Matthew S. Dent has posted a review of The Recollection on his blog.

“It’s a wondrously complex patchwork, with a great attention to detail and to the sub-genre’s rich history. To those who are widely read within it, the wealth of little nods here and there will stand out like little gemstones. For those without such experience, the attention to detail will do the same.

“Particularly notable is Powell’s grasp of the consequences of relativity. Space travel across the cosmos is possible in the world of The Recollection, but a journey which is instantaneous from the the perspective of the traveller takes objectively as long as the same journey would at the speed of light. It not only throws up fascinating problems of timelines out of synch, but manages to knit the plot together across centuries.

“The beauty here is that Powell has a good grasp of both the technical and the artistic side. I’m loathe to call this “hard” sci-fi, because it lacks the dryness which frequently marrs that genre. But it feels accurate, with a realistic atmosphere and entirely believable characters.”

Read the full review here.

I’m delighted to share the news that following last week’s deal with Anarchy Books, I have also signed contracts for a brand new novel with Solaris Books.

Here is the official press release:

1 November 2011

Powell’s new ‘alternative history, gonzo cyberpunk’ novel picked up by Solaris

Solaris is proud to announce it has commissioned the next book from one of the most exciting new voices in science fiction, Gareth L. Powell.

Ack-Ack Macaque will be published in January 2013. Based on a short story published in 2007, the author describes the story as ‘a fusion of alternate history and gonzo cyberpunk’.

In a world where France and Great Britain merged in the late 1950s, Powell has crafted an environment where nuclear-powered Zeppelins encircle the globe, electronic ghosts stalk the living, and a king lies dying; a world in which a half-brained woman struggles to solve a deadly riddle in order to regain her stolen soul, and a monkey sets about killing as many online gamers as possible, in order to avert Armageddon.

With the scale of Iain M. Banks and the intrigue of Alastair Reynolds, Powell’s The Recollection was published by Solaris earlier this year and brought a stunning breath of fresh air into epic science-fiction – an astounding novel about both personal human relationships and their place in the vastness of time and space.

“It’s a real thrill to discover a great new voice in SF,” said Jonathan Oliver, editor-in-chief of Solaris. “I was utterly blown away by Gareth’s The Recollection and Ack-Ack-Macaque will show again how diverse and incisive a writer Powell is.”

www.solarisbooks.com

Yesterday evening, as this year’s highly enjoyable Bristolcon convention drew to a close, the organisers  announced that John Meaney, Anne Sudworth and I will be their Guests of Honour at next year’s convention.

Although I have participated in panel discussions and readings at a number of conventions and events, this is the first time I have been invited as a GoH, and I am deeply honoured to have been asked.

One of my duties as GoH will be to be interviewed in front of an audience by Kim Lakin-Smith, where we’ll talk about my work, etc.

I am delighted to have signed contracts with Anarchy Books for the publication of my first two books in electronic formats.

Anarchy Books Press Release >..

It is with great pleasure Anarchy Books would like to announce the acquisition of digital rights to not one, but TWO works of SF by the wonderfully talented Gareth L. Powell, author of fabulous SF novel THE RECOLLECTION (published by Solaris Books), Guest of Honour at 2012’s BristolCon and regular contributor to a host of anthologies including Shine, Conflicts, Further Conflicts, 2020 Visions, Future Bristol, Dark Spires, Illuminations and The Sixty.

First we have an incredible collection of SF short stories entitled The
Last Reef containing everything from alien insect invasions to high-octane roller-coaster rides packing enough concepts and inventions to make any lesser SF author weep!

Second, we have Silversands, set in an age when interstellar travel is dangerous and unpredictable, and communications officer Avril Bradley is sent to re-contact lost souls… After an explosion, she is left stranded in a world of retired cops, political intrigue, digital ghosts and corporate assassins, fighting for possession of computer data that will allow them to reach out towards the stars…

Both novels will be available to download from Anarchy Books in PDF, MOBI and EPUB formats during Q1 of 2012 for just £2.49.

Visit www.anarchy-books.com and www.garethlpowell.com for updates.

Message ends >>.

L-R: Paul Cornell, Gareth L. Powell, Justina Robson, Juliet E. McKenna

(photo by Cheryl Morgan)

Link to original image:

This is a guest post from publisher and fellow Solaris author Keith Brooke:

I’m never quite sure how I end up volunteering myself for these things. You know… those idle ideas that lead to you publishing a weekly genre fiction showcase for, oh, ten years, featuring most of the leading contemporary authors and a host of new talent. That kind of thing.

Back in 1997 that’s exactly what happened. In my day job I’d been on a course to learn how to write HTML and I decided to put it to good use to support my writing career by setting up a website. This was just the time when authors were becoming aware of the web but most weren’t using it regularly, much less using it to publish and publicise their work.

It occurred to me that it might be good to make the site a collective showcase rather than just a Keith Brooke website, and this idea was met with enthusiasm by the fellow writers I mentioned it to. I published the site in August of that year and sat back, job done.

That’s when I realised that there are some important differences between publishing on the web and in print. In print, you really can say “job done”, but on the web, things could be updated, added to, expanded. And so that’s what I did: after the site went up with stories from me, Eric Brown, Mike Cobley and Steve Baxter, other writers became interested and so I added their work too. When I started to get emails from people like Kit Reed and Terry Bisson I realised that infinity plus, as I had called the site, had picked up a quite astonishing momentum. Before long, the site had become the equivalent of a weekly magazine, with hundreds of thousands of regular visitors. In its ten year lifespan the site published over two million words of fiction, a thousand book reviews, a hundred interviews and a variety of other material. The site’s still available at www.infinityplus.co.uk as a static archive.

Last year, a similar thing happened. Chatting online with friends, I realised that this whole ebook thing was starting to take off and I really should get involved. Rather tentatively, I put out five collections of my own stories under the infinity plus banner, plus a new collection of Eric Brown’s stories, The Angels of Life and Death. And it started to happen again: I mentioned it to a few friends, and suddenly I had an ebook imprint on my hands. Recently we passed twenty full-length titles, including the free anthology infinities, which has been the UK’s number one free anthology for several weeks now.

Continue reading “Infinity Plus Singles: a new line of standalone short story ebooks”

All three of my books now appear on Google Books. Click  below for links.

• The Recollection
• Silversands
• The Last Reef

1) Thursday 20th Oct — from 6pm-7pm, I will be discussing genre fiction on a panel with Juliet E. McKenna, Cheryl Morgan and Jo Hall, at St Mark’s in Easton as part of the Bristol Festival of Literature.

2) Friday 21st Oct — from 12pm-1pm, I will be joining Juliet E.McKenna, Justina Robson, and Paul Cornell for a lunchtime book signing at Forbidden Planet in Clifton.

3) Saturday 22nd Oct — from 10am-11pm, I will be one of the guests at BristolCon, which is being held at the Ramada Hotel on Redcliffe Way, close to Temple Meads station, where I will be participating in at least four panel discussions and performing a reading from my latest book.

I hope to meet as many of you as possible at these events.