A review by marleah_a
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts

3.0

The design on the cover and the plot outline drew me in for this one. This alternate history revolves around a group of science fiction writers who live in Stalin's Russia. Sure that the defeat of America is imminent, Stalin decides to create a new enemy--an alien race--for the people to unite against, and he wants these writers to write a new history. They work for weeks until Stalin reports that they are no longer needed and they are released.

Fast forward a few years. Stalin is no longer in power, and the group of writers hasn't been in touch since that time. Skvorecky, the main character, is working as a translator and meets a couple of American Scientologists. Around the same time, he is approached by one of the other writers, Frenkel, who reports that he has seen UFOs and they were the ones from what they had written. Is their tale coming true? What connection do the aliens have to the Scientologists? Can Frenkel be trusted?

I thought this one started out really promising, but the second half just wasn't what I expected, and not in a good way. There were great bits and pieces (especially when Skvorecky is translating for the Americans), but as a whole it just didn't quite work.