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I'm currently in the midst of Interzone 222, a number that seems oddly significant. Lined up on the reading table are On-Spec #76, my first opportunity to read this Canadian magazine, followed by two impressive-looking titles from NewCon Press. These are Eric Brown's novella Starship Fall and Ian Whates' collection The Gift of Joy.
I'll let you know what I thought of them all.
The Scots translation of Gone with the Window is out now in issue #74 of Lallans, the Scots literary magazine that has been published since 1973. I’ve not seen my copy yet, but Steve Porter who translated my story, has received his copy over in Spain so mine should appear soon.
Edit: It arrived on Saturday, redirected to my new house.
Which reminds me, if you were planning to post anything to me to review, get in touch for my new address.
A review of Catalan magazine Catarsi appears on the website El Kraken today. Translated into English the meaning isn’t always entirely clear, but in part it says of Roadmaker:
The point is that Jones tells his story with simple sentences, made little, also, just after the story has a tendency to think that is a down ... but if you reflect, you can read between the lines and maybe ... will become a more developed story than we thought.
This road can be at once a metaphor for the progress but also of the uncertainty of a future that can not be anticipated. However, it is sometimes a story a little upset.
My nanotechnology story Inside Every Successful Man appears this week in Polish webzine Fahrenheit. Originaly published in Hub and podcast by ClonePod, it's also due in Italian webzine Intercom SF.
This is the Manx translation of The Last Adam, following in the footsteps of the Spanish and Welsh versions.
Yn Adam S'jerree
Liorish Gareth D Jones
Dobbree y fer s'jerree 'sy teihll ny host chree brisht. V'eh grainney
ennym er tablad fuyghagh, dy kiarailagh, dy mynchooishagh. Tra v'eh
jeant echey, hoie eh eh er-mullagh oaye, fer s'jerree ayns straih by gyn
jerrey lesh, as adsyn er nyn reuyrey ny s'doillee as ny s'doillee ec ny
sloo as ny sloo sleih.
Hoie eh dy trome, as vlakee eh er yn obbyr va jeant echey. Cha nee
ynrican fer s'jerree 'sy teihll v'ayn nish. She peiagh s'jerree v'ayn
foast.
Er y tablad va grainnit: 'Eve'.
Yn Jerrey
The new issue of Interzone includes the results of the readers poll, a list that pretty much agreed with my own assessment. Four of the top ten also feature in my list of 2008 favourite stories, and the other six were all ones I enjoyed too.
Congratulations to everyone who featured in the poll.
I’m currently reading Alan Dean Foster’s final Pip & Flinx novel Flinx Transcendent (due out next week), and Murky Depths #8. I’ll be producing reviews of both for next month’s SF Crowsnest.
To make Murky Depths even better this month, I get a mention in the editorial.
:o)
Issue #11 of Alfa Eridiani is now out, containing the Spanish translation of Travel by Numbers. It’s also accompanied by 3 great illustrations that almost perfectly reflect my picture of the scenes.
Travel by Numbers first appeared in Nature magazine and has also been published in Serbian and Estonian, making this my first story to be published in 4 languages and my 7th story translated into Spanish.
You can now follow me on Twitter, if you’re so inclined. My user name over there is garethdjones1.
Start following me soon to keep up with an interesting thread I’ve just begun.
Being part of a long-running series, ‘Trouble Magnet’ suffers from the unavoidable problem of relying on previous volumes for its back story. I guess this isn’t a problem in the main as readers of this book are likely to be Pip and Flinx fans anyway. It didn’t cause too much difficulty for me as this is a stand alone story, but it did occasionally leave me confused. Nonetheless it’s an enjoyable tale of mischief and adventure that with the cast of characters being mostly youngsters I guess is aimed at the YA market.
Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.
It’s been a while since the last issue of ‘Midnight Street’, but it’s back faithfully, with another fine selection of stories and some fabulous sketches by Marge Ballif Simon to accompany many of them. The magazine also has a relatively large proportion of reviews, interviews and articles to make a nicely varied publication.
Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.
Unusually enough, Genesis is a novella. It makes a pleasant change to find such a short book from a major publisher, a book that strikes a fine balance between the thrust and immediacy of a short story and the character and societal development found in a novel. It’s written in a non-standard format too, something that I always find appealing and that I’ve tried myself in several short stories. Again it’s not something you’d normally find in a longer work.
Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.
You could spend an awfully long time looking at the cover of Interzone #221. The detail in Adam Tredowski’s illustration is amazing. There’s a variety of artwork inside too, of which I particularly liked Lisa Konrad’s illustration that beautifully reflects the spirit of Alaya Johnson’s story ‘Far and Deep’. As for the fiction, a wide and interesting variety again.
Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.
I was greatly relieved to read in the introduction to Eclipse Two that the contents lean more towards SF than did volume one. In my review of volume one I commented that I evidently have very different tastes to Jonathan Strahan, yet this time I enjoyed many more of the stories. There was less of the slipstream side of things that was evident in the first outing but from the very beginning we are treated to a huge variety of sfnal ideas that are used in entertaining and original ways.
Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.
I've spent a week in a French chateau where I completed the initial edit of Roadmaker. Curiously they didn't have wifi in the 18th century, so no posts last week. Half of the novel has already been through my writing group and more sectons are with them now. It'll be a couple of months yet before it's all done.
Meanwhile, a 2nd review of Jupiter 24 is out. It only makes brief mention of Dog's Best Friend, but then it's a brief story. It's a good review overall though.
My second twitter fiction, Falling, has been accepted by Jetse De Vries’ OutShine twitterzine. Not sure when it will appear yet, but I’m very pleased to have now been accepted by both major specfic twitterzines.
Edit: It's now been scheduled for July 4th.
The first review of Jupiter XXIV has appeared, over at SF Revu. It has this to say about my contribution:
Last of all, we have "Dog's Best Friend" by Gareth D Jones. Set in the world of Jones' wonderful Roadmaker series, the story features Alf, an old man, who has no human friends but still finds some companionship of the four-footed kind. This was a pleasant affectionate look at humans and dogs that was a pleasure to read.
A reprint of my 300 word story White Out has been accepted by the quarterly magazine Golden Visions for their July online issue. White Out was one of my Friday Flash Fiction pieces from last February.
