Alert readers have spotted that many of my short stories appear to be set against a common background. To clarify matters, I have prepared this list, which groups together the linked stories in “chronological” order, according to the sequence of events they describe. 

Continue reading “Notes on future history”

The following review appears on the MySpace blog of Morpheus Tales, the magazine of horror, science fiction and fantasy:

THE LAST REEF AND OTHER STORIES by Gareth L Powell

I liked this book, I really liked it. It’s not often that you come across a book by an author you have never heard of and you discover something amazing, but this is one of those rare books.

It sparkles.

Continue reading “Morpheus Tales review”

The November issue of Concept Sci-Fi is now available to download as a free pdf file. The issue includes my short story Flotsam, set in Amsterdam and the Mediterranean. Flotsam originally appeared in my short story collection, The Last Reef, and is a sequel of sorts to the book’s title story.

While on the Concept Sci-Fi site, you can also check out the interview I did for them a couple of months ago: http://www.conceptscifi.com/igpowell.htm

Sometimes the power of the subconscious amazes me. Last night for instance, I dreamed I was writing the plot outline for a 100,000 word SF noir murder/mystery novel set on Earth in the near future. The dream was so vivid that when I woke up this morning and wrote down as much of it as I could remember, I ended up with a workable 2,000 word outline. It’s a little rough around the edges at the moment but it’s definitely got potential.

SLEEP NOW
By Gareth L Powell

It begins on a sad and lonely September evening, as the sound of a piano draws me to the back room of a small pub on the edge of the park, by the river. Stepping inside, I slide over to a table and order a drink. The pianist sits in the darkness behind his instrument, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his fingers stroking the keys, his eyes screwed tight.

Continue reading “Friday Flash Fiction 47″

New Scientist magazine asked six major SF writers for their thoughts on the future of science fiction, and received some interesting replies:

Continue reading “The future of science fiction”

Phil Plait has news of an exciting development in astronomy - the first optical images of planets orbiting other stars.

Yet there they are, proof that our planetary system is not the only one in the Universe… There, with your own eyes, you can see for yourself that other planets exist. They are not Earthlike, not even a little… they are massive, young, hot planets that are probably mostly gaseous and completely inhospitable. But there they are.

Read the full story (and see the pictures) on Phil’s Discover Magazine blog: http://tinyurl.com/6lvxru

The British Science Fiction Association seeks nominations from its members for its annual awards. As my short story collection was published in 2008, three of the stories in it are eligible for the Short Fiction category, as their appearance in the book marked their first time in print:

• Flotsam
• Hot Rain
• Arches

If you’re a member of the BSFA and you enjoyed the book, you might consider nominating one of the stories. If you haven’t read it yet, you can buy it as a printed copy on Amazon or as an ebook via Fictionwise.

(Those of you who enjoyed the book’s title story The Last Reef when it appeared in Interzone, may be interested to learn that Flotsam and Hot Rain are both sequels to that story.)

“the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”

- John Steinbeck

Writing on Bookslut, Paul Kincaid seeks to reassure the voices constantly heralding the “death” of science fiction:

The truth is, we tire of novelty more quickly than we tire of anything else. And because science fiction as a genre lives and dies by novelty, it suffers from this ennui more than any other form of fiction. So if, for whatever reason, science fiction is not challenging the way we understand the world, disrupting our sense of reality, or doing any of the other things we associate with novelty, then our automatic reaction is that the genre is dying. It is all or nothing… Science fiction has always been dying. That’s how it reinvents itself.