With a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe, each containing a hundred billion stars, it seems likely that intelligent life will have arisen somewhere other than the Earth. However, as most of those galaxies are so far away, we have no way of detecting the existence of life in them.

Take the galaxy NGC 7049 as an example. It lies 100 million light years away, in the constellation of Indus. That means that the light from its stars takes 100 million years to reach us. We don’t see it as it is today, but rather how it appeared at the time the dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

In the intervening time, an intelligent civilisation could have arisen in NGC 7049, much as it has on Earth. They could be there right now, but we will never know. We will never find any trace of them, even if they send us a radio message; because by the time the light images of their accomplishments and the radio signals of their messages reach us, another 100 million years will have passed.

Those hundred billion galaxies in the night sky could be teeming with intelligent life, but we are separated in time as well as in space, and the chances are we will never know them, and they will never know us.

If you are a BSFA member, you probably already know that the BSFA Award nominations for 2010 are now open.

If you’re wondering who and what to vote for, I’d like to remind you that my novel Silversands is eligible for the Best Novel category, as it was published by Pendragon Press in April 2010.

I also have five pieces eligible for the Best Short Story category, including:

1. The Church of Accelerated Redemption by Gareth L. Powell and Aliette de Bodard, published in the Shine anthology from Solaris Books, April 2010.
2. Entropic Angel by Gareth L. Powell, published in the Dark Spires anthology from Wizard’s Tower, November 2010.
3. The Bigger The Star, The Faster It Burns by Gareth L. Powell, published in the 2020 Visions anthology from M-Brane Press, November 2010.
4. Fallout by Gareth L. Powell, published in the Conflicts anthology from NewCon Press, April 2010.
5. Gonzo Laptop by Gareth L. Powell, published in Hub Magazine, January 2010.

All nominations will be gratefully appreciated. If you are a BSFA member, you can make your nominations via the website here.

I’ve sold another short story to an anthology. I can’t say more at this stage, but watch this space for further announcements…

We have snow in the village and our road is like an ice rink. It’s funny, because it’s only when it snows that I realise how steep it is. Yesterday, I managed to skid on some ice and run the car into a hedge, knocking the front wheels out of alignment. This morning, I got it to the local garage; they’re going to have a look at it but can’t promise to fix it as they can’t get new parts delivered until the roads are cleared. If they can’t mend the problem before Christmas, it will put our plans to spend the day with relatives in jepoardy.

The snow this morning is even heavier than it was yesterday, and its falling on ice, which makes everything slippery. The local shops have been stripped of bread and milk with no word when the next deliveries will be. And to top it off, both the kids are down with sore throats and colds, and can’t enjoy sledging.

But on the positive side, today marks the fourteenth anniversary of the day I first met my wife.

Roll on the thaw!

This afternoon, Colin Harvey and I gave another lecture to creative writing students at Bath Spa University. The format was more or less the same as that of the lecture we gave in May, but this time the audience was much larger. Around 70 students attended the lecture. They were responsive and asked some good questions. They even laughed in the right places.

My novel The Recollection is now officially listed on the Solaris Books website, for release in September 2011.

Here’s the blurb:

In modern-day London, failed artist Ed Emery is secretly in love with his brother’s wife, Alice. When his brother disappears on a London Underground escalator, Ed and Alice have to put aside their personal feelings in order to find him. Their quest reveals to them terrifying glimpses of alien worlds and the far future.

Meanwhile, 400 years in the future, Katherine Abdulov must travel to a remote planet in order to regain the trust of her influential family. The only person standing in her way is her former lover, Victor Luciano, the ruthless employee of a rival trading firm. And in the unforgiving depths of space, an ancient evil stirs…

Gareth L. Powell’s epic new science-fiction novel reveals a story of galaxy-spanning scope by a writer of astounding vision.

Click here for link.

My favourite books published in 2010 have been:

• Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks. Starting with a seemingly insignificant murder and then pulling back the focus to see how its repurcussions affect politics on a galactic scale, Surface Detail sees the utopian Culture going up against more religiously traditional civilisations in an effort to wipe out their sadistic electronic afterlives.

• Zero History by William Gibson. Almost the antithesis of Banks’s book, Zero History eschews a futuristic setting, instead focusing its action in London in 2009, as various characters struggle to unearth the clues that will lead them to the designer of a “secret” clothing brand.

• Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. Beukes repeats the success of her debut Moxyland, this time bringing us a gritty urban fantasy set in South Africa, and a tough, likeable heroine searching for some kind of absolution amidst the crime and struggle of everyday life.

Some books change the world. Read at the right time, they have the power to change our thinking, to inspire us, and to change our lives. When we put them down, we are no longer the same people we were when we picked them up.

The books listed below are the books that have had the greatest impact on my life and my development as a writer. I’m not claiming that they’re the best books ever written (that’s a topic for a different article); but each holds a special place in my heart, and each has contributed something to the way I now see my relationship with the world around me. If I hadn’t read them when I did, I wouldn’t be the same person I am today.

Some books change the world; and these are the books that changed mine.

Continue reading “Five Books That Changed My World”

The 2020 Visions anthology is now available from M-Brane Press, edited by Rick Novy and featuring sixteen original stories of the near-future – including one of mine.

• Mary Robinette Kowal “Birthright”
• Sheila Finch “The Persistence of Butterflies”
• Randy Henderson “A Shelter for Living Things”
• Jason S. Ridler “Showing Light”
• Ernest Hogan “Radiation is Groovy, Kill the Pigs”
• David Lee Summers “The Revelation of Thought”
• Jeff Spock “Teh Afterl1fe”
• Emily Devenport “If the Sun’s at Five O’Clock, It Must be Yellow Daisies”
• Cat Rambo “Therapy Buddha”
• Jack Mangan “Dead Rookies”
• David Boop “Organ Cloning While You Wait”
• Spencer Ellsworth “The Black Plague of Our Generation”
• Gareth L. Powell “The Bigger The Star, The Faster It Burns”
• Alethea Kontis “Pocket Full of Posey”
• Alex Wilson “Nervewrecking”
• David Gerrold “Time Capsule 2120: Actual Comments from Lunar Tourists”

You can buy 2020 Visions via Amazon.com. At the moment there’s no sign of it at Amazon.co.uk, but I’m sure it will be available there soon.

As well as stories by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Kim Lakin-Smith and Jennifer Williams, the new issue of Dark Fiction Magazine contains an audio file of me reading my short story What Would Nicolas Cage Have Done? This was recorded by Del in a side room at the recent BristolCon conference, hence the distant crowd noise.