Gareth L. Powell is one of the UK’s most popular and successful genre authors.
He started writing seriously as a teenager and was lucky to be able to count Diana Wynne Jones and Helen Dunmore as early mentors. More recently, he has co-written stories with bestselling authors Peter F. Hamilton and Aliette de Bodard.
He has twice won the prestigious British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel (previous winners include J. G. Ballard and Arthur C. Clarke) and has become one of the most shortlisted authors in the award’s 50-year history. He has also been shortlisted for the Locus Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Seiun Award, and the Canopus Award.
To date, he has written eleven novels, three novellas, and numerous short stories. In 2022, Gollancz published About Writing, his best-selling non-fiction guide to creative writing, and Stampede Ventures are currently adapting his Embers of War trilogy for TV in the States.
His short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld and Interzone, and been featured in numerous anthologies, including The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois.
Gareth is beloved on social media for the time he spends giving advice and support to fledgeling authors. He is extremely knowledgeable about writing, and genre writing in particular, and is also a popular and entertaining guest for podcasts, conventions and literary festivals.
He writes a monthly column about future tech for The Engineer magazine and was a consultant on Creative Futures, a research partnership between Coventry University and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), exploring the challenges faced by the UK and the world at large over the next 100 years.
Gareth is married to the American author Jendia Gammon, and is represented in all professional matters by Alexander Cochran of the C&W literary agency.
Awards and Nominations
- 2023 Canopus Awards – Published Long-Form Fiction – Light Chaser (finalist)
- 2022 BSFA Awards – Best Novel –Stars and Bones (finalist)
- 2021 BSFA Awards – Best Shorter Fiction – Light Chaser (finalist)
- 2021 Seiun Awards – Best Translated Novel – Embers of War (finalist)
- 2020 BSFA Awards – Best Novel – Light of Impossible Stars (finalist)
- 2020 British Fantasy Awards – Best Novella – Ragged Alice (finalist)
- 2020 Locus Awards – Best SF Novel – Fleet of Knives (finalist)
- 2019 BSFA Awards – Best Novel – Fleet of Knives (finalist)
- 2019 BSFA Awards – Best Shorter Fiction – Ragged Alice (finalist)
- 2019 BSFA Awards – Best Non-fiction – About Writing (finalist)
- 2019 Locus Awards – Best SF Novel – Embers of War (finalist)
- 2018 BSFA Award – Best Novel – Embers of War (winner)
- 2016 Seiun Awards – Best Translated Novel – Ack-Ack Macaque (finalist)
- 2015 BSFA Awards – Best Short Fiction – ‘Ride The Blue Horse’ (finalist)
- 2013 BSFA Award – Best Novel – Ack-Ack Macaque (winner)
Praise
“A pro at the top of his game.” – John Scalzi
“The ideas fizz off the page.” – The Guardian
“Current leader of the British space-opera pack.” – The Morning Star
“One of our best modern SF writers.” – Adrian Tchaikovsky
“Powell understands and adeptly utilises genre fiction’s capacity to combine everyday qualities of friendship, responsibility, collaboration and self-sacrifice … there is also a slightly offbeat, quirky side to his writing which underpins his popularity” – Nick Hubble
“When you have an imagination like Gareth Powell’s, you must write or paint or otherwise vent that imagination through art so your head won’t explode.” – New York Journal of Books
“Grittily poetic.” – Locus Magazine
“Gareth Powell rocks.” – Jonathan Maberry
“A creative and literate space opera author.” – Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review