Swiftly: A Novel

Description

It is 1848 and the British Empire has grown rich exploiting Lilliputian slaves - the finesse of their working allowing unheard of feats of minature engineering; even Babbage's computing device has been made to work. But now the French have formed a regiment of previously peaceful Brobdingnagian giants and invasion looms. In a world where humanity is both smaller and larger than it once was, love and hate loom large. Mankind discovers itself at the centre of scale. Lilliptians are twelve times smaller than us but there are those twelve times smaller than them and twelve times smaller again and so on. And the scale of being goes up from Swift's giants also... Adam Roberts has written both a rip roaring 19th century adventure, a love story and a thought-provoking pre-atomic SF novel about our place in the universe.

Adam Roberts is 42 and Professor of Nineteenth Century Literature at Royal Hollaway College, London University. His novels, Salt and Gradisil were shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. He has also published a number of academic works on both 19th century poetry and SF.

"A brilliant burlesque conceit, and Roberts exploits it in bravura fashion."" -- Locus" "A worthy science fictional successor to Swift's indispensable masterwork... equal parts adventure story and social commentary. Its philosophy is Swift's, but its success is all Roberts's own." "--Strange Horizons" "An endlessly inventive writer . . . one of our most intelligent and versatile authors." "--SFRevue" "Darkly satirical . . . a dystopian vision in the tradition of Swift, Orwell, and Atwood." --"The Times" "The king of high concept." "--The Guardian"