With the men Kaganovski and Rappaport in the room poor Jan Frenkel with his typically Slavic last name gets chaffed for being a Slav. Forgive me for being pedantic by the way, but what nation is “Slav” precisely? Slovak? Slovene? Yugoslav? I desire to have the country Slavia pinpointed for me on a map of Eastern Europe, and its capital named. Anyway… Everybody discourses on science fiction a lot, and then is told to forget all about it. Something like fourty years pass. Suddenly, the narrator, for all he knows the last surviving member of the Conspiracy Posse begins finding out that his plans and writings are coming true and that they may have been true even earlier than he thought! I can also understand why one might feel slightly awkward about both of these characteristics as it might feel a little ‘on the nose’ as it makes the novel feel a bit like a fictionalised SF essay but I didn’t feel at all awkward. In fact, I quite liked that I got all the in-jokes. XL: The thing that is edible, has 25 arms and weighs 12 tonnes is the ruby red fruit of the saguaro cactus. It ripens once a year around late June, and you can eat it raw, making it into jam, wine or syrup, and it tastes like strawberries. The saguaro is the largest cactus of all, growing up to 65ft tall (20m) and is reputed to live for 200 years. Despite being so tall, the roots are only 4-6 inches deep, but they are spread out wide as the plant is tall. Saguaro are also home to the elf owl, the smallest owl in the world. Elf owls play dead when handled. The two things I dislike most are first person perspectives and unreliable narrators. If you like those things, then this is the book for you. If you don't like them, then just don't read this. If you think about it, you’ll probably agree that it is obvious that the Americans in the book have to be Scientologists. What people will make of this I do not know. There are some people who are so paranoid about Scientology that they will probably come to the conclusion that Roberts is a secret Scientologist agent who is trying to brainwash innocent science fiction fans with this novel. After all, what better cover for a conspiracy than a book that pokes fun at conspiracies?

Yellow Blue Tibia has a sort of interesting premise – which is what lured me into this honeypot in the first place – in which a group of Russian Science-Fiction writers named Frenkel, Kaganovski, Rappaport, and Skvorescy – all of them purely Russian except for the “Slav” Jan Frenkel, of course; at least the author got that bit more or less right – get an assignment from “Comrade Stalin” (in person) to invent a threat large enough for the world to unite behind – a sort of Invent Your Enemy mélange supervised by the helpful and friendly Party on a dacha somewhere while the authors of “despised pulp” discourse on doing something truly important for a change.

This is a very odd book. It’s the kind of love-child that might result from someone distilling Umberto Eco and Kurt Vonnegut. Adam Roberts takes on the spectre of Soviet Russia and, at the same time, explores how science fiction shapes and is shaped by the issues at work in the society of its time. Yellow Blue Tibia is not your typical work of alternative history. By taking part in this event, you will also collect bonus points to exchange for personal rewards at each wizard's fan. The reader knows they are in alternative history science fiction territory when in the first chapter, the fictional novel within a novel, “The Grasshopper Lies Empty” (from The Man in the High Castle) is referenced as a legit novel having been published prior to WWII. In fact, Yellow Blue Tibia reminded me some of the two PKD novels I have read in its dreamlike, slippery plot logic and often absurd situations. But on the other hand, the doublethink required in Soviet Russia was actually often absurd in fact. I liked this better than the PKD books I have read, however. I felt a real connection to the characters, especially Saltykov.

Characters are too purposefully cryptic in a transparent attempt to hold off the revelation of the True Nature of Things until the last moment

Series S, Episode 10 - Smörgåsbord

When you hand ("Exchange") in 5 powders favoring your wizard to the wizard's representative you gain 1 bonus point. You can only do this 10 times (10 points). More than this, the novel also provides plenty to think about. Roberts bases his fiction on a paradox about UFOs: there are so many reports of them, yet such a paucity of evidence for their concrete existence. The author’s fictional solution to this paradox is fascinating to think about; I particularly like the wayhe takes some well-worn ideas and spins something fresh out of them. I really cannot describe how much “the former” this book is. As far as could determine, the author’s research began and ended with the stories of a friend who may have been in Moscow once, and the reading of the Wikipedia articles on Stalin, Chernobyl, and maybe Communism. The truly mind-bogglingly sad part about this entire debacle is that this genuinely interesting premise could actually work had the author done his research right, and placed the story in real USSR/Russia as opposed to a Hollywood film of it. At first sight, the plot starts brilliantly but veers into the farcical. It begins just after the Second World War with Stalin bringing together a group of Russian science fiction writers to create a new menace to unify the people, a fiction that is then rapidly concealed - so far, a wonderful idea. But the menace the writers create seems to start becoming real an increasingly unlikely events. What Roberts manages to do, though, is to weave the same kind of magic as my favourite fantasy author, Gene Wolfe in his real-world set fantasies. When you read a Wolfe book, you know the whole thing may seem absurd, but somehow it will eventually all come together, even if you have to read it several times to real get into the depth of it. Similarly, Roberts manages in the end to tie together the unlikely and absurd threads in a way that makes a sense given some understandings of physics. It's a bit like my maths supervisor at Cambridge used to say: 'No one gets it immediately, but let it wash over you and eventually it all makes sense.' And it's very rewarding when it does.

XL Tangent: The panel talk the famous, often parodied scene in Downfall, when Hitler is in the bunker berating those around him, and people change the subtitles to say that they want. Alan's favourite example is one in which Hitler is angry that Doncaster Rovers have lost at home. The envelopes also contain a Letter from the Wizards. Read more about the world event from this letter:

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And this is what I found (quality edition): I largely agree with Abigal Nussbaum's review when she writes "I found it interesting rather than likable or unlikable. Beneath its farcical surface, it seems deeply cynical about both science fiction and the revolutionary impulse." Now, farce is all well and good, and I enjoy bumbling KGB agents and autistic-spectrum cab drivers and grossly fat Americans, but these characters all seem cardboard without any particular reason for their shallowness. What is this farce in the service of? The boosts from Berserk Potions and Bullseye Potions will increase to +7 (+2), while the negative effects to shielding will decrease to -8 (+2). The boost from Mastermind Potion will increase to +5 (+2). The majority of spellcaster creatures such as ice witches or draken spellweavers, for example, will give 25% more experience points. Tangent: In 1967, American actor Luis van Rooten published a book called Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames, which on the surface looks like a collection of ancient nonsense poems in French, but when read out loud sound like nursery rhymes in English in a strong French accent.