KEITH ROBERTS: The Artwork & Manuscripts of an SF Master
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Steve takes a trip into the wilds of Gloucestershire, where he meets an old friend who was once involved with the British SF small press renaissance of the 1980s. He examines signed typescripts, an unpublished story and signed limited edition prints produced by Keith Roberts, the incredibly gifted but notoriously difficult master of English literary SF.
Sincere thanks and acknowledgements to Ben Staveley-Taylor
Music: Steve Holmes (C) steveholmes.ba...
#bookrecommendations #sciencefiction #booktube #fantasybooks - Розваги
For more detail on the history of the artwork in this video, please read the post from leakybootpress below- thanks, Steve
Keith Roberts, I think I could be falling in love.
I have a few of his books in omnibus format. The only title I've been able to find in a or b format is Pavane.
I love the Keith Roberts New Worlds covers and have the ones that you show. Your comment on craft of making the drawings for Kerosina:
My nephew works in the art department of a company making banknote and passport images. He makes intricate tiny marks and each image can take months of work. My elder daughter works for a computer games company and makes 3d images for immersive experience.
I remember when I was training as a bookbinder in the late 1970s to early 1980s working with a tutor at a company in Leathermarket near Borough in London. It was still like the 19th Century. It was dark, the buildings timbers were dark, a bit like visiting HMS Victory in Portsmouth. The stairs were like ladders. Each worker did a specific task in the process with strict hierarchy and demarcation. You really had to pay your dues before you could move to greater responsibility and skilled activity. All gone now. I wanted to make whole books, start to finish... then I wanted to have made all the contents too. I went to do a Fine Art degree, I still do not quite know where my practice fits in.
Thanks for the video.
Hi Keith, good to hear from you. A friend of mine's father was a bookbinder back then too, as you say, all gone now, very sad- though we have a real bindery here in Bath, Bayntun's, they do some nice stuff, but naturally very pricey. KR was very particular about printing and reproduction standards and flew into a rage about the quality of a promotional flyer that Ben proofed - even after decades in the same sort of work Ben says he still cannot see what KR was upset about- this almost upended the whole Kerosina project. It was this perfectionism - which I totally sympathise with - and the inability to accept the lack of it as a reality of commercial publishing - which is something all writers have to deal with - that effectively destroyed KR's mainstream career. Shame, as he was deserving of far more.
Yes I visited Bayntun’s back then. Drove there in my Morris Traveller with mushrooms growing along the woodwork. Ten year old cars seemed very old in those days.
@@keithreynolds My dad had a Morris like that...
Fantastic treasures Steve, how fascinating to see these unique items and a glimpse of the SF scene in the 80's. Amazing stuff, thanks to you and Ben🙂
Thanks mate - it was a good trip and fantastic to acquire this amazing archive material. I just have to frame the prints now and will show them on the channel when I do.
They'll look great!@@outlawbookselleroriginal
You meeting the model for Jim Burns' art work is a literal expression of your saying to lean into art. What a story 😮
Yes, it was just one of those incredible, contingent things that sometime happen when you work in books for decades- I'll never forget it.
Love the art work! What a talented man. Finally got around to reading Pavane. Wonderful stories.
Yes, Keith was one of the very finest. His work has incredible quality and power, a real writer. Glad to hear you've read 'Pavane' - the story sequence fixup was his preferred method of constructing novels (in that way he was quite old school). You should really enjoy 'Kiteworld', which is similar, but often reminds me of the atmosphere of 'Inverted World'.
A very personal video. I feel a bit like a fly on the wall.
Thanks for letting us in to see behind the scenes - satisfying the scopaphillic drive.
In depth.
Glad you liked it. A little bit of hardcore detailed SF history was necessary at this point, I felt!
Wonderful! Really enjoyed it.
Thanks so much.
Beautiful presentation...this one looked like a labour of love!
Shooting in noisy, wet, inconvenient public places - and in my tiny study ('The Hideout') is always a challenge and considering how much swearing went on off-camera, I was quite pleased with this. I'm very glad you liked it!
Great video about an incredibly talented man. I first became aware of him as an artist through his covers for Michael Moorcock's second "Corum" trilogy and only later asa writer, I've tracked down a fair few of his works but there;s still a lot for me to look for. Thanks for a gli,pse at this wonderful stuff.
Yeah, those Corum jackets are brilliant, I have two of the three of those myself. Glad you enjoyed the clip.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Got them from the library back in the 70s, just had to seek them out and get them when the internet came along as they are such great covers.
What a draughtsman - such high quality artwork, and then there is his prose. I have read very little of KR but it seems like he is a 20th century writer whose reputation needs massive upgrading.
Yes, Keith's art was first rate. He always had a great literary reputation- but his personality made him anathema among British mainstream publishers, who recognised his genius, but found him impossible to work with- as did other writers. I would also say that Keith was too literary for many average SF readers as well, though anyone who likes Wyndham, Aldiss, Priest, Ballard, Harrison - the whole English school- should love his work. He's badly served even now, with 'Pavane' staying in print, while everything else languishes- 'The Furies', 'Molly Zero' and 'Kiteworld' should all be Gollancz Masterworks, but as I've said, several of his later books - about 7 in total- have never had UK mass market paperback editions.
Extremely talented man wonderful artist and author .
Yes, I grow more enamoured of Keith's work the more I go back to it. One day, I may try and write a biography of him, even if it's only an essay.
Thanks
Thanks very much, super-thanks always helps the channel enormously!
I've read Jamaica Inn when I was a kid, and was so impressed by it, for years I lived with the notion that Daphne du Maurier was a man.
I read about 60% of her output in my teens. She could pretty much write anything.
Great nostalgia viewing for me, thanks Steve!
I have copies of most of the typescript material, but not the Molly Zero unfortunately. As I recall, we got a mixed box of mss material from Keith and we took it in turns to select from it. I got the ribbon carbon for The Chalk Giants and some shorter works. I must disinter them, I haven't looked at them for years.
The KR book I'm proudest to have been involved in publishing is Grainne. It's my second favourite among his novels. I'll tell you how I secured it for publication one day.
I think Ben misremembers why the limited edition prints came into being. Think about it, twenty-six copies of the books quarter bound in leather, but only twenty-five prints.
Is all this stuff in your KR collection now? If so you're close to rivalling mine.
It's good to see that Ben hasn't lost his addiction to Val Doonigan style sweaters!
I have Grainne, but alas not Molly Zero. Great nostalgia for me as well.
Yes, I wondered later about the 25/26 discrepancy. So why did the print come into being? Any memories or theories?
All this material is now in my collection, yes, Ben wanted to part with it as he finds it too painfully to recall the bad stuff with KR and kindly offered me the material- and yes, he's still THE Sweater Man of British SF fandom- hell of a nice guy, we always got on, it was great to see him again after so long.
The ribbon carbon for 'The Chalk Giants' - Mein Gott!
The prints were produced to sell because we loved the illustrations. I think we charged £25 each for them back in the day. I have one of each ... somewhere. That price covered costs and left spare for a small payment for Keith, who kind of oversaw the project. He had a contact who could still produce acid etched printing plates, I think on brass, they were beautiful objects in their own right. Once the plates were made the prints were produced one by one on a hand operated proofing press on very good quality art paper. They're the real McCoy, limited edition prints produced in the traditional way.
It was very generous of Ben to give you all that material, but... you said a while back that you were not going to get into collecting mss material... hahaha!
@@leakybootpress9699 Well, slippery slope, Jim! Good to hear about the print detail, I'm not surprised given Keith's status as a Master Craftsman- he'd have done well in the Renaissance...
Amazing!
Thanks Rose. I try and go into the background detail when an opportunity arises.
Brilliant
You're very kind.
Great video as always. I've been working my way through your stuff at I've learned so much,
On Keith, I read from Wikipedia that he was politically conservative and anti-communist. Apart from how he used the English landscape, do you think this feeds into his work in other ways? I haven't read any of his stuff yet but he's on the TBR pile ...
Yes. Watch my top 25 SF novels video, in part two I cover 'Molly Zero', which is a dystopian novel that makes clear Keith's feelings on Totalitarianism.
A faithful but bittersweet tribute, OB. I never had the opportunity to read KR, but might try to find some to add to my upcoming winter TBR. Any suggestion as to a good starter? As always, great quality, content, production and presentation. Cheers.
Thanks Rick. Well, the consensus on Roberts is that 'Pavane' is his 100% classic. I love 'Pavane', but I am equally fond of 'Molly Zero' and 'The Chalk Giants' - though they are more challenging books and Us copies of 'The Chalk Giants' have frame narrative sections removed from them. so they are incomplete. 'The Furies' - his debut novel- is like a super-tough Wyndham, while his mid 1980s 'Kiteworld' is a cracker too.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal "Pavane" and "Molly Zero" are both great choices but for me "The Chalk Giants" is the cream. Maybe start with some short stories, he was a master of this form. The "Anita" stories are fun.
@@leemason6897 I increasingly favour 'Chalk', it's so uncompromising.
@@leemason6897 -I tend to favour 'The Chalk Giants' these days as I think it's his most uncompromising work, a very brave experiment.
Sweet
Cheers Walter!
Lovely artwork
Yes, it's great, isn't it? He was so talented and comparatively unsung.
What an amazing artist Keith was. His kind are sadly not around in.today's AI saturated world.
Yes, he was a one off in so many ways, a great creative per se.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal , Keith Roberts has been on my radar for some time. Pavane was on my TBR pile for some time. I've read it twice already. However it has been thanks to your videos about him, his background and other works, that have made Keith Roberts more of a flesh and blood presence for me.
@@danieldelvalle5004 My pleasure, Daniel!
If you like second person you would like NK Jemison
I'm sorry her name is NK Jemisen
Read her, not a fan, not enough of a stylist for me I'm afraid.
Your video prompted me to reread KR's chapter in Dream Masters vol. 2, edited by Charles Platt, which features a rather pudgy-looking photo of KR and an interview that doesn't reveal much. Do you know of any other interviews he gave that are still available? It seems like no one alive really knew him well. Perhaps the man will always be a mystery. I'm very glad you made this video.
There was a time when Keith gave lots of interviews. I used to own a Roberts special edition of Vector, the BSFA magazine, about the time Grainne came out. It was full of the usual paranoia about people stealing his royalties and not respecting his talent, and this was just after the Kerosina people had done all that work to bring his books out. I think the issue is available in the Vector archives on line, but I don't remember the issue number.
He also did interviews and articles for Foundation magazine, often arguing about reviews of his work, and more recently he is featured in Paul Kincaid's Call and Response from Beccon books. Paul is also working on a book length study of Pavane.
He really was a great writer but a difficult man.
As Allan says below, if you dig online you can find some, but there were very few compared to other SF writers of his stature and generation. I've not read that 'Dream Makers 2' one as that's a book impossible to find in the UK, but it is on my 'must have' list. Keith rarely ever did cons or signings as well- I think the only ones were late in his career for Kerosina.
Thanks for this, Allan.
I own both volumes of Dream Makers, and they're both great reads, and today they have a poignant dimension, since so many of the authors have passed or are about to. Christopher Priest is his bracingly honest self in it, and it was nice to see in your interview that he hasn't softened over the years. I'd send them to you, Steve, but only my own passing could pry them out of my hands.
@@psychonaut56 Understandable- I have the first volume, owned it since the late 80s and I will acquire vol 2. Chris P is always unvarnished, but never without self-deprecating wit and charm. We hope to do another interview early next year looking at the 21st century work but he is busy with a new book currently- I am sworn to secrecy but it will be a big thing.
I read somewhere that Keith Roberts alienated his publisher by accusing them of stealing royalties. Not sure how true that was. Some writers are prickly. We had John Brunner at out SF convention (Feb 1987?), I asked him what he was working on, wrong question, he told us but clearly thought it would be jinxed. Incidentally I just saw this on UA-cam ua-cam.com/video/MPqe7Gr2aiw/v-deo.html
"Sci-Fi"................ "Steeeee-eeeeve?" "Am I allowed to watch the video?".
Hi Julian- yes, that's right - there was a typo in a column of figures which suggest the gross income was much bigger than it was (if you followed the maths in the column it could be seen it was a typo) but Keith saw this as evidence of fraud- I think it was Penguin, but can't recall. It may have been Christopher Priest who told me the detail of this, I'm not certain now.
Yes, I've seen some of that video, looks like the penny is finally dropping among the larger, more mainstream SF youtube channels- but as he says 'Sci-Fi' all the way through, I find him impossible the watch, though I'm sure he's a good guy. I don't watch much SF content on YT as quite honestly, being older than most of the popular people and having been reading SF for much longer, they don't usually do anything for me- though I make exceptions for Matt at Bookpilled (my good friend) and others like Matt Dafoe at Science Fiction Reads (another lovely chap), Jon at Sci-Fi Scavenger (we've collabbed once), Richard at Vintage SF and Michael at FIT2BREAD who knows his onions too.
My feeling is that Sci-Fi Odyssey is seeing what I suggested in my 'Are Female Readers & Writers..' video a few months back, but not with the same pointed pro lens I trained on things: after all, I see the reality almost daily in my work. His friend can't find stuff to read as (1) not much SF is actually being published as Genre SF (there's almost as much SF issued under mainstream fiction guise) and (2) he needs to read more old stuff (why do people think that they have to read new books all the time? As I said in my video on SF and Modernism, we are programmed by capitalism and modernity to 'keep up'), while (3) all this is down to publishers spending most of their combined SF/Fantasy budgets on Fantasy by and aimed at young female readers, while neglecting more established markets- and that's because it's selling really well, plus it fits the 'inclusivity' narrative, since people still seem to think females have been 'excluded' from SFF - well, in my 40 years of bookselling, I can confirm the only people who kept females out of SFF were females themselves: they decided not to read it, which you can't blame men for....
You could mate, but you'll probably know the whys and wherefores before you start it....his heart is in the right place, though.