I think I use more SF tropes than fantasy ones. Plus, my work is intended to be science fiction. Whether it succeeds in that aim is something for someone else to decide. To me, the difference between SF and fantasy lays not so much in technique or subject matter as in application. Broadly speaking, I see SF as a tool for exploring what it will mean to be human in an increasingly strange and baffling future; whereas I see fantasy exploring what it means to be human (or superhuman) in worlds which plainly do not, nor ever will, exist – a hotline into our archetypal dreams and superstitions, where mighty heroes vanquish armies of grotesque sub humans and beautiful vampires fall in love with their food.

Continue reading “The Difference Between SF and Fantasy”

I was pleased to be invited to take part in this week’s Mind Meld discussion over at SF Signal. The question was: which books are at the top of your “to be read” pile? To find out the panel’s answers, follow this link: Mind Meld

I have a lot of books I need to catch up with, so one of my New Year’s resolutions will be to work my way through the following list:

• JG Ballard – The Complete Short Stories
• Bruce Sterling – Ascendancies
• Cordwainer Smith – The Rediscovery Of Man
• Harlan Ellison – The Essential Ellison
• Arthur C Clarke – The Collected Stories
• Philip K Dick – Human Is?
• Vernor Vinge – The Collected Stories

Which books are you planning to read next year?

This December, TTA Press will be hosting an advent calendar. Each day, from the 1st through to the 25th, the TTA website will feature a new link to a story on another website. Some of these stories will be new, others old. Some will be written by previous contributors to TTA Press magazines (Interzone, Black Static, etc.) and some will be by new faces.

I believe one of my stories will be linked to on 2nd December. For more details, keep your eye on the TTA Press discussion forum.

This morning, I submitted a new short story to market. The idea for it came to me while getting dressed the other day, and I wrote the whole first draft in an hour. Becky read it for me last night and suggested some minor changes, which I made on the spot. I’m planning to write another short story this afternoon, then it’s back to work on the novel.

Following my recent experiment in online short story selling, I am now in a position to offer you a PDF copy of my first short story collection, The Last Reef And Other Stories.

The Last Reef was originally published in hardback and paperback by Elastic Press in August 2008. It contains 15 short stories, and received glowing reviews from Interzone, Prism, Sci-fi Online, and The Fix.

In order to get a PDF copy of the book emailed directly to you from me, simply click on the big yellow button on the right (you may need to scroll up or down a bit).

This will take you to PayPal. All you have to do then is enter your payment details and decide how much you’d like to pay.

Yes, I’m putting the ball in your court. You decide what you think is a fair price for a 60,000 word book, pay me, and I’ll email you a copy.

It’s that simple.

I put a lot of work into this collection and I’m glad to now have the opportunity to make it available to a wider audience.

And as a special bonus, when you order a copy of The Last Reef, I’ll throw in a PDF copy of my short story “What Would Nicolas Cage Have Done?”, which isn’t normally included in the book.

So when placing your order, please remember to include your email address and state whether you’d like me to send you the PDF versions of the book, the short story, or both.

Many thanks!

Good science fiction should blow a reader’s socks off. It should take that whole cupboard of toys and use it to tell stories that just can’t be told within the confines of mainstream literature. And in an increasingly bizarre world, maybe SF is the only literature capable of addressing the things we see on the news every night: cyber terrorism; stem cell therapy; cloning; urban decay; 24 hour surveillance; global pandemics; etc. Which could be why more and more “mainstream” writers are finding themselves having to borrow from SFs toy cupboard in order to tell their stories. But more than all that,It should show readers something they’ve never seen before. It should entertain and stretch their minds, and open them to new possibilities. It should combat prejudice and ignorance. It should  educate and provoke and ask the questions no one else is asking, and it should have something to say about what it means to be human in an increasingly baffling world.

I will be giving the following speech at this event in Bristol tomorrow morning:

The Role Of Science Fiction In Our Understanding Of The Future.
By Gareth L Powell

Good morning.

My name is Gareth Powell. I’m a science fiction writer and I’ve been asked here today to talk to you about the role science fiction plays in our understanding of what the future might hold.

Continue reading “The Role Of Science Fiction”

Writing for New Scientist magazine, US science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson thinks British science fiction is in a golden age, with a huge number of active and talented writers producing work on the cutting edge of the genre. He also thinks it’s time it won some literary awards.

“Many recent British science fiction novels describe the near future, creating a kind of anticipatory realism, the best description of the first decade of this century. Others venture into the depths of distant space and time, creating a new space opera that is not only sophisticated entertainment, but also usually a surreal allegory for the choices we have to make as a civilisation and a species. Some even explore what I think is the hardest zone of all (which is why I asked the writers here to give it a go) – the time about a century from now, when our growing capabilities will be confronted by immense dangers, creating an unstable and unpredictable future.

“The result is the best British literature of our time.”

Read the full article, plus short fiction from eight leading British SF writers, by following the link here.

Apologies for the lack of writing updates. Trust me, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. I’ve been spending most of my free time hammering away at my next novel and I’ve made significant progress. At the same time, I’ve written detailed outlines for two brand new, action-packed short stories, and submitted a third new story to market.

With these new stories, I have enough material for a second short story collection.