New Review Of The Last Reef
Filed under Reviews • 13-04-2010 •
Some time ago, Colin Harvey wrote a review of my short story collection The Last Reef for the Internet Review of Science Fiction. Now that the IROSF has ceased publication, Colin has posted the review on his own website.
This is my favourite part:
Powell shares with Clarke and Stapleton a sense of humanity’s insignificance in the universe … but Powell is as reminiscent of J.G. Ballard as of Clarke — from the moment when the narrator embraces his infected wife in ‘A Necklace of Ivy,’ to the rising waters and fleets of refugee container ships of ‘Flotsam,’ echoing Ballard’s The Drowned World and his visions of drained swimming pools and abandoned Cape Canaveral … But unlike Ballard, whose protagonists were cold, damaged men, Powell’s heroes turn and face their catastrophes prompted by love or a sense of what’s right — duty, to use an unfashionable word. At their best Powell’s stories fuse the traditional ideas driven British-fiction with detailed characterization, and action.
To read the full review, click here.
Tags: Colin Harvey • Elastic Press • Gareth L Powell • Short Story • The Last Reef
