Yellow Blue Tibia: A Novel: Amazon.co.uk: Adam Roberts: Books

Review

"Part a droll comedy of manners parodying the fall of Soviet communism, part an intellectual inquiry into the idea of multiple quantum realities and part an attempt to discover why, despite the ubiquity of reported sightings, UFOs have never been proved to exist. As ever with Roberts, the writing is impeccable and the ideas riveting." (Eric Brown THE GUARDIAN )

"Yellow Blue Tibia is a more rollicking book all round. Roberts is a very witty writer, and there are moments of superb slapstick here. Who said the literary novel was dead?" (Stuart Kelly SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY )

"Combining real events such as the Chernobyl disaster with bleak, Kafkaesque humour, Adam Robert's rich and strange novel is an attempt to reconcile the non-existence of UFOs with reports of sightings. A combination of the novel's sheer ambition and unexpected romance suggests Roberts is coming of age as a writer." (Jonathan Wright BBC FOCUS )

"Gripping, captivating, wonderfully funny and magnificently written, completely mess-with-your-head weird. Fantastically evocative of what life was like in Soviet Russia, packed with telling details. Robert's style is beautifully crafted, his dialogue is superb, his charatcterisation perfect. This is a book you've got to read." (Tom Holt SFX )

"Yellow Blue Tibia speaks of the fall of Communism, deals smartly with the bizarre status of the UFO in popular culture and mixes peculiar jokes with and almost Clouseau-like action with head-spinning revelations and even a sweet little love story. A cross between Robert Harris's Fatherland and Ian McDonald's Brasyl but reading nothing like either." (Matt Bielby DEATHRAY )

Yellow Blue Tibia is certainly a different SF book. It isn't strictly an alternate history, but plays around with its ideas and tropes. It isn't a comedy either, but I guarantee it will make you laugh out loud on at least several occasions. The combination of several farcical scenes with very polite and proper Russian grammar gives rise to some entertaining linguistic combinations even Jack Vance would be proud of. A clever, confounding and strikingly amusing book." (SFFWORLD.COM )

"As always, Roberts has come up with an intriguing and original piece of SF. The story moves quickly and is driven by dialogue which combines humorous banter and philosophical discussions about UFOs and also the suggestive nature of science fiction. Yet another stimulating read from one of Britain's foremost SF writers." (Kevin Stone INTERZONE )

"From the opening act in the dacha and the banter between the five sf writers, to the scenes in Moscow and the action & aftermath in Kiev and Chernobly, 'Yellow Blue Tibia' is at times unbelievably funny, and is just a romp and very accessible. Superb and I can't recommend it enough." (FANTASY BOOK CRITIC )

"Killings, kidnappings, interrogations and everything else you'd expect from the KGB, plus a trip to Chernobyl and a most surprising love story, all wrapped up in the blackest of dark comedy with a cast of disturbed and damaged characters. Recommended." (David V Barrett FORTEAN TIMES )

Product Description

Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countryside somewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massive external threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction, he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about aliens poised to invade earth ... I want it to be massively detailed, and completely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up, then we can create them. But when America is defeated, your story must be so convincing that the whole population of Soviet Russia believes in it--the population of the whole world!' The little group of writers gets down to the task and spends months working on it. But then new orders come from Moscow: they are told to drop the project; Stalin has changed his mind; forget everything about it. So they do. They get on with their lives in their various ways; some of them survive the remainder of Stalin's rule, the changes of the 50s and 60s. And then, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the survivors gather again, because something strange has started to happen. The story they invented in 1946 is starting to come true ... A typically mind-blowing SF novel from one of the genre's literary stars.

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

witty and complex 19 April 2009

By Sarah A. Brown VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Although technically it could be classed as sf, `Yellow Blue Tibia' isn't perhaps a characteristically science fictional novel. Set in Soviet Russia, its narrator hero is Skrovecky, one of a group of Russian sf writers who are given a strange task by Stalin: to write a compelling piece of science fiction describing an alien invasion of Earth. Decades later it seems that the group's `story' is coming true and Skrovecky is caught up in a series of increasingly surreal and complex events as he tries to work out what is really going on, and becomes aware of an array of multiplying realities. A few things puzzled me - for example, in a novel whose linguistic self-consciousness is ever present (most obviously in its title), why did two characters discuss the double meanings of `bluff' (p.190) as though these ambiguities were present in the Russian, as well as the English, language? The novel's many shifts and tricks perhaps prevent the reader getting fully involved in the story, but `Yellow Blue Tibia' is certainly a remarkably impressive, clever, playful book which recalls, by turns, Kurt Vonnegut, Samuel Beckett and Philip K Dick.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Truth, belief, reality and UFOs! 2 Dec 2009

By Wynne Kelly TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Heard this book referred to as "the best Science Fiction book of the year and worthy of the Booker Prize" - or words to that effect. Although no sci-fi aficionado I was intrigued....

Yellow Blue Tibia only loosely falls into the science fiction genre. It is in essence an alternative history of the Soviet Union. Konstantin Skvorecky and a group of fellow writers are brought together by Stalin and tasked with constructing a convincing alien plot. It had to be a serious threat that could be told to the people. After working cooperatively on this they were then told to forget all they had done there on pain of death and were sent on their different ways.

Years later when Skvorecky is working as a translator strange things begin to happen - and it seems that the story concocted by sci-fi writers appears to be coming true.

The strength of the book lies in its humour and quirky dialogue while at the same time raising questions of truth, belief and and reality. He raises the need for an enemy or a serious threat in order to galvanise the population - very prescient in a world of dodgy dossiers and alleged weapons of mass destructions.

My favourite scene was when Konstantin is confronted in a Moscow street by two KGB men threatening to kill him. Passers-by think that something is about to be sold and begin to form a queue hoping that there may be oranges or vodka on offer!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

great UFO theory - but not what i expected 13 Mar 2009

By Toby Andersen

Yellow Blue Tibia is a crazy novel of multiplicating realities trying to explain the paradox of UFO sightings and there cultural existence and their actual nonexistence.
what starts as an irresistible premise about russian SF writers being asked to concoct an alein threat for communism, soon degenerates after they are told to disband and forget everything, into a confusing, bizarre and wryly humourous jaunt across russia and the ukraine to stop the chernobyl disaster, after one of the writers finds out that the aliens they created might in fact be real ad are following the plan they imagined. what follows is a very philip k dick style novel of reality arguements and displacment, parallel future theory and the reality of UFOs.
however i feel it actually doesn't do what it says on the tin. i was expecting a fight against a potentially alien communist government - inflicting the concocted story on its populace to galvanise them into communism. what you get is a strange hole where a real story should be, where now only existensial arguements remain. it is confusing and confused.
however i really did enjoy reading it.
the prose is deft, the writng wry and ironic, the arguements extremely entertaining and the reality based theory awesome to comprehend.
in short a great novel in the Philip K Dick style, but its not the story of russian conspiracy you might expect from the blurb.

on a side note - i really want to know how much is truly what Skrovecky thinks happened to him, how much is mental neurosis, and how much is adam Roberts invention. very intriguing.