Yellow Blue Tibia. Adam Roberts.

Adam Roberts is incredibly clever and especially with his writing
skills. He can imitate or create apparently any style and in this novel,
he has chosen droll humour with frequent misunderstandings and non
sequiturs which I occasionally found tedious but after about half way
through this ceased to annoy.

This novel explains the contradictory facts about UFOs.
1) UFOs have been seen and are believed in by millions.
2) UFOs don’t exist.

The plot begins in 1946 with a plan devised by (Joe SF) Stalin, to
ensure the future of the Soviet Union by bonding the populace through a
common enemy. Because he believes the Americans won't last long as an
enemy, he commands a group of science fiction writers, (all Russian Jews
except for one, a "Slav"), to invent and provide details of these alien
invaders. Forty years on in 1986 Konstantin meets the other surviving
writer from the group, the Slav, now a 'government employee', who thinks
their fiction has always been reality.(I would love to give examples but
that would ruin surprise easter eggs.) Things become delightfully crazy
with lots of droll humour. Much of the humour is directed at the
stereotyped propaganda image of Russians under the Soviet Government and
he keeps coming up with their automatic behaviours usually involving
avoiding the KGB, fear of authority and hive behaviour.
"Why would you take a car from Moscow to Kiev? That's what trains are for."
It is a lot funnier than I am describing but if it was written about
some other nation, it would probably be vilified. There is little in the
way of serious politics so it is not an alternative history but some
events have been now correctly attributed to Aliens.
I can't say too much without perhaps decreasing your reading enjoyment
but it involves influence of alternate reality selection.
"Yellow Blue Tibia" sounds like the Russian for "I love You" for reasons
explained later but this is no soppy love story. For me it was mainly a
comedy with fascinating science fictional ideas. 4 of 5 stars.

‘Officer Zembla, interrogation February 20th 1986. Suspect to state his
name.’
‘Konstantin Skvorecky.’
‘Occupation?’
‘I work as a translator.’
Zembla looked hard at me. ‘As it might be, foreign languages?’
‘As it might be.’
‘In particular?’
‘The English particular. I speak a little French too.’
‘That’s a job?’
‘Doesn’t it sound like one to you?’
‘Just speaking a language?’ said Zembla. ‘Not really. You speak English?
But isn’t England full of people who speak English?’
‘True,’ I said. ‘But not many of them speak Russian.’
‘Why go to England for that? The Soviet Union contains millions of
people who speak Russian!

On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 18:13:30 +1300, Titus G wrote:

> Yellow Blue Tibia. Adam Roberts.
>
> Adam Roberts is incredibly clever and especially with his writing
> skills. He can imitate or create apparently any style and in this novel,
> he has chosen droll humour with frequent misunderstandings and non
> sequiturs which I occasionally found tedious but after about half way
> through this ceased to annoy.
>
> This novel explains the contradictory facts about UFOs.
> 1) UFOs have been seen and are believed in by millions.
> 2) UFOs don’t exist.
>
> The plot begins in 1946 with a plan devised by (Joe SF) Stalin, to
> ensure the future of the Soviet Union by bonding the populace through a
> common enemy. Because he believes the Americans won't last long as an
> enemy, he commands a group of science fiction writers, (all Russian Jews
> except for one, a "Slav"), to invent and provide details of these alien
> invaders. Forty years on in 1986 Konstantin meets the other surviving
> writer from the group, the Slav, now a 'government employee', who thinks
> their fiction has always been reality.(I would love to give examples but
> that would ruin surprise easter eggs.) Things become delightfully crazy
> with lots of droll humour. Much of the humour is directed at the
> stereotyped propaganda image of Russians under the Soviet Government and
> he keeps coming up with their automatic behaviours usually involving
> avoiding the KGB, fear of authority and hive behaviour.
> "Why would you take a car from Moscow to Kiev? That's what trains are
> for." It is a lot funnier than I am describing but if it was written
> about some other nation, it would probably be vilified. There is little
> in the way of serious politics so it is not an alternative history but
> some events have been now correctly attributed to Aliens.
> I can't say too much without perhaps decreasing your reading enjoyment
> but it involves influence of alternate reality selection.
> "Yellow Blue Tibia" sounds like the Russian for "I love You" for reasons
> explained later but this is no soppy love story. For me it was mainly a
> comedy with fascinating science fictional ideas. 4 of 5 stars.
>

I have recently posted to a UFO forum an similar re-framing of
the 1947 and subsequent UFO frenzies. Journalists and sf writers
were enlisted to create a cover story for military mapping of
the jet streams requiring large balloons that would sweep across
the sky. The writers created alien invasion scenarios and the
newsmen turned the notions into fake stories about mysterious
objects in the sky that aligned with the visible actuality.