Gareth L. Powell is a British author known for using fast-paced, character-driven science fiction to explore big ideas and themes of identity, loss, and the human condition.
He has twice won the coveted British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel, and has become one of the most-shortlisted authors in the award’s 50-year history. He has also been a finalist for the Locus, British Fantasy, Seiun, and Canopus awards.
Gareth started writing seriously as a teenager and was lucky to be able to count Diana Wynne Jones and Helen Dunmore as early mentors.
His novels have regularly appeared on the Locus Bestseller lists, and have been Amazon bestsellers in the UK, USA and Japan. About Writing, his field guide for aspiring authors, also topped the Amazon charts and continues to inspire a new generation of upcoming authors.
Gareth’s Embers of War trilogy is being adapted for television, and he has co-written groundbreaking stories with bestselling authors Aliette de Bodard and Peter F. Hamilton.
He is a popular guest at conventions and literary festivals and his work has been translated into German, Spanish, Catalan, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Greek, French, Italian, Japanese, and Croatian.
Gareth maintains a popular newsletter at Substack, where he posts about writing, future tech, and science fiction, and he offers monthly Zoom classes to aspiring authors.
Gareth is married to the American author J. Dianne Dotson and they have four children between them. He is represented in all professional matters by Alexander Cochran of the C&W literary agency.
Awards
Won
- 2018 BSFA Award – Best Novel – Embers of War
- 2013 BSFA Award – Best Novel – Ack-Ack Macaque
Shortlisted
- 2023 Canopus Awards – Published Long-Form Fiction – Light Chaser
- 2022 BSFA Awards – Best Novel –Stars and Bones
- 2021 BSFA Awards – Best Shorter Fiction – Light Chaser
- 2021 Seiun Awards – Best Translated Novel – Embers of War
- 2020 BSFA Awards – Best Novel – Light of Impossible Stars
- 2020 British Fantasy Awards – Best Novella – Ragged Alice
- 2020 Locus Awards – Best SF Novel – Fleet of Knives
- 2019 BSFA Awards – Best Novel – Fleet of Knives
- 2019 BSFA Awards – Best Shorter Fiction – Ragged Alice
- 2019 BSFA Awards – Best Non-fiction – About Writing
- 2019 Locus Awards – Best SF Novel – Embers of War
- 2018 BSFA Award – Best Novel – Embers of War
- 2016 Seiun Awards – Best Translated Novel – Ack-Ack Macaque
- 2015 BSFA Awards – Best Short Fiction – ‘Ride The Blue Horse’
- 2013 BSFA Award – Best Novel – Ack-Ack Macaque
Praise
“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
“One of our best modern SF writers.” – Adrian Tchaikovsky
“A pro at the top of his game.” – John Scalzi
“Grittily poetic.” – Locus Magazine
“A creative and literate space opera author.” – Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review
“Current leader of the British space-opera pack.” – The Morning Star
“Gareth Powell rocks.” – Jonathan Maberry