Six Lights... Reviewed in Danish

My story SIX LIGHTS OFF GREEN SCAR has been reviewed in Danish by Lise Andreasen.

New Novel Outline

Last night I wrote the 2,000 word outline of a new novel set in present day Bristol. It still needs some work (and a title), but I'm pretty excited at what I've got. At the moment, there's a sort of Douglas Coupland/Cory Doctorow vibe to it, although it's written from a very British point of view. I'm hoping to be able to work on it at the same time as the space opera novel I am about to start writing, switching back and forth between the two as the mood takes me.

Update: 11.05pm - Now up to 2,500 words.

New Short Story: Memory Dust

I've just finished the first draft of a new short story called MEMORY DUST, which clocks in at 5300 words. It's set against the same background as my earlier story SIX LIGHTS OFF GREEN SCAR and features the exploits of another "random jumper".

Incidentally, if you've read SIX LIGHTS, you'll know it ends on a cliffhanger. To find out what happens next, you'll need to stay tuned for this week's Friday Flash Fiction...

Best Space Opera

On the Asmiov's forum, editor Rich Horton has posted the proposed table of contents for a new "Best Space Opera of the Year" anthology, including my short story "Six Lights Off Green Scar".

Unfortunately, he also says the book has been cancelled...

Fans And Mergers

I've just been contacted by someone describing herself as "a huge fan" (you know who you are). This is the first time this has happened to me, and it's simultaneously gratifying and weird to realise I might have "fans".

On another note, things are hectic at work at the moment (due to an ongoing merger), so my writing schedule is all shot to hell. I am currently 2,600 words into a new story but don't know when I'll have time to complete it. I'm just trying to write as much as I can whenever I get the opportunity.

New Projects

With Eastercon out of the way and the short story collection and flash fiction anthology both complete, it's time to turn my attention to some new projects. I didn't write as much as I wanted to last year, so I'm hoping to make up some ground over the next few months.

First on the list is a 5,000 word short story called "Gas Mask Girl". This is for a new anthology edited by Colin Harvey, and needs to be submitted by the end of June. I have written the outline and some character notes, now I need to get the story itself down on paper.

Second, I have written the opening 900 words of another 5,000 word short story with the provisional title "Caesar Murphy" - a sequel to my previous short story "Six Lights..." - and I'm hoping to enter it in the BSFA 50th Anniversary Short Story Competition. The closing date for that is 5th September.

I also have notes for a third short story called "Frankie" which I expect will stretch to around 3,000 words.

And over and above all of these is the next novel, which I hope will weigh in at around 100,000 words. I've written an outline and a whole box file full of notes, and now I just need a little time to clear my head and actually start writing the beast.

Work In Progress

I'm currently working on a loose sequel to my short story 'Six Lights Off Green Scar' (which first appeared in Aphelion in April 2005 and was then translated into Polish for the magazine Nowa Fantastyka, before being heavily revised for the Infinity Plus website in June 2007, where it appeared alongside work by Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, and Greg Egan).

The working title for the new story is 'Caesar Murphy'. I'm currently around 600 words into it and I'll post updates as I progress.

If you want to read 'Six Lights...' it's available here, for free: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/sixlights.htm

New Short Story

No flash fiction this week because I've been spending my writing time working on a new short story. It's still early days, but it's looking good. I don't want to say too much about it, except to say that it's a sequel of sorts to Six Lights Off Green Scar.

I've also been involved in another exciting project... but I can't talk about that right now either. Suffice to say that a press release has been written and there should be an announcement before Eastercon...

Naming Characters

Sometimes when you're writing, it's hard to come up with a good name for a character. That's when I turn to my spam email folder and scan the randomly-generated sender's names. Just today, for instance, the folder contains emails from:

• Cornelia Kraft
• Abe Keeler
• Roland Floyd
• Nixon Doyle
• Caeser Murphy

The Winding Curve

Robert Starr's second short story collection - "Sophistry By Degrees" - is now available, featuring a short story I co-wrote with him, called "The Winding Curve", about a late night confrontation on a lonely coast road...

Robert's first collection - "Creek Water" - featured the following endorsement from me on its back cover:

"One of the reasons it's so easy to identify with the characters in these stories is that the horrors they face are the ones we remember from our childhood nightmares. Whether lurking in our darkened rooms or prowling in the winter storm outside, they're all chillingly familiar. They speak to us on a deep, primal level."

Both books are available to buy directly from the publisher, or via Amazon.

Launch Event

Andrew Hook of Elastic Press is planning a launch event for my short story collection "The Last Reef". The event will take place in London in August and will be a joint launch with Chris Beckett's new collection "The Turing Test".

BSFA Award Nomination

I'm very proud and pleased to say that my short story "Ack-Ack Macaque" has been nominated for a British Science Fiction Association award for best short story of 2007. This is the second consecutive year that one of my stories has been nominated for this prestigious award.

Review At Scifi.UK.Com

The UK SF Review site is back up and running, featuring a review of Fiction #4, which included my short story "A Necklace of Ivy".

Review of 2007

2007 was the year my story - "Ack-Ack Macaque" - appeared in Interzone.

It also saw the following publications:

• Distant Galaxies Colliding - Infinity Plus
• Six Lights off Green Scar - Infinity Plus
• Pod Dreams of Tuckertown - Byzarium
• The Redoubt - Aphelion
• The Last Reef - Best SF
• Thai Curry - Efimero
• A Necklace of Ivy - Fiction Magazine

Plus, I:

• Attended my first SF&F convention
• Was interviewed by Pink Raygun and SciFi Uk Review
• Had a short story featured on American radio
• Appeared on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme.
• Set foot in Spain for the first time.

In July, I started writing flash fiction. The idea started out as an exercise to keep my writing muscles toned up, by forcing me to produce 100-1000 words of fiction each and every week. It was just a bit of fun, really, and I didn’t expect anyone else to take much notice – but within a few weeks the idea had spread and there were seven other writers doing the same thing – The Friday Flash Fictioneers:

• Shaun C. Green
• Neil Beynon
• Gareth D. Jones
• Martin McGrath
• Dan Pawley
• Justin Pickard
• Paul Raven

Of the stories that I personally contributed, my favourites were:

• The Point Furthest From The Sun
• The Long Walk Aft
• Thai Curry
• Stranded In Time
• Snowball
• Providence
• Paper Moon
• My New Eyes
• Driving To The Moon
• Dead Twin

I also published my second collection of poetry - Los Muertos & Other Poems - five of which were included in the October issue of the BSFA's Focus magazine:

And last but not least, 2007 saw the announcements that:

1. My short story collection "The Last Reef" will be published in October 2008 by Elastic Press
2. My novel "Silversands" will be published in 2009 by Pendragon Press.
3. The short story I co-wrote with Robert Starr will appear in his latest collection - due from Stonegarden in January.

A Bit Skynet

In his review of Interzone 212, Blue Tyson calls "Ack-Ack Macaque" a "high point" of the issue and sums the plot up in one succinct sentence:

"Everybody loves the monkey until it goes a bit Skynet."

Catch Me On Fictionwise

If you missed my story in issue 212 of Interzone, you can now read it electronically by ordering that issue from Fictionwise.

Elastic News

I received an email from Elastic Press today, looking forward to the books they will publish in 2008:

"In August there’s another blast of SF with collections "The Last Reef" by Gareth L Powell and "The Turing Test" by Chris Beckett. More information on these will follow, but I’m sure you’re already drooling in anticipation."

New First Draft

There's no Friday Flash Fiction this week because I spent my writing time finishing up the first draft of a brand new story with the provisional title "Flotsam". Weighing in at 4,100 words, and set on a container ship in the Mediterranean, it takes place against the same fictional background as my story "The Last Reef".

SFCrowsnest Reviews Interzone 212

In his review of Interzone 212, Neale Monks writes:

Next up is the delightfully-named 'Ack-Ack Macaque' by Gareth Lyn Powell. The author plays with the idea of what happens when the Fourth Wall between the protagonists of the tale and their fictional creation collapses. The mechanism chosen for this catastrophe is clever enough to be plausible without too much technobabble being required and Powell manages to pull the thing off remarkably well in what is basically a humorous, lightweight tale. There's also a very British (ie gloomy) love story going on in the background, as well as some decent satirical swipes at what happens to characters in comic novels when Hollywood decides to turn them into cash-cows. All in all, a fun story and one of the best in this particular issue of 'Interzone'.

Portuguese Review of Interzone 212

From: http://interzone.blogdrive.com/

Começa com "Feelings of the flesh" de Douglas Elliott Cohen mas confesso que gostei mais da short story de Gareth Lyn Powell com o titulo "Ack-Ack Macaque". Em apenas quatro paginas este conto descreve-nos a historia de Tori e seus namorados Andy e Josh, em que numa animação por computador criada por Tori e postriormente transformada num jogo on-line pela empresa de Josh, sai fora de controlo e tras o caos e o apocalipse perante a impotência e desespero deles.