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
... 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 ...
Monet's "Muffins Sprinkled with Icing Sugar"
November 24, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Monet's "Muffins Sprinkled with Icing Sugar"
Reposted by Adam Roberts
Longblog on John Clare's 1820s poem "The Mores": profadamroberts.substack.com/p/john-clare...
John Clare, ‘The Mores’ (1825)
Enclosed and Unenclosed
profadamroberts.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Longblog on John Clare's 1820s poem "The Mores": profadamroberts.substack.com/p/john-clare...
Reposted by Adam Roberts
Now in my early 60s I have only just started reading Middlemarch (blame the education system…), so I am immensely grateful to @adamroberts.bsky.social for this wonderfully perceptive exploration of the epigrams at the head of each chapter. open.substack.com/pub/profadam...
Middlemarch: Epigraphs and Mirrors
George Eliot and Pascal
open.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Now in my early 60s I have only just started reading Middlemarch (blame the education system…), so I am immensely grateful to @adamroberts.bsky.social for this wonderfully perceptive exploration of the epigrams at the head of each chapter. open.substack.com/pub/profadam...
Lucky enough to have been able to read this ahead of publication (Feb 26). It is extraordinary, one of his very best works.
November 23, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Lucky enough to have been able to read this ahead of publication (Feb 26). It is extraordinary, one of his very best works.
Finally, someone gets me.
Adam Roberts is so good. I loved Lake of Darkness (particuarly the way that the future utopia is set up to irritate the reader in precisely the same way that it irritates Gravitational Satan, who is objectively evil, so...)
November 23, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Finally, someone gets me.
Del Toro, and Del Toro, and Del Toro
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded frame;
And all our Frankensteins have lighted fools
The way to boring films.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded frame;
And all our Frankensteins have lighted fools
The way to boring films.
November 23, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Del Toro, and Del Toro, and Del Toro
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded frame;
And all our Frankensteins have lighted fools
The way to boring films.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded frame;
And all our Frankensteins have lighted fools
The way to boring films.
ICE EMPEROR: did all my Ice Wizards pay me their tribute of one hundred Towers of Ice?
GENE PITNEY: they all hit the target, except one, sire
ICE EMPEROR: one? who?
GENE PITNEY: there were only 24 towers from Elsa.
GENE PITNEY: they all hit the target, except one, sire
ICE EMPEROR: one? who?
GENE PITNEY: there were only 24 towers from Elsa.
November 23, 2025 at 3:29 PM
ICE EMPEROR: did all my Ice Wizards pay me their tribute of one hundred Towers of Ice?
GENE PITNEY: they all hit the target, except one, sire
ICE EMPEROR: one? who?
GENE PITNEY: there were only 24 towers from Elsa.
GENE PITNEY: they all hit the target, except one, sire
ICE EMPEROR: one? who?
GENE PITNEY: there were only 24 towers from Elsa.
Longblog on John Clare's 1820s poem "The Mores": profadamroberts.substack.com/p/john-clare...
John Clare, ‘The Mores’ (1825)
Enclosed and Unenclosed
profadamroberts.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Longblog on John Clare's 1820s poem "The Mores": profadamroberts.substack.com/p/john-clare...
"Because pissing is a ubiquitous activity, piss has always been ascribed the greatest significance."
November 23, 2025 at 11:07 AM
"Because pissing is a ubiquitous activity, piss has always been ascribed the greatest significance."
At the end of the semi-autobiographical EMPIRE OF THE SUN, Jim sees, on the horizon, the flash of the atomic detonation at Nagasaki (he thinks it's the departing soul of a dead woman). I wondered if this was possible? Shanghai to Nagasaki seems to be 500 miles, so presumably not.
November 23, 2025 at 9:14 AM
At the end of the semi-autobiographical EMPIRE OF THE SUN, Jim sees, on the horizon, the flash of the atomic detonation at Nagasaki (he thinks it's the departing soul of a dead woman). I wondered if this was possible? Shanghai to Nagasaki seems to be 500 miles, so presumably not.
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight Pope yeah
I sure don't want to hurt no one
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight Pope yeah
I sure don't want to hurt no one
November 23, 2025 at 8:38 AM
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight Pope yeah
I sure don't want to hurt no one
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight Pope yeah
I sure don't want to hurt no one
(Dog) walking into darkness.
November 22, 2025 at 7:13 PM
(Dog) walking into darkness.
November 22, 2025 at 1:42 PM