Book Log 2010 #41: Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts

In the post-WWII Soviet Union, Stalin brings together a group of science fiction writers to create an alien menace that can be used to give the Soviet people a common enemy when the decadent and corrupt United States inevitably falls by the wayside. The group gets to work, but several months in are told to stop working, go home, and not mention anything about this assignment to anyone. Ever. Or else.

Jump ahead about 40 years, and one of those writers finds himself being drawn in by both a group of UFO believers and another of the writers (now in the KGB) with the suggestion that the alien menace created for Stalin is actually coming to pass.

What follows is an interesting, and often humorous, story about aliens, the crumbling Soviet Union, the nature of space and time, and one man's longshot at redemption and love (the title is a reference to a group of English words that, when said together, sounds like the Russian for "I love you."). I was very pleased with how the book delivered on its unusual plot, and would recommend it, at least to other sci-fi dilletantes like myself.