Sci-fi Online Review Gives The Last Reef Top Marks

Charles Packer reviews my short story collection on Sci-fi Online and gives it 10 out of 10:

The Last Reef and Other Stories is a new collection of science fiction short stories by Gareth L. Powell. It’s a worthy collection worth every pound of your hard earned dosh as the stories are universally well written.

One of the things that you first notice about Powell’s work is his apparent belief that it is women, rather than men, who act as the agent of change - a proposition that any resident of Troy would have agreed with. This is a refreshing idea from a male writer, who as a species have mostly put males at the centre of the action, and gives Powell's work an individual voice.

Like the majority of good writers Powell presents a balance of ideas within each of his short stories. Some of the stories are interlinked, so the Monkey computer program which causes so much havoc in Ack-Ack Macaque is also referenced in A Neckless of Ivy, though in truth these mini tales of armageddon are really love notes to the women which appear in the stories.

Not everything is a love note to strong women as in The Long Walk Aft and Cat in a Box where Powell shows a playful and dark side to his humour. Both stories involve choices. The first is that age old problem of finding enough biological matter to restart your food replicator when all you have is a spaceship full of your sleeping shipmates. The second poses the problem of having a box which might grant immortality, though there is one catch, the box has a cat in it, if the cat’s dead then so are you, so would you open it?

One of the nice things about Powell’s writing is his ability to conjure whole worlds in a limited number of lines; his characters are not just ciphers there to push a clever idea forward. Having said that, the book isn’t short of these either. I was especially impressed with the idea of rogue computers which spin out of control, evolving past sentience used in The Reef and its companion stories Flotsam and Hot Rain. I feel there may be a novel in Powell yet.

As well as big ideas, comedy and world construction, Powell also does a nice turn at subtlety. This is especially evident in my two favourite stories in the collection Sunsets and Hamburgers and Distant Galaxies Colliding, though I think that Sunsets represents Powell at his best with a big idea - reconstructed humans at the death of the universe - played against both hope for the future and the depiction of a realistic relationship. The main pleasure with the story is that it treats its reader as intelligent. Powell paints just enough to get the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks, thus engaged, you are able to enter further into the experience than the role of voyeur would allow.

In total the book contains fifteen of his short stories and there is not a dud amongst them. Buy this book and do your brain a favour; you know it will love you for it.

10/10

Full review: http://www.sci-fi-online.com/2008_reviews/book/08-08-01_last-reef.htm

First Review of The Last Reef

The first review of The Last Reef is now online at The Fix, and it's positive. The reviewer, Rae Bryant, writes:

"In The Last Reef, Powell holds a cross-section of science, nature, and technology in his quintessential human hand and gives it a roll across the universal table. What turns up is an eclectic mix of possibility, tragedy, and hope—a gamble worth betting on."

And:

"Powell’s depth and breadth of characterization work, and his settings are truly impressive. His work displays a willingness to show truths and flaws for what they are, rather than gratuitously exaggerating only strengths. With his instinct for subtlety, Powell is an author to watch. His work is the spyglass of science fiction, the ship just over the horizon."

Read the full review here: http://thefix-online.com/reviews/the-last-reef/

Six Lights... Reviewed in Danish

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

Illuminations Reviewed At The Fix

The Friday Flash Fiction Anthology, Illuminations, has been reviewed by The Fix, in an epic article by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro that manages to comment on every one of the sixty-six stories included in the book. And considering that the book was conceived, edited, designed and published in a ridiculously short period of time, I think it stands up pretty well. His comments on my nine contributions are quoted below, along with links to the online versions of the stories, for your reading pleasure:

William observes a “Snowball” from a dome on the surface of the Moon. The pacing in this very short flash piece is effective, the setting works, and, most importantly, the revelation of the last line is entirely consistent with what we know (and don’t know). This poignant, speculative outing is as fresh as snow.

Contemplating “The Point Furthest from the Sun” may lead one to inaction, even as a loved one is having a rough time. I missed the significance of the title, which, based on the skill of the writing, I’m sure was chosen with care. I found it intriguing. The repetition contained in the last two sentences certainly emphasizes the importance of what we’ve learned, but I’m not sure it heightened the experience for me.

The narrator of this tale learns of the horrors inflicted on some “Fresh Meat.” The attention to detail in this very compressed narrative, in conjunction with the sparse, polished sentences and strong rhythm, worked to make it a chilling experience.

A simple misunderstanding at an Amsterdam “Coffee House” informs this quiet, observational piece. It vividly captures a moment in the interaction between two characters and, through implication, portrays the characters and setting more vividly than might appear at first glance. Perfect coffee house reading.

Ed, on his way to take pictures of a crash site, stops at a roadside café and sparks up some conversation with the waitress, “Natalie.” There is an almost Ballardian sense of fragmentation and despair in this well-written tale, which artfully utilizes technological imagery to build tension in the setting and refract the character’s inner selves. An impressive feat given the space, this riveting piece transcends “flash” and approaches a less formalized version of the Ballardian “compressed novel,” in the best possible manner.

An unplanned hyperspace return to Earth provides Diego and Carla with a direct glimpse of cosmic “Lost Toys.” Powell again manages to imagine an intriguing situation and justify it with a rationale that is not only dramatically plausible but also thought-provoking. Some descriptive details, in particular, stand out. A tale to be found and enjoyed.

The revelation that ensues the narrator’s “Thai Curry” dinner with Nina is conveyed with elegance and emotion in this charged, biting, sad tale. With skill aplenty, Powell artfully builds not only a situation, but a mood, and places it in a broader context. More bittersweet than curry, but just as delectable.

In “The Red King’s Nursery,” Lawrence is vastly outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned by an enemy which, in the form of a talking remote, seems overly chatty and casual to be truly menacing. The whys and wherefores become revealed by the tale’s end. Though there were some clever moments and engaging writing, I didn’t find myself caring enough for the character to make this piece work on the psychological front, and I couldn’t ignore the weakness of the ending enough to make it work on a plot level either.

On his six-month watch aboard a starship forty years from its destination, with the remainder of the crew asleep in their pods, Kurt finds himself on “The Long Walk Aft” and the terrible fate to which it leads. The un-subtle situation is described in the no-frills manner in which its protagonist experiences it, and the detachment and realism only serve to strengthen the inevitability of its ending. It brought to mind Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations.” I enjoyed the image of a book being recycled for food; that seems somehow appropriate, under the circumstances.

On the whole, a pretty good review, I thought. You can read the whole thing here: http://thefix-online.com/reviews/illuminations/

In other related news, that cheeky scamp Shaun C Green has done a great impersonation of my flash fiction style over on his blog: http://www.nostalgiaforinfinity.com/?p=127

Review

Matthew Tait has re-posted the review of Interzone 202 that originally appeared on the Horrorscope site back in June 2006. Of my contribution to that issue, he writes:

"Author Gareth Lyn Powell gives us The Last Reef, and manages, via a powerful torrent of invention, to imbue a myriad of ideas more in tune with a novel than a short story. In such a short space, we are treated to a potential future where simple communication nodes in an interplanetary radio network develop into sentience with awesome results. Humans, in their desire to transform, enter this matrix and are utterly altered from the creatures they once were. Some experience physical or mental deformities; others are elevated to a higher level of consciousness. People transformed by the Reef are highly sought after prizes as the Reefs themselves slowly morph into different realms or are terminated by the powers that be. Against this backdrop are three characters trying to reverse the reef’s destructive forces. Powell uses love as a motivation, with clever flashbacks throughout that dovetail inexorably toward the ending. Accompanied by a brilliant illustration, The Last Reef is a fabulous read indeed."

The Guardian Considers Science Fiction

Sam Jordison has been writing about the collision of science fiction and mainstream literature in The Guardian.

1. Why Do Critics Still Sneer At Sci-Fi?

"Science fiction writers are dismissed by the mainstream, but for mind-expanding ideas and sheer narrative excitement the genre is hard to beat"

2. Literary Apocalypse Now, And Then

"So, novelists' visions of the future are looking very bleak at the moment. What's new?"

3. Reading Sci-Fi For Pleasure

"As soon as someone writes a really good sci-fi book it nearly always seems to get reclassified as something else."

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".

Interzone 213

"Ack-Ack Macaque" gets another mention in Colin Harvey's review of Interzone 213 on Suite101.com.

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."

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.

Ack-Ack Macaque Reviewed in Locus

My short story "Ack-Ack Macaque" receives two mentions in the December issue of Locus magazine - the professional journal of science fiction and fantasy publishing. Nick Gevers and Rich Horton both mention it in their review columns. In particular, Rich Horton writes:

"Ack-Ack Macaque" is a weird, sad story about a man's relationship with a woman who writes a web-based anime series about a monkey airship pilot, named, of course, Ack-Ack Macaque. She leaves him for a guy who wants to promote the comic - and he tries to commit suicide. And Ack-Ack Macaque begins to change too - or perhaps come to life. The tone is best here - the protagonist's flaky despair is beautifully caught.

Rich Horton Reviews Interzone In 2007

Rich Horton picks out "Ack-Ack Macaque" as one of his favourite Interzone stories of 2007:

My favorite Interzone short story was "Heartstrung", by Rachel Swirsky (June), with its powerful central metaphor of girls removing their hearts and sewing them to their sleeves as part of their passage to adulthood. I also liked Beth Bernobich's "A Handful of Pearls" (October), a dark story about a scientist investigating an isolated island who has a troubled history -- only too disturbingly replicated when his team discovers a girl from a humanlike species on the island. Another good one is Gareth Lyn Powell's "Ack-Ack Macaque" (October), about a man's failed relationship with a woman who writes a successful anime about a monkey airship pilot. (One does wonder, between this story and the Blaschke story and David Mole's "Finisterra" in F&SF, if some stories aimed at the delightful anthology of a couple of years ago, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (co-edited by Moles, actually), didn't get finished in time for that book and are now appearing.) And I enjoyed Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Molly and the Red Hat" (December), a neat tale about a very young girl and her magical hat and how it saved her brother. M. John Harrison's "The Good Detective" (April), about missing persons -- people lost to the pressures or the existential stress of contemporary life. It's quite beautifully written. Other good stories came from Jay Lake, Stephen Francis Murphy, Aliette de Bodard, Tim Akers, and Ahmed A. Khan.

Review of Fiction Magazine Issue 4

From Gareth D Jones review of Fiction Magazine Issue 4:

"Gareth L Powell’s contribution is A Necklace of Ivy, a realistically rendered tale set against the backdrop of a mysterious alien plague sweeping through Cornwall. A young couple are making their way out of the county in advance of an army curfew, but make the mistake of stopping for one last break. The realistic dialogue and briefly sketched description make it a compelling little tale."

SFRevu Reviews Interzone 212

SFRevu calls the stories in Interzone 212 "edgy but good" and conclues that Interzone is still "the best science fiction magazine on the market."

Warren Ellis Plugs Ack-Ack Macaque

Warren Ellis writes:

"If you happen to see a copy of INTERZONE 212 (which I guess came out a few weeks ago), you need to pick it up and read the short story “Ack-Ack Macaque” by Gareth Lyn Powell. The commercialisation of a web animation into some diseased Max Headroom as metaphor for the wreckage of a fucked-up relationship. It’s about two things: the people, and the idea. Just the way sf should work."

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=5243

Ack-Ack Macaque reviewed by Whispers of Wickedness

Steve Redwood reviews my short story Ack-Ack Macaque on the Whispers of Wickedness site:

"...on the one hand we have an anime character, a cigar-smoking monkey in an airship pulled by twelve hundred skeletal oxen, turning into, or being turned into, an AI, and instead of fighting villainous red barons like Baron Von Richter-Scale (nice!) it sets about bringing down modern German passenger airliners and finally ushering in a kind of mini-Apocalypse (will you all hiss if I call this genre Cybermunk?); and on the other hand, a girl-leaves-boy story, and boy-reacts-very-badly. Of course, apart from the obvious connection that the girl in question is the creator of the original harmless Ack-Ack Macaque, there is I guess supposed to be a deeper connection, but if there is, it didn’t really work for me. The girl seems entirely selfish, interested only in her anime work and commercial success, and so her conversion at the end is utterly unconvincing. The boy does indeed keep in character, not caring at all about the destruction around him so long as he gets the girl back. The Baron is good fun, but the crazy AI theme is not exactly new, and the more serious love story simply didn’t work for me. One of those stories you enjoy the actual reading of, but unlike the stories on either side of it, it doesn’t seem to resonate afterwards. (Someone – Jack Chalmont? – suggests that the physical destruction may simply be a reflection of the boy’s disintegrating state of mind; I didn’t read it that way, but I don’t deny the possibility. It would be interesting if the writer answered this point on the Interzone forums.)"

A Necklace of Ivy

Peter Tennant reviews Fiction #4 on the Whispers of Wickedness website. He has some issues with my story A Necklace of Ivy, but describes it as:

"... beautifully written and keenly felt, the tale of two lovers wandering in a landscape blighted by an alien plague and dodging the military..."

Interzone 212 Reviewed In The Fix Online

In her review of Interzone 212 for The Fix Online, Jessica E Kaiser writes:

“Ack-Ack Macaque” is incredible. I can’t, don’t, and didn’t believe it while I was reading it; I spent the first two-thirds of the story wondering where the speculative element was, and then when it did come, I thought, “No way.” Powell used the same, old AI tropes without a single twist, except that in this version, it’s even more unbelievable. And yet, somehow, equally incredibly, it works. I couldn’t decide who to cheer for or who should win, I found the explanation of events utterly implausible, there are explosions and pointless deaths, and yet, it’s a feel-good story. There you have it.

Read the full review here.

Fresh and Fun

Fellow Interzone contributor Douglas Elliott Cohen calls Ack-Ack Macaque "fresh and fun" in his review of Issue 212.