My novel The Recollection is now officially listed on the Solaris Books website, for release in September 2011.

Here’s the blurb:

In modern-day London, failed artist Ed Emery is secretly in love with his brother’s wife, Alice. When his brother disappears on a London Underground escalator, Ed and Alice have to put aside their personal feelings in order to find him. Their quest reveals to them terrifying glimpses of alien worlds and the far future.

Meanwhile, 400 years in the future, Katherine Abdulov must travel to a remote planet in order to regain the trust of her influential family. The only person standing in her way is her former lover, Victor Luciano, the ruthless employee of a rival trading firm. And in the unforgiving depths of space, an ancient evil stirs…

Gareth L. Powell’s epic new science-fiction novel reveals a story of galaxy-spanning scope by a writer of astounding vision.

Click here for link.

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.

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…

I have set up a Facebook page for my novel The Recollection.

Click here to visit the page.

This is a sneak preview of the illustration that artist Neil Roberts has done for the cover of my forthcoming novel, The Recollection.

I’ve just seen the preliminary sketches that artist Neil Roberts has done for the cover of my forthcoming novel, The Recollection. He’s produced three views of the story’s main spaceship in flight, and they look excellent.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s a strange and gratifying experience to see an artist render something that has hitherto existed only in your imagination.

I still have 30k words of the novel to write, and these pictures have certainly given me a boost.

I’m delighted to tell you that I’ve just signed a novel contract with Solaris books, for a book due to be published in September 2011.

Here’s the official announcement from editor-in-chief, Jon Oliver:

I’m pleased to be able to announce that I have just commissioned a new SF novel from author Gareth L. Powell called The Recollection, due for release in September 2011 in the UK and US. Gareth is a brilliant new writer and I know that you’re going to blown away by his mix of SF, Space-Opera and contemporary fiction. This is a writer worth watching and we’re very proud to welcome him to the Solaris fold. Once we have a cover for Gareth’s title, we will of course let you all have a look.

Mark Watson reviews the Shine anthology on the revamped Best SF website. He writes:

Gareth L. Powell and Aliette de Bodard – The Church Of Accelerated Redemption.
One of the things I’m liking about this anthology is that the stories have a much more international flavour than most SF, and here Powell and de Bodard set their story in France. There’s a background of a wave of labour strikes (a very old French tradition which I heartily endorse), and the protagonist is a woman working for an IT company who has a bugger of a boss who certainly isn’t into liberte, equalite and fraternite. She’s working for a new church, as per the title, who are using IT to offer redemption – and the story works well with the solid setting, exploring issues around AI and sentience, impact on society and on individuals. The cyber-terrorist she meets, and his two hench-emos add a bit of colour. My recommendation to the authors would be to tweak it a bit and to get a script written and get it touted around Hollywood.

Read the full review here.

Please allow me to clear up a misunderstanding.

A couple of weeks ago, a letter appeared in The Guardian accusing their reviewer Eric Brown of bias, for reviewing too many books from genre publisher Solaris. The letter was signed by “Gareth Powell, Bristol”.

As several people in the SF field have already assumed that I wrote this letter, I’d like to make it clear that I did not. I have no beef with either Eric, who gave my own novel a decent enough review in April, or Solaris, who recently published the Shine anthology, which featured one of my stories.

I’ve already contacted both Eric and Solaris to set the record straight, and they have both been most understanding. I have also spoken to the Letters Editor at The Guardian. As the letter was signed “Gareth Powell”, without use of the middle initial, it seems unlikely it was a deliberate attempt to impersonate me, and so I’ll have to write it off as an unfortunate coincidence, and be grateful that it didn’t lead to greater misunderstandings.