I have written a guest post for Keith Brooke’s InfinityPlus blog. The article, which goes under the title In Search of the Archetypal Spacer, examines my personal fascination with the recurring figure of the lone space trader in science fiction, from Han Solo to Mal Reynolds.

Read the full article here: In Search of the Archetypal Spacer

The Autumn edition of the Bristol Review of Books is out now, available free in Bristol galleries, museums, bookshops, cafes and Oxfam bookshops.

The Bristol Review of Books showcases literature and arts in the Bristol area, with incisive reviews, comment, features, interviews and new poetry and fiction.

The Autumn edition features a review of my novel The Recollection, and a short interview with me, written by Colin Harvey, who sadly passed away shortly after completing the article.

An obituary for Colin is also included in this issue.

If you are coming to BristolCon on 22nd October, you’ll be able to see me participating in the following programme items:

10.00 – If all Men are Authors, Who are the Audience? Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. – Marcus Tullius Cicero. They say that everyone has a novel in them (sometimes they say that’s where it should stay). How do we unleash the inner novel? Do we really want to, and anyway, if everyone is really writing a book, who is going to read it? With Justina Robson (Mod), Gareth L Powell, Alex Keller, Joanne Hall, Dolly Garland & MD Lachlan

14.00 – Tricks and Tools For Writers – Experience Shared. There are lots of computer applications and sources of advice for a new writer. The amount of information on the internet can sometimes be overwhelming, and that’s before you even open one of the hundreds of “How to Write” books out there. Here we bring together some really neat hints and tips from authors who have learned the hard way. With Alastair Reynolds (Mod), Emma Newman, Gareth L Powell, Wayne Simmons, Anne Lyle & Eugene Byrne

15.00 – The Recollection book launch

15.50 – Author reading: Gareth L. Powell

18.00 – Sci-Fi Now! Sliding doors, tricorders, communicators, space stations, and exploration of Mars. What have we achieved that was only science fiction fifty years ago? What happened to teleporters, jetpacks and flying cars? Will we ever get our base on the moon for our vacations? If so, when? With Gareth L Powell (Mod), John Meaney, Eugene Byrne, Dev Agarwal, Paul McAuley & Tim Maughan

19.00 – Storytelling or Literature? Some might argue that a good story is in itself a work of art. But do I want people to read my story, or do I want to be appreciated for my art? Are the two really mutually exclusive? With Paul Cornell (Mod), Juliet E McKenna, Justina Robson, Harriet Castor, Alex Keller & Gareth L Powell

The form below appeared in an early draft of The Recollection. It is the electronic form filled out by Katherine Abdulov in the middle of Chapter Twelve, immediately prior to the Ameline‘s departure from Strauli Quay.

Continue reading “Pre-flight Check List”

Last week, I flew to the Dordogne to visit my sister, and spent a couple of very enjoyable days exploring the region.

I took this photo on the return flight from Bergerac to Bristol, as we passed the coast of Western France at a height of 36,000 ft.

Although the air temperature on the ground below was a sweltering 30 degrees centigrade, the captain informed us that the air being sucked into that engine was a brisk minus 54.

After landing, as we disembarked the aircraft, I touched the skin of the fuselage. It was still cold.

I recently re-discovered my 2000AD annual from 1979. I must have read that book a hundred times as a child. Even now, more than thirty years later, I still remember most of the stories word-for-word.

Reading it back then, the year 2000 seemed unimaginably distant. The threat of the Cold War still hung over Europe, and most of the stories in the annual were set in post-apocalyptic wastelands.

I could never have imagined that thirty-two years later, the back cover of the September 2011 issue of the comic would feature a full-page ad for a novel that I had written. The thought would have blown my young mind.

In a good way.

Angelo Ventura has produced a picture loosely based on a scene from my novel, The Recollection, depicting the beach that Ed and Alice arrive at after their journey through the first portal.

You can see the picture here: DeviantArt

I have just found out that my story Fallout, which appeared in the Conflicts anthology from Newcon Press, received an honorable mention in The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24, edited by Gardner Dozois (published in the US as The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-eighth Annual Collection).

As far as I know, this is my first mention in one of Dozois’s Year’s Best collections.

Australian writer Rowena Cory Daniells has just posted an interview she did with me recently, in which we talk about my new book, the music I listen to while writing, and much more–including a discussion on why Fantasy is often wrongly perceived as a boy’s club.

Here’s part of my answer to her question:

“I don’t believe that there is a difference in the way that men and women approach the craft of writing genre fiction. If there is a difference between the sexes, it’s in the reception their writing receives. The latest figures I’ve seen seem to indicate that men and women are fairly evenly represented when it comes to the number of authors currently writing genre fiction; however, the male writers seem to get more reviews and more exposure than the females, which is obviously grossly unfair—especially in a genre that prides itself on its open-mindedness.”

Read the full interview here.

According to my publisher,

“The Recollection is presenting an interesting phenomenon.  The US is a much more developed ebook market, but for the first time in the UK we’re seeing Kindle sales of Recollection outpacing physical sales from Amazon.co.uk.”

Apparently, this is the first time it’s happened in the month of release.

Click here for the Kindle and paperback editions: Amazon.co.uk

What’s your preferred format?