Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookThe Stream of Consciousness‘Consciousness flows. A “river” or a “stream” are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let…Oct 22Oct 22
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookMartial 1.35: Two TranslationsMartial’s epigram doesn’t have a title, but we could, if we wanted, call it ‘A Poem Needs A Cock’. Here it is, and my literal translation…Oct 16Oct 16
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookMatthew Arnold, ‘Requiescat’ (1853)Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too!Oct 14Oct 14
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookA Table of Green FieldsI love the phrase ‘a Table of green fields’. Indeed, I have inserted it more than once into my fiction. I talk a little about why I love it…Oct 12Oct 12
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookBrave New WorldI’ve undergone, speaking personally, something of a volte face with respect to the role SF fandom, and more specifically that fan-labour of…Oct 71Oct 71
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookSome Saturns‘Saturn,’ says Ross Anderson, ‘is the best planet.’Oct 2Oct 2
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookDavid Gilmour, ‘Luck and Strange’ (2024)Irrelevant preamble: on only one occasion in my life have I been in the same room as David Gilmour. In 2018 Polly Samson was inducted as a…Sep 281Sep 281
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookAd Bellum PurificandumKenneth Burke’s epigraph to his Grammar of Motives (1945) is ‘Ad bellum purificandum’— ‘for the purification of war.’ Mark Edmundson quotes…Sep 26Sep 26
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookMoney, it’s a Gas/Grab That Cash With Both Hands and Make a StashA while back, fifteen years or so, I started writing a story for kids. Children’s literature, or YA, has never been my thing: not because I…Sep 243Sep 243
Adam RobertsinAdam’s NotebookThe Earthquake God SpeaksAnd it is also creative, this mad Restlessness of men. I shudder down their cities; They build them up again.Sep 22Sep 22
