Yellow Blue Tibia: A Novel
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"An endlessly inventive writer . . . one of our most intelligent and versatile authors." --SFRevue
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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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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
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.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
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!
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
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Fantastic premise, shaky execution
Great premise but I got bogged down in the middle of the book. The climax is interesting more than satisfying. Read more
Published 3 months ago by K. P. Curtis
From Russia, with love...
I'd not come across Roberts' work before, but it didn't take long to realise that this chap can write. Read more
Published 8 months ago by sjhigbee
Sci Fi but not as we know it...
I haven't read any Sci fi since I was a teenager but decided to take the plunge with this one because it sounded a bit different. Read more
Published 9 months ago by songbird
Doesn't quite live up to the cleverness of it's premise
Yellow Blue Tibia
Well, I was sucked in by several aspects of this book. A couple of people had recommended it or had suggested that it was well worth the read. Read more
Well, I was sucked in by several aspects of this book. A couple of people had recommended it or had suggested that it was well worth the read. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Crookedmouth
a curate's egg
Best part of this book is one wonderful character, not the main one, but the taxi driver, Saltykov, with his "syndrome". Read more
Published 13 months ago by Aberter
Bozhye moy!
In the last 12 months I've tried to challenge myself with my reading, attacking all those books and authors I was too scared of in the past. Read more
Published 14 months ago by David Llewellyn
enjoyable, but not earth shattering
Style: it is so mind blowingly well written that I stopped reading to pause in awe on several occasions. Read more
Published 16 months ago by P. Vandevenne -. Datarescue
Interesting but flawed
This really could have done with the benefit of being read by a Russian speaker before publication. It's 20 years since I did Russian A level, but I found the very basic mistakes... Read more
Published 19 months ago by vapidness
Intelligent, non-disappoining Sci-Fi - Fantastic!
It's been about twenty years since I last picked up a sci-fi book. How lucky I was that when I finally decided to do that again, it happened to be Adam Robert's book "Yellow, Blue,... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Adi Shtamberger
So thats why its named "Yellow Blue Tibia"
I liked this book. It wheehks you around all over the place. Equally amusing and fascinating.
Published 21 months ago by S. Smith
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