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.

My article The tightrope act of near-future fiction appears in today’s edition of The Irish Times.

Near-future fiction is a tightrope act, a game played with the audience. It’s a way of looking at the world, reflecting it through a prism to make the everyday extraordinary and the future relevant to the reader. But it’s a risky undertaking. If you assume it takes 18 months to write and publish a novel, world events may have rendered the entire premise of the book obsolete before it hits the shelves. No other literature has such a potentially short shelf life.

Read the full article here.

For those of you who haven’t yet got a copy of Silversands, here’s a short snippet for Friday afternoon:

Avril Bradley’s hands were shaking as she unfastened the straps holding her to her bunk. The trip through the wormhole had been rough, like a rollercoaster ride through a furnace, and she could hear the ship’s heat shield creaking and groaning as it cooled. She slipped on a lightweight leather jacket and pulled her shoulder-length hair into a short ponytail. During the trip, her foil pack of cigarettes had fallen onto the deck. She picked them up and lit one, catching her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her eyes were pale blue like an autumn sky and her features were sharp, as if etched by the quick strokes of an impatient sculptor.

Continue reading “Silversands Excerpt”

The second annual BristolCon event took place on Saturday, and it was a roaring success with an attendance of over 150 people.

As well as the main programme room, the con included an impressive art show and a dealers’ room. The main programme kicked off at 10am with a discussion of publishing, followed by a reading by Juliet McKenna and a Q&A session with Guest of Honour Joe Abercrombie.

Personally, I took part in two panel discussions, both of which I ended up chairing, and both of which were a lot of fun. The first was in the morning, and it was a discussion of special effects, both audio and visual, and the part they play in movies.

Following that, I read part of the first chapter of The Recollection, which was the first public outing for the material. Afterwards, a number of people came up to me and said they couldn’t wait for the book to be published, as they were desperate to find out what happened next.

At lunchtime, Wizard’s Tower Press launched their new anthology, Dark Spires. I have a story included in the book, so I joined the other authors for a mass signing session.

Unfortunately, I missed Eugene Byrne’s lecture on the strange corners of Bristol, as I was taking a turn manning the membership desk – but I hear that it was a fascinating look at urban myths, and streets which appear on maps but not in reality.

My second panel of the day was especially enjoyable, as I joined Paul Cornell, Alastair Reynolds, John Turney and Nick Walters in a wide-ranging discussion about the future direction of science and technology.

Then I took some time out to record a reading of one of my short stories for the next issue of Dark Fiction magazine, and to venture out of the hotel to get some dinner. By the time I returned, the pub quiz was in full swing, and the evening ended with much drinking and much laughter, as befits all good cons.

Throughout the day, the atmosphere remained relaxed and friendly, and everything appeared to be organised extremely professionally. In fact, it was one of the most enjoyable conventions I’ve attended, and I was particularly pleased to meet up with some old friends and to make some new ones.

Particular shout-outs go to: Joanne Hall; Neil Beynon; Kim and Del Lakin-Smith; Danie Ware and the team from Forbidden Planet; MEG; Paul Cornell; John Turney; Colin Harvey; Cheryl Morgan; Gareth D Jones; Stephanie Burgis; Andy Bigwood; Nick Walters; Alastair Reynolds; Adam Colston; Terry Martin; and everyone else I spoke to during the day.

Colin Harvey, the editor of the forthcoming Dark Spires anthology, has been posting snippets of the stories it contains on his blog, including this excerpt from my story, ‘Entropic Angel’:

For four days it snowed. On the fifth day, the angel came. As light dawned, the Reverend Christina Pike saw it squatting like a gargoyle on the tallest of the village’s wind turbines, its shoulders hunched over and its radiant face raised to the sky.

An hour later, that turbine failed. A few minutes later, the  one next to it did likewise. Watching through binoculars from the window of the vicarage, she said: “It’s an angel all right.”

Around her, the hastily-convened members of the village council muttered to one another. They knew what lay in store. They’d seen the lights dim around the Estuary as each of the other towns fell in turn to the depredations of the angelic host. With their own eyes, they’d watched civilisation sputter like a dying candle.

They’d spoken to refugees and army deserters and knew things were bad all over, that without power they were doomed to freeze, and there was nothing that could be done to save them.

Pike lowered her binoculars.

“Maybe I could talk to it?” she suggested, but the council leader, a retired colonel, shook his head.

“Far too dangerous vicar, I won’t hear of it.”

And so Pike stayed by the window watching helplessly as, one by one over the course of the day, all the turbines on the wind farm slowed and screeched to a halt, until by sunset nothing moved, and stripped of their electricity the houses of the village fell into darkness and silence.

Dark Spires will be released this weekend from Wizard’s Tower Press.

So, as mentioned last week, I have delivered the manuscript of my novel The Recollection to Solaris Books, who commissioned the book back in July on the strength of the first 3 chapters and a synopsis.

The good news is, I delivered it seven months ahead of deadline.

I finished the first draft of the book at the end of September, and spent a month rewriting and polishing the manuscript. I am indebted to Richard Scott, Neil Beynon, and my sister Rebecca, for reading the story and providing useful feedback.

The next stage of the process is that Solaris will read the mss and highlight any changes they’d like to see made. When all that’s done, the book’s scheduled for release in Sept 2011.

This afternoon, I have submitted the manuscript of The Recollection to Solaris Books. I will write more about the submission later, but in the meantime, I think a celebration is in order.

Dark Fiction Magazine is a new audio magazine offering four short stories each month.

From the press releases:

A cross between an audio book, an anthology and a podcast, Dark Fiction Magazine is designed to take the enjoyment of short genre fiction in a new and exciting direction. Dark Fiction Magazine publishes at least four short stories a month: a mix of award-winning shorts and brand new stories from both established genre authors and emerging writers. Each episode will have a monthly theme and feature complementary tales from the three main genres – science fiction, fantasy and horror… Lined up for future episodes are Pat Cadigan, Cory Doctorow, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Ramsey Campbell, Rob Shearman, Kim Lakin-Smith, Ian Whates, Lauren Beukes, Mark Morris, Adam Nevill, Gareth L Powell, Jeremy C Shipp, Adam Christopher, and Jennifer Williams, among others.

As of five minutes ago, I’ve completed the first draft of The Recollection.

• 80,000 words
• 46 chapters and an epilogue.

Tonight, I’m going to celebrate. I’ve cracked open the gin. It’s been a hard slog. It’s been exhilaration and heartbreak all the way. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my most excellent wife.

There were times I was sure I’d never finish, and times my fingers hurt because I couldn’t move them fast enough to keep up with the story unfolding in my head. But now it’s done, the hard part’s out of the way. Everything after this is polishing; editing; refining.

And of course, there’s the possibility of sequels…

On his Muskets and Monsters website, Matt F.W. Curran gives Silversands one of its best reviews so far:

… I admit to feeling a little nervous about reading Gareth L. Powell’s debut novel, Silversands, especially in light of his first collection of fiction, The Last Reef. In my opinion, The Last Reef was the best and most exciting short story SF collection in recent years (and you can read my review of it here) and one of the few collections I still go back to even now (amongst them Hope by James Lovegrove and Barker’s Books of Blood).

So when Silversands was announced I was excited, nervous yes, but excited. I mean, what delights could the writer construct over the course of a novel? Could it match the dizzying heights and imaginations of The Last Reef?

Silversands’ universe requires little introduction; the science fiction tropes within the story are familiar without being unoriginal. There is no plodding back-story to labour over and it keeps that sense of wonder that all good science fiction has. This has its own advantages as we get into the plot from the off and the story rattles along at a good pace. Powell’s writing skills are explicit and direct, creating mood and character through economical prose and without exposition. Each scene is lovingly created and you can tell the writer is enjoying his craft here.

The world building is gritty, frontier SF at its best, with the feel of a society not far away from implosion which adds it’s own sense of tension, while the action is also typically dazzling and dynamic – it has its pulpy moments but nothing that the great SF writers such as Harrison or Asimov would be worried about. It’s utterly compelling, and there’s a feeling of crescendo, of sub-plots merging for a big bang somewhere down the line …

… this is a thoroughly accomplished piece of writing; not one I’d class as a ‘novel’ (novella, probably, and something that could form the back bone of a collection someway down the line), but I’m glad it’s been published and published lovingly (beautifully bound with a great cover) by Pendragon Press. I’m not sure I’ll return to it as much as the well-thumbed Last Reef, but Silversands sits proudly on my bookshelf with other acclaimed genre authors (Dick, Bradbury, Baxter, Banks etc)…

…And you know, Gareth L. Powell doesn’t look out of place amongst them.

Read the original post here.