Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozenof the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countrysidesomewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few yearsaway, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massiveexternal threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction,he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about alienspoised to invade earth ... I want it to be massively detailed, andcompletely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up,then we can create them. But when America is defeated, your story mustbe so convincing that the whole population of Soviet Russia believes init--the population of the whole world!' The little group of writersgets down to the task and spends months working on it. But then neworders come from Moscow: they are told to drop the project; Stalin haschanged his mind; forget everything about it. So they do. They get onwith their lives in their various ways; some of them survive theremainder of Stalin's rule, the changes of the 50s and 60s. And then,in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the survivors gather again, becausesomething strange has started to happen. The story they invented in1946 is starting to come true ... A typically mind-blowing SF novelfrom one of the genre's literary stars.

Gathered together for the first time from a major publisher - a collection of short stories by Adam Roberts. Unique twisted visions from the edges and the centre of the SF genres. Stories that carry Adam Roberts' trademark elegance of style and restless enquiry of the genre he loves so much. Acclaimed stories, some that have appeared in magazines, some in anthologies, some appearing for the first time. Stories to make you think, to make you laugh, to make you wonder, to make you uneasy. Stories that ask questions, stories that sow mysteries. But always stories that entertain.ReviewAdam Robots is a remarkably clever, fun and thoughtful journey; a veritable delight for any science fiction fan, Roberts just seems to get better with each book. -- Antony Jones SFBOOK.COM About the AuthorAdam Roberts is commonly described as one of the UK's most important writers of SF. He is the author of numerous novels and literary parodies. He is Professor of 19th-century Literature at Royal Holloway, London University and has written a number of critical works on both SF and 19th-century poetry. He is a contributor to the SCIENCE FICTION ENCYCLOPEDIA.