Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countryside somewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massive external threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction, he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about aliens poised to invade earth ... I want it to be massively detailed, and completely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up, then we can create them. But when America is defeated, your story must be so convincing that the whole population of Soviet Russia believes in it - the population of the whole world!' The little group of writers gets down to the task and spends months working on it.

But then new orders come from Moscow: they are told to drop the project; Stalin has changed his mind; forget everything about it. So they do. They get on with their lives in their various ways; some of them survive the remainder of Stalin's rule, the changes of the 50s and 60s. And then, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the survivors gather again, because something strange has started to happen. The story they invented in 1946 is starting to come true ...

A typically mind-blowing SF novel from one of the genre's literary stars.

A PhilDickian epic of twisted realities and alien invasion set in the dog days of the Soviet Empire.

About the Author
Adam 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 SF ENCYCLOPEDIA.

Reviews
'Roberts joins my list of essential writers.' - Vector.

'The king of high-concept SF.' - Guardian.


Awards
Short-listed for Arthur C. Clarke Award 2010 (UK) and John W Campbell Award 2010 (UK) and British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel 2010 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9780575083585
Author Adam Roberts
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Gollancz
Publisher Orion Publishing Co
Weight(grams) 296g
Dimensions(mm) 200mm * 178mm * 24mm