Polystom by Adam Roberts

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Polystom by Adam Roberts
pub: Gollancz. 295 page enlarged paperback. Price: Ł 9.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07179-6

check out website(s): www.orionbooks.co.uk and www.adamroberts.com

Roberts' previous novel was 'Stone'. After reading and reviewing it for Crowsnest last year to give it a very favourable report, I was looking forward to doing the same for 'Polystom', his latest much heralded work.

Sadly I was rather disappointed and finding the contents close on to gibberish, I had great difficulty not in putting it down but of picking it up again to finish the text. So, for me at least, what went wrong?

'Polystom' is set in an alternate universe, a highly imaginative universe at that where an atmosphere extends into space and travel by aeroplane from one planet to another is possible.

Roberts makes his Solar system smaller to avoid excessive travel times - for example, going to our moon in Polystom's plane would take well over 100 days as the crow flies so the distance has to be reduced.

But, such a concept is lunacy. As anyone will tell you, an atmosphere provides drag which pull's down a satellite in a short space of time. This alternate Solar system couldn't exist in any universe.

The alternate universe must have a totally different set of physical constants. Nature's four fundamental forces (if they exist in his universe) of gravity, strong and weak nuclear and electromagnetic must differ from our own but no stretch of the imagination could allow them in any shape or form to produce

Polystom's universe and have people ostensibly like ourselves. Scientifically, at least, the book has absolutely no validity. Of course, this isn't what 'Polystom' is about.

The technology described within is roughly equivalent to our late-Victorian but the demeanour and attitudes of the characters are more 18th century.

I don't think Roberts expects us to take this alternate universe seriously anyway. It's more of a fairy story, the view of the universe from a child in a Hans Christian Andersen story where the Moon is a sixpence.

Many of the concepts echo of middle-age or renaissance stories of journeys to space, carried aloft by geese attached to a chariot or morning dew collected in phials to be raised by the morning sun. They are devoid of reality, an understanding of what's out there or what things are made of.

You've got to look at the author's academic life to get a clue to the book's nature. Rather than set a straight book in 18th century Europe where society's moral attitudes and values are examined, he's playing a little game by using his historical and literary knowledge to create a pastiche set in an alternate universe and passing it off as science fantasy.

Do aliens appear in his writings of Robert Browning? Somehow I think not. This just wouldn't be applicable so why should it be the other way round? Why not!

Virtually anything goes in Science Fiction and fantasy nowadays. The book is well written which is something you'd expect from Adam Roberts. Impeccable English and delivery!

However, apart from the nonsense background which put me off from the start, the characters and stories (there are essentially three stories in this book) didn't capture my imagination and hence, my continued reluctance to read through the pages.

'Polystom' is the name of the aristocrat who visits his uncle Cleonicles' home on the satellite. The love story, which it's supposed to be, relates to his interaction with his wife, called Beeswing, but I find the characters rather ethereal and difficult to believe in.

There's certainly no sense of empathy with any of them. Essentially, the people in this book are frivolous, their mannerisms are a display of ostentatious artificiality and we've seen them before in literature. And so has Adam Roberts!

We're taken through an account of Polystom's relationship with his wife. She ends up dead, something you would expect because she was half dead anyway. Later in the book, the uncle, who is a sort of mad scientist, has an adventure when a creature from space lands on his moon.

I'm reminded a little of Jonathan Swift's writing. There is also an element of a Shakespeare comedy, certainly so in the character names and relationships.

It seems that bits and pieces have been plucked from different times and styles in this pick'n'mix. But what is it that he's trying to say in this novel? Is this a study of social interaction in a society of well-defined class divisions? (In some respects, society as portrayed in 'Polystom' exists in castes.)

Perhaps it is! Adam Roberts is then a couple of centuries out of time. This is the sort of thing you would write in the 18th century and disguise it loosely as a piece of fantasy fiction so that you don't get into trouble from the Draconian authorities of the day.

In the 21st century, though we don't have to disguise literature to the same extent, there are societies on both sides of the Atlantic where this form of literature may still be necessary but he hasn't written about them.

I didn't care much for Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' - it was a bit too silly for me - and I don't care much for this novel either. (Blasphemy! They'll hang me for this!)

Maybe Roberts set himself an exercise to write an 18th century novel. Well, he's done it quite effectively and many will read this with great affection and praise.

Many will not.

Rod MacDonald

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