Adam
Roberts is one of the most unique voices currently writing
fantastika—an extremely difficult thing to accomplish given the
sheer volume of material saturating the market. Having the knack for
striking upon something out of the mainstream ordinary and developing
it in a speculative setting with a hook or at least a barb), the
talent also extends to short fiction, something the eighteen stories
in his 2003 collection Adam Robots (not a narcissistic
self-promotion) exemplify—at least, mostly.
Adam
Robots opens on the wonderfully biblical yet utterly sacrilegious
title story. It tells of a robot brought into the world and
instructed never to touch a certain jewel atop a metal pole.
Curiosity killed the cat, but does disobedience damn the robot?
Wildly scientific, wildly implausible, and a wildly, enjoyably
readable story, “Shall I Tell You the Problem with Time Travel?”—as
the title states—describes said problem with time travel, and of
course, how to get around it—nuclear bombs, dinosaurs, and severed
thumbs included.
It
is a (blackly) humorous thing that severe court judgments in the US
can run to multiple life sentences; absurd to think the guilty party
would require more than one. In “A Prison Term of a Thousand
Years”, Roberts has a laugh at the system in a man sentenced to a
millennium behind bars, and what awaits him upon exit. In
“Godbombing”, Roberts captures the religious synergy of a battle
between the Americans and Arabs for fleeting moment. The Muslims
having invented a ‘godbomb’, it affects their side and the West,
but in differing, interesting ways.
Roberts’
parallel-universe story with a Groundhog’s Day tone, “Throwness
attempts, and largely succeeds, to avoid a maudlin, Hollywood ending
and ends up touching upon an ethical possibility the movie did not.
Space opera in epic verse, “The Mary Anna” presents itself as a
dying magnate’s last words to his son. The rhyming scheme
surprisingly adds a bit of emotion to his wishes come the conclusion.
In “The Chrome Chromosome”, two robots discuss the creation of
sentience, down to the last cell, in computized metal. But is the
result human? Perhaps Da Vinci could say a word or two about this
slightly biopunk future.
Likely
a short tribute to Borges or Lem (or both), “Review: Thomas
Hodgkin, Denis Bayle: a Life” is a fictional review of a biography
of a fictional sf writer. Not having the ambition of either Borges or
Len, Roberts nevertheless captures a nicely sardonic take on the meta
of sf the past several decades that will be appreciated by anyone
with a reasonably good knowledge of the history of the genre. A-bombs
are the result of atomic theory, and in “S-Bomb” Roberts imagines
the same harnessing of string theory—a string snapped producing
even more catastrophic results than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. All
handled in restrained, yet sometimes tongue n cheek fashion, you
might actually think s = string.
More
scheme than story, in “Dantean” Avis meets the android-esque as
he is passing from hell into purgatory. Roberts keying on one of the
major issues I have with the idea of heaven, in the resulting
conversation that occurs between the two characters, there is
something to be said for information.
Christopher
Priest wrote a whole novel speculating on what happened on Mars prior
to Wells' War of the Worlds, and in The World of the Wars
Roberts throws his own stick into the fire on events that might have
preceded the great attack. Priest's novel remains the more complete
vision, but for a fleeting moment Roberts captures a spark. Feeling
almost like a dare to himself (how to punk the unpunkable: nature),
in “Woodpunk” Roberts tells of a small group of Chernobyl
explorers and the ‘trouble’ one gets himself into.
Aside
from the opening masturbation line, “The Imperial Army” sets
itself up as classic space opera: teenage boys reads alone in his
room, dreaming of... joining the army to blast the evil xFlora out of
their sector of space. Very reminiscent of Jack Vance, this quick
moving story has all the elements that made Golden Age sf so
entertaining. In terms of pure art, “Wonder” is the purest, most
truly lyrical story in the collection. Roberts truly capturing
something (cemented by the notes at the end), the stories (plural)
are by turns referential, self-referential, and downright readable.
My
personal favorite in the collection and one of its best, “Man of
the Strong Arm” does a lot of things simultaneously but from very
simple means. A science fiction expert in the future named Soop
discusses the merits and fantasy heroics of Edgar Burroughs of the
Rice, and how they bolster the spirit of his male-dominated (read:
Handmaid’s Tale-esque) society. Secretly getting reading
material from a female informant on the side, she feeds him one about
a man named Armstrong landing on the moon. Fun, sometimes black,
abounds. Meta-fictional, deconstructionist, cynical, and downright
clever, Roberts brings a lot to bear in our genre in a humorous yet
thought-provoking way.
Written
(unironically) like a biblical proverb, “Pied” is a tale of the
Christian version of Van Helsing who does his business, echoing the
religion while undermining it. Like “Adam Robots”, heaven may not
be the place you think it is... Another religious tale,
“Constellations” is a satirical dystopia in which a Christian is
attempting to smooth all the world’s coastlines in an effort to
please god. (Remind anyone of any Great Wall of Mexico?) Roberts
being the wisecracker he is, the story us often smirk-worthy.
Adam
Robots is a collection that, strangely enough, gets better as it
goes. The best stories located in the latter part, more of the
shorter, less substantial pieces confront the reader, initially.
Regardless, the stories are very unique—Robert Sheckley-esque, in
fact. Given so few writers produce fiction with the same edge and
wit these days, it's saying something.
The
following are the eighteen stories collected in Adam Robots:
Adam Robots
Shall
I Tell You the Problem with Time Travel?
A
Prison Term of a Thousand Years
Godbombing
Thrownness
The
Mary Anna
The
Chrome Chromosome
The
Time Telephone
Review:
Thomas Hodgkin, Denis Bayle: a Life
S-Bomb
Dantean
Remorse®
The
World of the Wars
Woodpunk
The
Cow
The
Imperial Army
And
Tomorrow and
The
Man of the Strong Arm
Wonder:
A Story in Two
Pied
Constellations
The
Woman Who Bore Death
Anticopernicus
Me:topia
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