Adam Roberts

Cover of Deirdre O'Brien's novel SO MANY CHILDREN

*Carl Sagan voice* billions and billions

... or this frog yokel in "Through the Looking Glass" (might be too late, and too comedic, for your purposes)

If it's specifically negative representations of the peasantry (as it were) that you're interested in, it's harder to think of examples (outside, say, Zola). There are caricature rural types in Punch cartoons, though often these lean into anti-Irish stereotype.

There's some of this in Old Curiosity Shop, although it runs alongside an idealisation of the pastoral countryside (where Nell ends up) and its people.

ФРАНКЕНШТЕЙН (Moscow 1965). Under the novel's title a black-blue woodcut design shows Victor and his creation tangled together.

I also like this 1965 Soviet edition:

Class!

Well, then, somebody *did* give him a raw deal.

Thank you! Lucky shot.

Sign me up.

This is like DANCES WITH WOLVES having the tagline "No Dancing or Wolves Appear in this Movie"

The tagline to the Schwarzenegger movie RAW DEAL was:"Nobody gives him a Raw Deal". So why did they call the movie that, then?

From today's late-afternoon dog walk.

Adam naming the lion and the roebuck: a circular stained glass design by Philip Webb, 1861. The lion is standing in front of Adam and a little to the left such that his head just about covers the crotch of the Father of Mankind. His stuck-out tongue looks like Adam's crotchular appendage.

I stared at this stained-glass window for ages before I realised that *that* is supposed to be the lion's tongue.

*sings*
Why do
butts suddenly appear
every time
you are near?

This may be
the oldest, re:
cloacal vents.

... And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Smashingpumpkins, Bald of Bald:
Listen to alt-rock, ye Many, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. A sandy shore
Round that colossal wreck, lies drear and bare.
It's like it's not the 90s any more.

Catler and Waldorf

The inflatable boy, who lived in an inflatable house and went to an inflatable school. But one day he took a pin to school. The inflatable headmaster called him to his inflatable office. "Look, you've let me down, you've let the school down, but worst of all you've let yourself down."

If the ring fits ...

... hang on a minute.

Congrats, Gareth!

"Darren naszg durbatulûk, darren naszg gimbatul, darren naszg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul"

True story.

Doctor Robert is (a) brilliant and (b) a significant factor in me deciding to do a PhD, back in the day.

Jeff Noon's Nyquist novels? Don't listen to us, listen to Wasp Box.

(Oh, and by the way, he's also totally right about Adam Roberts.)

Slightly more leftfield, I really enjoyed A Man Of Shadows by Jeff Noon (and both follow-ups), speculative rather than science fiction, weird and amazing.
Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts is superb, and his most recent novella High also excellent.

"Lady Windermere's Cello"?

dulce et decorum est pro patria and really terra

Not trios, but I'll allow them.