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On
Tighe lives on the wall. It towers above his village and falls away below it. It is vast and unforgiving and it is everything he knows. Life is hard on the wall, little more than a clinging on for dear life—and then one day Tighe falls off the wall. On is at once a vertiginous concept novel, a coming of age saga, a picaresque journey across a changed world, and an epic adventure in the very best traditions of science fiction.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
18 people are currently reading
280 people want to read
About the author
Adam Roberts
238 books566 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
January 2, 2017
Welcome to the sideways apocalypse.
Imagine if you could fall off the world. Imagine your nation, your city, your home, all turned ninety degrees - every floor now a wall, every hillock now something to desperately cling to and the now-sideways mountains the only habitable real estate left.
Adam Roberts imagined this, and he has built an entertaining and imaginative book based on this concept, toying with the ramifications of life in a world flipped on its side.
Tighe, a villager in a small, impoverished settlement, lives a subsistence life with his family, who cling to the face of the endless cliff that is their world. The loss of a goat over the edge of their land plunges them further into desperation and amdist his family troubles Tighe himself falls from their ledge and (rather messily and injuriously) lands on a more populated, and much more conflict-riven area of the wall where he is sucked into a grim and bloody local war.
Through Tighe’s eyes we see the world as it has become: backward, superstitious, and brutal, ruled by warlike popes who stoke their subjects’ fears of their neighbours. Gigantic carnivorous caterpillars haunt thick forests, slavery is back in all its horrors, and life is all-round pretty crappy. (effectively, Roberts' scenario is much like most of human history, but with giant insects and less land to go around)
The remnants of normal-gravity life are present in the form of leftover plastics, the odd electronic device and tech such as firearms and hot-air balloons. Tighe travels across various communities and hacks through some dense, verbose thickets of exposition (readers will need their own exposition-machetes in these sections), discovering the truth of how his world came to be the primitive, sideways mess that it is. From there the story eventually heads towards an abrupt and rather grim ending.
Roberts is the king of original concepts- his books Stone, Salt and Gradisil are all built around really interesting ideas (as is his book Snow which I have yet to read) and On is equally high concept. While On, unlike Stone, isn’t a must-read, It’s well realised and thought-provoking, if a little dark at times. What lets it down is some rather heavy exposition later in the book, and an unsatisfying ending.
Imagine if you could fall off the world. Imagine your nation, your city, your home, all turned ninety degrees - every floor now a wall, every hillock now something to desperately cling to and the now-sideways mountains the only habitable real estate left.
Adam Roberts imagined this, and he has built an entertaining and imaginative book based on this concept, toying with the ramifications of life in a world flipped on its side.
Tighe, a villager in a small, impoverished settlement, lives a subsistence life with his family, who cling to the face of the endless cliff that is their world. The loss of a goat over the edge of their land plunges them further into desperation and amdist his family troubles Tighe himself falls from their ledge and (rather messily and injuriously) lands on a more populated, and much more conflict-riven area of the wall where he is sucked into a grim and bloody local war.
Through Tighe’s eyes we see the world as it has become: backward, superstitious, and brutal, ruled by warlike popes who stoke their subjects’ fears of their neighbours. Gigantic carnivorous caterpillars haunt thick forests, slavery is back in all its horrors, and life is all-round pretty crappy. (effectively, Roberts' scenario is much like most of human history, but with giant insects and less land to go around)
The remnants of normal-gravity life are present in the form of leftover plastics, the odd electronic device and tech such as firearms and hot-air balloons. Tighe travels across various communities and hacks through some dense, verbose thickets of exposition (readers will need their own exposition-machetes in these sections), discovering the truth of how his world came to be the primitive, sideways mess that it is. From there the story eventually heads towards an abrupt and rather grim ending.
Roberts is the king of original concepts- his books Stone, Salt and Gradisil are all built around really interesting ideas (as is his book Snow which I have yet to read) and On is equally high concept. While On, unlike Stone, isn’t a must-read, It’s well realised and thought-provoking, if a little dark at times. What lets it down is some rather heavy exposition later in the book, and an unsatisfying ending.
August 16, 2022
This early Adam Roberts novel, is coincidentally, the third SF book in a row that I've read with teen protagonists. Tighe is a teenage boy (he's described as younger because his civilisation uses 20 month years) in a primitive society, inhabiting a strange world where everyone lives on ledges in a vast wall that appears to be thousands of miles high. Primarily by accident, Tighe gets to experience different cultures on the Worldwall, as well as the terrors of war and some evil, oversized insect life. Eventually we (but not he, because he can't grasp it) get to discover what is really happening. I won't give the game away here (though the cover image gives a hint).
There are strong similarities contextually with Christopher Priest's Inverted World. That novel is also set in a location that seems to depend on strange physics - in the case of Priest's world, one where the Earth appears to have taken on a hyperbolic shape and a city has to be moved all the time to avoid spacetime distortion (though these turn out to be probably perceptual alterations, rather than physical ones). I always found it difficult to get my head around what was happening in Inverted World - in On, the setup was considerably clearer, helped by a scientific appendix (though the fictional bits of the 'science' are rather overdone there). The Worldwall is still sometimes something of a struggle to visualise, but was a lot clearer to me than the inverted world.
The reader gets two things out of Roberts' book - the adventure (and, frankly, the rather miserable existence) side of Tighe's life and the gradual discovery of what has really happened and what the Worldwall is. I felt a little bogged down in the middle war section, but the latter parts really lift the book, even if it ends rather abruptly. The clever use of this strange physical environment, particularly when inhabitants take to the air and odd gravitational effects occur, is truly fascinating.
This isn't the best book Roberts has written by any means - it is an early one - but it illustrates, as his books so often do, an enthusiasm for stretching the science fiction genre and doing things with it that challenge the reader's imagination.
There are strong similarities contextually with Christopher Priest's Inverted World. That novel is also set in a location that seems to depend on strange physics - in the case of Priest's world, one where the Earth appears to have taken on a hyperbolic shape and a city has to be moved all the time to avoid spacetime distortion (though these turn out to be probably perceptual alterations, rather than physical ones). I always found it difficult to get my head around what was happening in Inverted World - in On, the setup was considerably clearer, helped by a scientific appendix (though the fictional bits of the 'science' are rather overdone there). The Worldwall is still sometimes something of a struggle to visualise, but was a lot clearer to me than the inverted world.
The reader gets two things out of Roberts' book - the adventure (and, frankly, the rather miserable existence) side of Tighe's life and the gradual discovery of what has really happened and what the Worldwall is. I felt a little bogged down in the middle war section, but the latter parts really lift the book, even if it ends rather abruptly. The clever use of this strange physical environment, particularly when inhabitants take to the air and odd gravitational effects occur, is truly fascinating.
This isn't the best book Roberts has written by any means - it is an early one - but it illustrates, as his books so often do, an enthusiasm for stretching the science fiction genre and doing things with it that challenge the reader's imagination.
March 28, 2013
This is the story of Tighe, who lives on a world where gravity works at in parallel to the earth - if you fall off, you keep on falling forever - except that doesn't happen to Tighe. Fleeing from his grandfather, he trips and falls, only to be caught many miles below where a war is being faought to control the mysterious Door. Only his own mysteries turn out to be even weirder than the world on which he lives.The concept behind this story is mind-blowing - I dare you to read this and not be looking the world around you in a new light. I spent ages imgaining which hills around us would create ledges big enough to live on if what happened in the book happens here. The whole way through, I was entranced by the story and the world, which was why I hated the ending. Ridiculous, a let down, really not satisfying in any way. I presume it is left like that for a sequel to pick up from, but I haven't heard of one yet. Such a shame as the rest of it was excellent.
January 30, 2026
Dette var en interessant leseopplevelse. Tyngdekraften fungerer annerledes i denne bokens verden. Den fungerer parallelt med jordoverflaten, som resulterer i at verden blir som en endeløs vegg man kan falle av. Derfor har menneskelige bosetninger blitt konsentrert til "hyller", platåer man kan leve på, men det er alltid fare for å falle over kanten og forsvinne. Religion vikles inn i narrativet. Sentralt er troen på en Gud som lever på toppen eller på bunnen av veggen, avhengig av hvem man spør. Tighe, hovedpersonen, faller over kanten og blir kastet ut på et eventyr gjennom ulike samfunn, konflikter, teknologier.
Verden er brutal. I de få tilfellene Tighe møter noen form for ømhet røskes han bort og blir kastet ut i brutalitet og hensynsløshet. Mye av dette var ikke hyggelig lesning, men det var såpass livaktig realisert, konseptet var gjennomført tvers igjennom, ned til minste detalj, så leseropplevelsen var likevel en fryd. Boken var best i mine øyne når den var sentrert rundt hovedpersonens landsby og dagliglivet der. Når verden ble ekspandert mistet plottet litt fokus, og Tighe gikk veldig raskt fra å være et barn til å være en voksen med lederferdigheter, så til en nedbrutt slave, så til en sta overlever, så til en fyllik. Likevel føltes utviklingene, til tross for hvor hyppige de var, som organiske. Det kunne fort blitt slik at forfatteren skyndte seg gjennom fortellingen for å treffe sine forhåndsbestemte punkter, men Tighe forble en levende figur og en gripende nok hovedperson til å følge boken gjennom sine 3-400 sider.
Verden er brutal. I de få tilfellene Tighe møter noen form for ømhet røskes han bort og blir kastet ut i brutalitet og hensynsløshet. Mye av dette var ikke hyggelig lesning, men det var såpass livaktig realisert, konseptet var gjennomført tvers igjennom, ned til minste detalj, så leseropplevelsen var likevel en fryd. Boken var best i mine øyne når den var sentrert rundt hovedpersonens landsby og dagliglivet der. Når verden ble ekspandert mistet plottet litt fokus, og Tighe gikk veldig raskt fra å være et barn til å være en voksen med lederferdigheter, så til en nedbrutt slave, så til en sta overlever, så til en fyllik. Likevel føltes utviklingene, til tross for hvor hyppige de var, som organiske. Det kunne fort blitt slik at forfatteren skyndte seg gjennom fortellingen for å treffe sine forhåndsbestemte punkter, men Tighe forble en levende figur og en gripende nok hovedperson til å følge boken gjennom sine 3-400 sider.
September 19, 2013
I picked up On at a used bookstore on a lark (it had an interesting title and cover art along with a cool synopsis on the back cover - a stark white cover different from the novel's graphic shown here on Goodreads). It was one of the those heavy bond paper trade paperbacks with that heft that just says, "check me out, I'm worth it."
Imagine a future Earth but with gravity going sideways parallel to the ground you're standing on. Imagine that this gravitational shift occurred not gradually but at a specific moment, on a specific day hundreds of years prior. Imagine the utter cataclysm to life on the planet with people, buildings and oceans literally sliding off the "wall" that had been the ground. Hills and mountains would become ledges where people could live. Flat plains would be deadly, unending cliff faces.
I loved On until the last few pages when the ending seemed to just peter out when compared to the beautiful writing, the author's mind-bending world building, and the tribulations faced by the main character, Tighe. Poor Tighe goes through so much that you will either want closure for him or the promise of a sequel to see how his struggle plays out. The book's actual ending, however, left me feeling frustrated and wanting for either of these conclusions.
Still, the majority of the book is terrific and a fascinating hard SF read. I definitely recommend it.
Imagine a future Earth but with gravity going sideways parallel to the ground you're standing on. Imagine that this gravitational shift occurred not gradually but at a specific moment, on a specific day hundreds of years prior. Imagine the utter cataclysm to life on the planet with people, buildings and oceans literally sliding off the "wall" that had been the ground. Hills and mountains would become ledges where people could live. Flat plains would be deadly, unending cliff faces.
I loved On until the last few pages when the ending seemed to just peter out when compared to the beautiful writing, the author's mind-bending world building, and the tribulations faced by the main character, Tighe. Poor Tighe goes through so much that you will either want closure for him or the promise of a sequel to see how his struggle plays out. The book's actual ending, however, left me feeling frustrated and wanting for either of these conclusions.
Still, the majority of the book is terrific and a fascinating hard SF read. I definitely recommend it.
September 9, 2025
"On" (2001, Gollancz) es una novela de ciencia ficción que imagina un mundo donde la gravedad, alterada por un experimento fallido, opera en paralelo a un Muro del Mundo vertical, obligando a los supervivientes a vivir en cornisas precarias. Tighe, un joven de una aldea e hijo del Príncipe, emprende un viaje iniciático impulsado por su curiosidad sobre el Muro, Dios y el universo. Desde aldeas remotas hasta la bulliciosa Ciudad del Este, se enfrenta a insectos gigantes, profetas y conflictos bélicos, descubriendo verdades inquietantes sobre su mundo. Con una prosa evocadora, "On" combina especulación científica y narrativa bildungsroman para explorar la precariedad, la fe y la búsqueda de significado.
En "On", Adam Roberts crea un mundo singular donde la gravedad reorientada transforma el planeta en una pared vertical infinita, una premisa que trasciende el ejercicio técnico para convertirse en una metáfora de la precariedad existencial. El Muro del Mundo, descrito con prosa poética y visceral, es un personaje omnipresente que refleja la fragilidad de la vida de Tighe, un joven cuya odisea por un cosmos inestable explora la identidad y el destino. El apéndice científico, aunque erudito, puede alienar a algunos lectores, y el ritmo se resiente en secciones centrales por la densidad descriptiva. Comparada con "Un mundo invertido" de Christopher Priest (en mi opinión, una obra maestra), "On" comparte un enfoque introspectivo, pero se inclina más hacia la especulación filosófica que al misterio psicológico. Roberts ofrece una ciencia ficción profunda y evocadora, ideal para quienes buscan reflexiones sobre la fragilidad humana en un universo vertiginoso.
En resumen, una obra ambiciosa que combina worldbuilding especulativo con una narrativa introspectiva, interesante pese a altibajos en el ritmo.
En "On", Adam Roberts crea un mundo singular donde la gravedad reorientada transforma el planeta en una pared vertical infinita, una premisa que trasciende el ejercicio técnico para convertirse en una metáfora de la precariedad existencial. El Muro del Mundo, descrito con prosa poética y visceral, es un personaje omnipresente que refleja la fragilidad de la vida de Tighe, un joven cuya odisea por un cosmos inestable explora la identidad y el destino. El apéndice científico, aunque erudito, puede alienar a algunos lectores, y el ritmo se resiente en secciones centrales por la densidad descriptiva. Comparada con "Un mundo invertido" de Christopher Priest (en mi opinión, una obra maestra), "On" comparte un enfoque introspectivo, pero se inclina más hacia la especulación filosófica que al misterio psicológico. Roberts ofrece una ciencia ficción profunda y evocadora, ideal para quienes buscan reflexiones sobre la fragilidad humana en un universo vertiginoso.
En resumen, una obra ambiciosa que combina worldbuilding especulativo con una narrativa introspectiva, interesante pese a altibajos en el ritmo.
July 1, 2024
This is a hard one to rate because the final 20% felt like a completely different book, and the final 10 pages or so undid all the love I previously held for the main character.
But I have to give it a high rating, for 1) spectacular writing, 2) originality, and 3) the fact that I accidentally finished it in a day.
I'd feel weird recommending it but I still liked it. So. Yeah.
But I have to give it a high rating, for 1) spectacular writing, 2) originality, and 3) the fact that I accidentally finished it in a day.
I'd feel weird recommending it but I still liked it. So. Yeah.
August 8, 2021
I don't generally write reviews - especially negative reviews - but this book, which has one of the most innovative and unique conceits I've ever come across, should have been so much more than it was.
The concept? Earth has had some drastic shift in its gravitational force, so matter is pulled sideways, turning the earth into a giant, unending cliff face.
It is so bizarre and brilliant and evocative - clutching on to the wall of the earth, trying not to plummet into a neverending abyss - I gave this book two stars, even though it might have been one of the most poorly executed books I've ever read.
The first third of this book is about a boy prince in a small village. It is all about how he is abused by his family. The author goes into a lot of detail about his physical, emotional, and verbal abuse.
Then he falls off the wall. He blacks out and wakes in a hospital in a somewhat different land - a land somewhat richer, wider, and more bellicose than his own.
This next third of the book is him struggling with physical rehabilitation, struggling to learn a foreign language, and being conscripted into an army and learning to be a kite soldier. But really, this section of the book is more graphic details about how he's physically, emotionally, and verbally abused - this time by the military.
Then he goes to war - which he has very little to do with - and his side loses, so he's sold into slavery, where he has to learn a new language (in detail), and spends most of his time behind physically, emotionally, and verbally abused - by his owner. This is maybe 2/3 of the final third of the book.
The final 1/3 of the final third of the book is like a different book completely.
Suddenly, a "wizard" shows up in a metal hot air balloon. He's apparently one of many (male) siblings created in a lab from the sperm of a single man and the eggs of a single woman who lived hundreds of years ago before gravity got messed up. They apparently never die. He apparently visited the prince's village when the prince was a baby and put machines in his head so that he could end up being/creating a machine to fix gravity?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Don't worry, he was physically, emotionally, and verbally abused by the "wizard."
He was also given a long-winded physics lecture about how the world-building functions irl. Seriously. He has no idea what's going on for something like 20 pages, and has to fake it so that the author can prove some physics flex and redeem his credentials as a hard science fiction author, even though this story has been a fantasy the whole time.
Did I mention that this "wizard" is at war with all his siblings, who, by the way, are all "lovers" of each other? Yep.
Well, he gets away. Then he decides to walk home... so the final 30 pages or so are him trying to walk home, even though he has no idea where home is, other than West and Up. Every 2 paragraphs or so are him in a different city, all of which are just like the others, getting drunk or doing nothing at all. The last 30 pages are the worst part of any book I've maybe ever read.
Oh, and he buys a slave, and then complains at least 5 times in the 10 pages she's in that he's really mad and confused as to why she cries all the time. He ends up deciding that she's too ugly to fuck (rape).
He's eleven.
In the last five pages he stumbles upon a boy he was a soldier with, and he has to rescue him from slavery, so he tried to buy him from his master, who won't sell him. He yells at the master enough than the man has a heart attack and dies.
They leave, though they have to dodge an assassin that the old man's heir sends after them. That's a *whole* paragraph. Not rushing here, or stuffing in unnecessary detail, let me assure you.
In the end, he's making his insipidly slow progress home when the wizard shows up again and tells him how much he's missed him.
End of book.
Yep.
That was the end.
****
Constantly in this book I forgot that gravity worked the way it did, because aside from the fact that he fell once and all the kite flying, it didn't play much of a role in the story. They kept goats - presumably because they do well on cliffs though that is never confirmed - but otherwise, it could have been anywhere. Sure they mentioned narrow "shelves" constantly, but that almost never constrained the narrative.
There were no rock climbers, no real mention of climbing traders (aside from people controlling ladders and charging tariffs), no real secondary culture, even though it was supposed to be hundreds of years after the gravity shift, which was itself supposed to be hundreds of years from now.
So many lost opportunities.
I'd never in a million years recommend that you read this book.
And yet, I have to give it two stars just for the crazy, unique conceit that made me pick up the book in the first place, and constantly forced me to not dnf it (even and especially in the last 30 pages), just in case it ended up living up to its potential.
It didn't.
This is probably the worst book I've read in years. But it is fun to describe for you.
Ultimately, that's why I had to review it. Just to redeem the time I spent reading it.
The concept? Earth has had some drastic shift in its gravitational force, so matter is pulled sideways, turning the earth into a giant, unending cliff face.
It is so bizarre and brilliant and evocative - clutching on to the wall of the earth, trying not to plummet into a neverending abyss - I gave this book two stars, even though it might have been one of the most poorly executed books I've ever read.
The first third of this book is about a boy prince in a small village. It is all about how he is abused by his family. The author goes into a lot of detail about his physical, emotional, and verbal abuse.
Then he falls off the wall. He blacks out and wakes in a hospital in a somewhat different land - a land somewhat richer, wider, and more bellicose than his own.
This next third of the book is him struggling with physical rehabilitation, struggling to learn a foreign language, and being conscripted into an army and learning to be a kite soldier. But really, this section of the book is more graphic details about how he's physically, emotionally, and verbally abused - this time by the military.
Then he goes to war - which he has very little to do with - and his side loses, so he's sold into slavery, where he has to learn a new language (in detail), and spends most of his time behind physically, emotionally, and verbally abused - by his owner. This is maybe 2/3 of the final third of the book.
The final 1/3 of the final third of the book is like a different book completely.
Suddenly, a "wizard" shows up in a metal hot air balloon. He's apparently one of many (male) siblings created in a lab from the sperm of a single man and the eggs of a single woman who lived hundreds of years ago before gravity got messed up. They apparently never die. He apparently visited the prince's village when the prince was a baby and put machines in his head so that he could end up being/creating a machine to fix gravity?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Don't worry, he was physically, emotionally, and verbally abused by the "wizard."
He was also given a long-winded physics lecture about how the world-building functions irl. Seriously. He has no idea what's going on for something like 20 pages, and has to fake it so that the author can prove some physics flex and redeem his credentials as a hard science fiction author, even though this story has been a fantasy the whole time.
Did I mention that this "wizard" is at war with all his siblings, who, by the way, are all "lovers" of each other? Yep.
Well, he gets away. Then he decides to walk home... so the final 30 pages or so are him trying to walk home, even though he has no idea where home is, other than West and Up. Every 2 paragraphs or so are him in a different city, all of which are just like the others, getting drunk or doing nothing at all. The last 30 pages are the worst part of any book I've maybe ever read.
Oh, and he buys a slave, and then complains at least 5 times in the 10 pages she's in that he's really mad and confused as to why she cries all the time. He ends up deciding that she's too ugly to fuck (rape).
He's eleven.
In the last five pages he stumbles upon a boy he was a soldier with, and he has to rescue him from slavery, so he tried to buy him from his master, who won't sell him. He yells at the master enough than the man has a heart attack and dies.
They leave, though they have to dodge an assassin that the old man's heir sends after them. That's a *whole* paragraph. Not rushing here, or stuffing in unnecessary detail, let me assure you.
In the end, he's making his insipidly slow progress home when the wizard shows up again and tells him how much he's missed him.
End of book.
Yep.
That was the end.
****
Constantly in this book I forgot that gravity worked the way it did, because aside from the fact that he fell once and all the kite flying, it didn't play much of a role in the story. They kept goats - presumably because they do well on cliffs though that is never confirmed - but otherwise, it could have been anywhere. Sure they mentioned narrow "shelves" constantly, but that almost never constrained the narrative.
There were no rock climbers, no real mention of climbing traders (aside from people controlling ladders and charging tariffs), no real secondary culture, even though it was supposed to be hundreds of years after the gravity shift, which was itself supposed to be hundreds of years from now.
So many lost opportunities.
I'd never in a million years recommend that you read this book.
And yet, I have to give it two stars just for the crazy, unique conceit that made me pick up the book in the first place, and constantly forced me to not dnf it (even and especially in the last 30 pages), just in case it ended up living up to its potential.
It didn't.
This is probably the worst book I've read in years. But it is fun to describe for you.
Ultimately, that's why I had to review it. Just to redeem the time I spent reading it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 11, 2016
For me, this book started out well, got a little bumpy in the middle and then ended with a fizzle.
So, at the start we're introduced to Tighe, an adolescent princeling living on "the wall" (basically land has flipped 90 degrees sometime in the past and people now live on various ledges, constantly at risk of falling off the world!). Tighe's existence is pretty unremarkable - he spends most of his time wandering around contemplating life and such philosophical questions as: what is the wall? He also has a very temperamental, and often vicious, mother as well as an aggressive grandfather - and consequently much of the first part of the story involves Tighe getting a beating, crying and doing things that you know will probably get him a beating later . . . Despite this, I found myself quite engrossed in Tighe's life, concerned about the abuse and sympathetic to him.
Middle: Anyway, Tighe falls off the wall and miraculously survives though he's fallen straight into a war zone and is soon enlisted to fight. There's more abuse and bullying (and crying) before Tighe becomes an accepted member of the team - I'm still rooting for him at this point, willing him to stand up for himself and survive but the war kind of spoiled it for me. Basically everything goes wrong, the war is chaotic and confusing to read but at some point Tighe and a few of his group are trying to escape and for some unknown reason they all turn to Tighe to lead them despite the fact that he's shown no strength, bravery, particular intelligence or leadership skills.
End: Skipping ahead and missing some spoilers, Tighe finds he is important to some odd characters who have plans to return the earth to it's original state i.e. flat. Again, Tighe's un-remarkableness makes this seem unlikely. He wriggles out of one precarious situation or another but by the end he seems like quite an unpleasant character and I was caring less whether he'd make it or not.
I liked the concept of the story, it was an interesting idea and I don't pretend to be bright enough to be able to unpick the laws of physics/gravity/time and space etc. I liked the philosophical questions, the precariousness of life on the wall, and the killer bugs (who doesn't?) I think the story was let down by Tighe himself - I sympathised and warmed to him when he was the vulnerable, naive, thoughtful young boy but didn't get him when he was meant to be tougher and heroic, because he was neither.
So, at the start we're introduced to Tighe, an adolescent princeling living on "the wall" (basically land has flipped 90 degrees sometime in the past and people now live on various ledges, constantly at risk of falling off the world!). Tighe's existence is pretty unremarkable - he spends most of his time wandering around contemplating life and such philosophical questions as: what is the wall? He also has a very temperamental, and often vicious, mother as well as an aggressive grandfather - and consequently much of the first part of the story involves Tighe getting a beating, crying and doing things that you know will probably get him a beating later . . . Despite this, I found myself quite engrossed in Tighe's life, concerned about the abuse and sympathetic to him.
Middle: Anyway, Tighe falls off the wall and miraculously survives though he's fallen straight into a war zone and is soon enlisted to fight. There's more abuse and bullying (and crying) before Tighe becomes an accepted member of the team - I'm still rooting for him at this point, willing him to stand up for himself and survive but the war kind of spoiled it for me. Basically everything goes wrong, the war is chaotic and confusing to read but at some point Tighe and a few of his group are trying to escape and for some unknown reason they all turn to Tighe to lead them despite the fact that he's shown no strength, bravery, particular intelligence or leadership skills.
End: Skipping ahead and missing some spoilers, Tighe finds he is important to some odd characters who have plans to return the earth to it's original state i.e. flat. Again, Tighe's un-remarkableness makes this seem unlikely. He wriggles out of one precarious situation or another but by the end he seems like quite an unpleasant character and I was caring less whether he'd make it or not.
I liked the concept of the story, it was an interesting idea and I don't pretend to be bright enough to be able to unpick the laws of physics/gravity/time and space etc. I liked the philosophical questions, the precariousness of life on the wall, and the killer bugs (who doesn't?) I think the story was let down by Tighe himself - I sympathised and warmed to him when he was the vulnerable, naive, thoughtful young boy but didn't get him when he was meant to be tougher and heroic, because he was neither.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 29, 2021
Full of thought provoking ideas and a unique approach to world building, but reads like a young child's never ending story, "and then . . .and then . . .and then . . ."
Still not sure what the book was about, and the ending felt like closing your eyes to lean in for the kiss you've been waiting for all night, only to open them and find that your lover has already caught a cab and left.
Still not sure what the book was about, and the ending felt like closing your eyes to lean in for the kiss you've been waiting for all night, only to open them and find that your lover has already caught a cab and left.
August 28, 2023
Five stars for the fascinating world building (complete with a hard SF physical explanation as an epilogue - one probably not quite within the reach of anyone who doesn't know what a Lagrangian is), and for the first section, which I loved. But once the protagonist falls out of the sky, it was not to my taste at all.
September 21, 2024
On by Adam Roberts
Like everyone else, Tighe lives on the side of an infinite cliff.
Living on the side of a cliff, the great concern is not falling off the cliff's edge. Living space is scarce, and every edge has to be exploited. When the sun rises from the bottom of the cliff, it creates enormous gales of wind that can blow a person off their ledges. It is a harsh and dangerous world.
“On” is one of a barely inhabited subgenre of science fiction, which I call “Topological Science Fiction.” The only other inhabitant that I am aware of is Christopher Priest’s classic “The Inverted World.” In Priest’s novel, the City of Earth is being dragged forward to avoid slipping into the past, where time slows down - way down. Ahead of the city, time speeds up so that a few days ahead of the City is like a few hours of City time.
Much of the reader’s time in The Inverted World is spent trying to figure out the topology around the City of Earth. Synchronizing the various geographies in which the characters live is difficult and frustrating.
On is similar. I spent a lot of time turning my head ninety degrees to follow the action. It does not reveal much, and it is necessary to appreciate the book to understand—SPOILER ALERT—somehow, in the past, Earth’s gravity changed from perpendicular to the surface of the Earth to parallel to the surface of the Earth. The “cliff” is the surface of the Earth. When the characters hang-glides from the cliff face, they go up into the sky.
That makes for some flip-flops of the mind.
The story itself is pedestrian. The main character, Tighe, is naïve and accepting of his world and its barbaric conditions. It reminds me of Brian W. Aldiss’s Hugo Award-winning “Hothouse,” which is set in the far future during a time when vegetation has evolved to take over the world and exterminate animals.
Like “Hothouse,” “On” has separate storylines as Tighe falls, or is yanked, from one setting into another without tying up prior loose ends and facing him with new problems. In addition, Tighe doesn’t come across as exceptionally bright. There seems to be a lot of repetition on his part without him learning anything or showing any real aptitude for anything in particular.
The mystery of the crazy topology kept me involved in the story. How did this happen? How does it work? What would it be like? We get some answers, but I wonder if anything could survive such a shift in gravitation.
Roberts is a good writer. This was not up to his usual standards. However, it is redeemed by one big idea.
Like everyone else, Tighe lives on the side of an infinite cliff.
Living on the side of a cliff, the great concern is not falling off the cliff's edge. Living space is scarce, and every edge has to be exploited. When the sun rises from the bottom of the cliff, it creates enormous gales of wind that can blow a person off their ledges. It is a harsh and dangerous world.
“On” is one of a barely inhabited subgenre of science fiction, which I call “Topological Science Fiction.” The only other inhabitant that I am aware of is Christopher Priest’s classic “The Inverted World.” In Priest’s novel, the City of Earth is being dragged forward to avoid slipping into the past, where time slows down - way down. Ahead of the city, time speeds up so that a few days ahead of the City is like a few hours of City time.
Much of the reader’s time in The Inverted World is spent trying to figure out the topology around the City of Earth. Synchronizing the various geographies in which the characters live is difficult and frustrating.
On is similar. I spent a lot of time turning my head ninety degrees to follow the action. It does not reveal much, and it is necessary to appreciate the book to understand—SPOILER ALERT—somehow, in the past, Earth’s gravity changed from perpendicular to the surface of the Earth to parallel to the surface of the Earth. The “cliff” is the surface of the Earth. When the characters hang-glides from the cliff face, they go up into the sky.
That makes for some flip-flops of the mind.
The story itself is pedestrian. The main character, Tighe, is naïve and accepting of his world and its barbaric conditions. It reminds me of Brian W. Aldiss’s Hugo Award-winning “Hothouse,” which is set in the far future during a time when vegetation has evolved to take over the world and exterminate animals.
Like “Hothouse,” “On” has separate storylines as Tighe falls, or is yanked, from one setting into another without tying up prior loose ends and facing him with new problems. In addition, Tighe doesn’t come across as exceptionally bright. There seems to be a lot of repetition on his part without him learning anything or showing any real aptitude for anything in particular.
The mystery of the crazy topology kept me involved in the story. How did this happen? How does it work? What would it be like? We get some answers, but I wonder if anything could survive such a shift in gravitation.
Roberts is a good writer. This was not up to his usual standards. However, it is redeemed by one big idea.
January 12, 2025
TW: Everything - I don't mean this flippantly, if there's any triggering topic at all that affects you, I'd skip this review and this book immediately.
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On is a *very* hard book to read. It portrays an utterly degenerate human society, where absolutely no debauchery is off the table for people with the right wealth or connections. Violent child abuse is a persistent event for the first few chapters, along with a level of economic repression and othering of certain groups with painful real-world analogues. Later in the book, child soldiers, war crimes, sexual violence, cannibalism, paedophilia, and slavery are all featured in a matter-of-fact way that makes for uncomfortable reading. This level of gratuitous human horror is my prime reason for taking off a star on this book - it crosses far past illustration of a setting of fallen humanity and just becomes uncomfortable without adding to the storyline or world building.
But four stars remain, so there must be grand merit in the rest of the novel, yes? Of course! This is an earlyish work (I think, could be talking nonsense) in the "sense of wonder" school of SF, where a small but compellingly-crafted world opens out into a truly stunning setting at the end, as the reader learns the world alongside our character. There's notes of Terminal World in the grand reveal of the nature of the Worldwall, and it's too good to spoil even in a spoilered review! The sheer strength of the world building really carries this book, and makes it worth sticking with it through the nasty parts. Various threads of plots come together masterfully in the finale, without even necessarily needing much early setup.
This is definitely worth a go if you have a strong constitution and are looking for a fascinating piece of speculative fiction.
------------------------------------
On is a *very* hard book to read. It portrays an utterly degenerate human society, where absolutely no debauchery is off the table for people with the right wealth or connections. Violent child abuse is a persistent event for the first few chapters, along with a level of economic repression and othering of certain groups with painful real-world analogues. Later in the book, child soldiers, war crimes, sexual violence, cannibalism, paedophilia, and slavery are all featured in a matter-of-fact way that makes for uncomfortable reading. This level of gratuitous human horror is my prime reason for taking off a star on this book - it crosses far past illustration of a setting of fallen humanity and just becomes uncomfortable without adding to the storyline or world building.
But four stars remain, so there must be grand merit in the rest of the novel, yes? Of course! This is an earlyish work (I think, could be talking nonsense) in the "sense of wonder" school of SF, where a small but compellingly-crafted world opens out into a truly stunning setting at the end, as the reader learns the world alongside our character. There's notes of Terminal World in the grand reveal of the nature of the Worldwall, and it's too good to spoil even in a spoilered review! The sheer strength of the world building really carries this book, and makes it worth sticking with it through the nasty parts. Various threads of plots come together masterfully in the finale, without even necessarily needing much early setup.
This is definitely worth a go if you have a strong constitution and are looking for a fascinating piece of speculative fiction.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 29, 2023
Started strong. Great concept. Gets weaker and more tedious in the middle. Goes completely off the rails in terms of plot and turns into a soap-box science lecture shortly before the end. The story then does another sharp turn, and the ending starts to show a little promise as previous characters and settings are re-introduced, and we feel that maybe the de-railing is going to get back on track. Then an abrupt ending that resolves nothing, makes no sense, and leaves the reader *completely* unsatisfied.
I don't mind open-ended finales to stories, but this one felt so completely and utterly rushed. In a book that already has far too many deus ex machina moments, it's like the author just kind of wrote himself into a corner, gave up and said, "Meh, I'm ready to write something else now." Such a disappointment after the brilliance of "Salt".
I don't mind open-ended finales to stories, but this one felt so completely and utterly rushed. In a book that already has far too many deus ex machina moments, it's like the author just kind of wrote himself into a corner, gave up and said, "Meh, I'm ready to write something else now." Such a disappointment after the brilliance of "Salt".
March 13, 2022
What you'd get if you asked Franz Kafka to write a coming-of-age sci-fi novel of the "the Dome is the World" variety.
The majority of the book has the protagonist teenage - that obviously believes the World is not the Dome - having various forms of abuse put upon him. The theories about the Dome never amount to much. Characters often talk past each other rather than to each other.
At some point a Doctor Who comes around and explains the backstory of the premise. Then there's a few more pages, and then the book ends.
The majority of the book has the protagonist teenage - that obviously believes the World is not the Dome - having various forms of abuse put upon him. The theories about the Dome never amount to much. Characters often talk past each other rather than to each other.
At some point a Doctor Who comes around and explains the backstory of the premise. Then there's a few more pages, and then the book ends.
September 3, 2018
Possibly the strangest setting I've read for a book. The world is entirely anchored to an endless vertical plane. Different villages are stuck on bookshelf-like plateaus to different parts of the world. Travel from one plane to the other is uncommon, acheived mostly by hanggliding or straight up parachuting. The societies are mostly brutal. I found the story a little twisty-turny and aimless but I'm always down to explore a strange premise.
July 22, 2018
This is a seriously interesting world that Roberts envisions. I am mesmerized by this world and its characters and except for the weird ending, I loved this book. No spoilers here, just admonition that Roberts can tell a tale and can create worlds (like in Salt and The Snow) that are so different than other sci-fi writers, that it's worth investing in his literature.
January 19, 2020
I love the weirdness of this book, both in the thought experiment it dramatizes and the alienating detachment of its tone. Extremely well written and often disturbing. Roberts is very skilled, very aware, and very unafraid to challenge his readers.
August 18, 2024
A structurally flawed book about a structurally flawed world. It's one of Roberts' early books and wears it rough edges and admiration for Christopher Priest more prominently than most, but at its core it's another clever high concept SF novel from perhaps the best mind currently in the game.
March 9, 2020
Another great concept but tedious narrative.
September 27, 2022
Quite a hard one to get into at first, but persistence paid off in the end... Some interesting concepts in this one...
April 14, 2023
Right On
The mystery in this book is stunning, and the reveal is very satisfying. A real sense of long history/layers in the world building.
The mystery in this book is stunning, and the reveal is very satisfying. A real sense of long history/layers in the world building.
May 18, 2023
Started off well with some interesting concepts but then just went downhill to a very disappointing ending.
February 17, 2017
On is an unusual book. It draws you in, is incredibly well written, has some stupendous ideas from the basic set up of the world that author Adam Roberts has set up, ranging through societal construction, science, religion and over the top mind blowing ideas.
Ultimately though, in my opinion a book that could well be on its way to being a masterpiece of the genre is hamstrung by the ending – and the fact that all that has gone before is so good makes it seem even worse.
The wall is a seemingly vast geographical feature stretching up and down seemingly forever. Its face is covered in shelves and ledges where people live a precarious existence.
One of these is a young man called Tighe a prince among his people, simply because of the wealth his father holds by way of goats. Roberts paints a fascinating view of the village and the way of life, really giving the strange and precarious existence of life on the wall, something that is emphasized when his family lose a goat over the edge.
It is the start of a series of events that see upheaval right through his family and ultimately end with Tighe falling off the wall himself. There is an awful lot conveyed in the novel up to this point, on the nature of the world itself, on religion and belief (two different things) and perhaps most strongly on the subject of growing up.
There are some really nice touches, showing differences between the world of the wall and our own existence, one of the biggest being how the people measure time – not in 24 hour cycles, and age seems to be a lot different too.
We see so much of this it is rather jarring when we see Tighe survive his fall and enter another society with different rules, language and size. It works well and we follow the young man through recovery, to becoming a soldier, to slave and beyond. It is when Tighe is rescued from the wall itself by an initially enigmatic, eccentric called the wizard that we get to see the bigger picture. Here Roberts hits you with ideas that are complex and big.
Why the wall is what it is, how it became that way it is. All with interesting features that we would not see otherwise.
There are some nice touches throughout, Tighes naivety about many things, his jumping to conclusions both right and wrong all make him feel more interesting.
In the end, though, quite literally it comes down to the conclusion.
I turned the page and was surprised to find the book just ended. The story was not over, and initially I felt as though there was a problem with the digital version I was reading. I then assumed there must have been a follow up novel I had missed somewhere, again no.
Roberts has said that when he was writing it that the ending just seemed the place to stop. He also noted that it seems to have split people, they love it or hate it.
I felt neither, just that it seemed a waste. I can recognise that the book has many positive aspects, the ending is a cut-off point that is as jarring as it is abrupt, and for me, like others does not work.
Ultimately though, in my opinion a book that could well be on its way to being a masterpiece of the genre is hamstrung by the ending – and the fact that all that has gone before is so good makes it seem even worse.
The wall is a seemingly vast geographical feature stretching up and down seemingly forever. Its face is covered in shelves and ledges where people live a precarious existence.
One of these is a young man called Tighe a prince among his people, simply because of the wealth his father holds by way of goats. Roberts paints a fascinating view of the village and the way of life, really giving the strange and precarious existence of life on the wall, something that is emphasized when his family lose a goat over the edge.
It is the start of a series of events that see upheaval right through his family and ultimately end with Tighe falling off the wall himself. There is an awful lot conveyed in the novel up to this point, on the nature of the world itself, on religion and belief (two different things) and perhaps most strongly on the subject of growing up.
There are some really nice touches, showing differences between the world of the wall and our own existence, one of the biggest being how the people measure time – not in 24 hour cycles, and age seems to be a lot different too.
We see so much of this it is rather jarring when we see Tighe survive his fall and enter another society with different rules, language and size. It works well and we follow the young man through recovery, to becoming a soldier, to slave and beyond. It is when Tighe is rescued from the wall itself by an initially enigmatic, eccentric called the wizard that we get to see the bigger picture. Here Roberts hits you with ideas that are complex and big.
Why the wall is what it is, how it became that way it is. All with interesting features that we would not see otherwise.
There are some nice touches throughout, Tighes naivety about many things, his jumping to conclusions both right and wrong all make him feel more interesting.
In the end, though, quite literally it comes down to the conclusion.
I turned the page and was surprised to find the book just ended. The story was not over, and initially I felt as though there was a problem with the digital version I was reading. I then assumed there must have been a follow up novel I had missed somewhere, again no.
Roberts has said that when he was writing it that the ending just seemed the place to stop. He also noted that it seems to have split people, they love it or hate it.
I felt neither, just that it seemed a waste. I can recognise that the book has many positive aspects, the ending is a cut-off point that is as jarring as it is abrupt, and for me, like others does not work.
December 23, 2014
Having been inspired by New Model Army, I went back to finish this.
And... it was still a bit of a slog, but I got there. As always with Roberts, the concept is brilliant - a world where something has shifted gravity so that it now operates parallel to the surface rather than perpendicular to it. It's a fascinating and original idea, and Roberts shows us several options for how society might evolve in the aftermath of an unthinkable catastrophe like that.
He does this by throwing his protagonist off the world, and having him land somewhere completely alien, then involving him in all kinds of unlikely adventures, before...
Before spending the final quarter using a literal deus ex machina to explain everything. At that point, I was perfectly happy with my suspicions, and would simply have liked some resolution for Tighe, but instead I got page after page of detailed history removing all of the mystique of the thing.
And then a somewhat flat, if in keeping with the rest of it, ending.
Good in parts, never reaches brilliant, however.
And... it was still a bit of a slog, but I got there. As always with Roberts, the concept is brilliant - a world where something has shifted gravity so that it now operates parallel to the surface rather than perpendicular to it. It's a fascinating and original idea, and Roberts shows us several options for how society might evolve in the aftermath of an unthinkable catastrophe like that.
He does this by throwing his protagonist off the world, and having him land somewhere completely alien, then involving him in all kinds of unlikely adventures, before...
Before spending the final quarter using a literal deus ex machina to explain everything. At that point, I was perfectly happy with my suspicions, and would simply have liked some resolution for Tighe, but instead I got page after page of detailed history removing all of the mystique of the thing.
And then a somewhat flat, if in keeping with the rest of it, ending.
Good in parts, never reaches brilliant, however.
Read
October 21, 2007http://nhw.livejournal.com/59559.html[return][return]A rather wacky setting this: a world where gravity goes parallel to the ground rather than perpendicular to it, so its inhabitants perceive it as a huge wall, with settlements clinging to ledges and everyone perpetually terrified of falling off (as indeed many do). We have some great scene-setting in the hero's small home village; he then arrives in a much bigger civilisation, gets embroiled in a war, and eventually comes close to finding out the Secret Behind It All. But I was a bit disappointed; there wasn't really much closure for any of the plot threads, and I rather felt the author had given up trying to think of things to do. I much preferred his earlier book, Salt; both are written in the same sparse style that I associate with English sf writers like Brian Aldiss, Christopher Priest and Stephen Baxter.
April 29, 2011
Take a single, basic concept, and extrapolate, and extrapolate, and keep extrapolating that one idea to everything in the world, letting each and every thing it touches react, influence each other, feed off each other, develop rules, cultures, societies, and myths... and then populate it. This is the recipe for almost any excellent science fiction - as long as that central idea remains dominant. Lose sight of that core, and you end up with bad sci-fi.
On uses one very simple concept - (*spoiler alert! read it yourself!*) - and builds a world. The story is an exploration of that world, a series of discoveries of what changed and how.
And in a sense, a pretty good analogy to understanding five-dimensional universes and hyperspace. Like I said - just keep extending the concept.
On uses one very simple concept - (*spoiler alert! read it yourself!*) - and builds a world. The story is an exploration of that world, a series of discoveries of what changed and how.
And in a sense, a pretty good analogy to understanding five-dimensional universes and hyperspace. Like I said - just keep extending the concept.
February 20, 2021
Another social/political novel as much as sci-fi. In fact, the weird science doesn't come in until much later, to resolve the theological debates throughout the book. It starts with Tighe's life in a small village as he nears puberty and continues through his life as he is conscripted into a war and has further misadventures that I won't go into as they would be spoilers. I did find it a page turner, to find out what happens next, but not quite as good as his first book, Salt because it had less focus on two social structures in conflict but went through several with more focus on the one character, with a weak ending.
June 1, 2013
To be rather honest, I found this book very lacking, the character development is shallow and the interaction choppy and disjointed.
What I got out of this was a story of a very self-centered princeling who finds himself in more and more improbable scenarios as he deals with what he perceives as dream until he learns the truth of the world he lives on, with a rather inconclusive ending, much as you would find in several movies whose producers anticipate sequels.
If it was not for the vague hint of a surprise twist ending that I read in one of the reviews, I would have deleted this book from my tablet before I got half through it
What I got out of this was a story of a very self-centered princeling who finds himself in more and more improbable scenarios as he deals with what he perceives as dream until he learns the truth of the world he lives on, with a rather inconclusive ending, much as you would find in several movies whose producers anticipate sequels.
If it was not for the vague hint of a surprise twist ending that I read in one of the reviews, I would have deleted this book from my tablet before I got half through it
May 16, 2022
This is real science fiction. Roberts takes something we all know — our world. Then he changes a single factor, the direction of gravity, and then rewrites the world to match the new reality. Unique idea and excellent story.
Unfortunately, Roberts has evolved his writing and would probably not write this way anymore.
Unfortunately, Roberts has evolved his writing and would probably not write this way anymore.
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