years back. Glad to say I didn't have to work with Gove.
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
The moral is: don't let ducks operate cinema projectors.
Also nice little plagiary from Chaplin's "Modern Times" at the end of this.
Also nice little plagiary from Chaplin's "Modern Times" at the end of this.
She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter (1937) Directed by Friz Freleng
November 25, 2025 at 12:59 PM
The moral is: don't let ducks operate cinema projectors.
Also nice little plagiary from Chaplin's "Modern Times" at the end of this.
Also nice little plagiary from Chaplin's "Modern Times" at the end of this.
On Tolkien's creative praxis. profadamroberts.substack.com/p/giuseppe-p...
Giuseppe Pezzini, ‘Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation’ (CUP 2025)
Ring, then, wherever you may be, for I am the Lord of the Rings said he, and I'll write it down, creative mystery, and I'll write it down re: the Rings said he
profadamroberts.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 11:17 AM
On Tolkien's creative praxis. profadamroberts.substack.com/p/giuseppe-p...
Cosmopolitan gobsmacked by the realisation that, underneath their clothes, people aren't wearing any clothes.
November 25, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Cosmopolitan gobsmacked by the realisation that, underneath their clothes, people aren't wearing any clothes.
A colleague has JUST had a baby (yay!) ... a *little* earlier than she thought would happen ... so the start of her arranged maternity leave hasn't quite overlapped with this wonderful event. Which means the dept is scrabbling, somewhat, to cover her teaching for this coming week. So it goes ...
November 24, 2025 at 6:25 PM
A colleague has JUST had a baby (yay!) ... a *little* earlier than she thought would happen ... so the start of her arranged maternity leave hasn't quite overlapped with this wonderful event. Which means the dept is scrabbling, somewhat, to cover her teaching for this coming week. So it goes ...