Random Interview Question: Gareth L Powell

I've been following Gareth L Powell's writing for a few years now, since we appeared in the same TOC in Aphelion magazine. Gareth's enjoyable space opera novel The Recollection was published last year. This question may not make much sense if you haven't read the book, but I don't want to spoil anything by explaining.

Q. If you were swallowed up by The Recollection, who (from anywhere or anywhen) would you hang out with?

A. If I were swallowed up by The Recollection, I’d get Jack Kerouac, Philip K Dick, Walt Whitman and Hunter S Thompson together for a night of wild talk; I’d argue about science fiction with JG Ballard, Douglas Coupland, Cordwainer Smith and Samuel Delany; and I’d get Stephen Hawking, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, and Brian Cox around a table and hang on their every word.

Saturday at BristolCon

BristolCon is a relatively small con in its second year, and I made the 2 1/2 hour trip down to Bristol for the weekend and attended the event on Saturday. It may be small, but it was very relaxed and friendly.

Two minor things I thought were good ideas and worth noting were:

• Name badges were printed on both sides. At previous cons, people's badges tended to flap over so you couln't see their name. This neatly solved that problem.
• There was a constant supply of free tea and coffee. Admittedly, that would probably be impracticaly at a much larger con.

This was a single-stream con, and I attended about half of the programme items, spending the rest of the time in the dealers' room, art show and bar (drinking tea), or lurking round the lobby.

I met up with a few people I've met before, others I've interacted with on the web, others whose work I've read, and saw several others whose names I knew but embarresingly hadn't read anything by them. I don't feel too bad introducing myself to fantasy authors whom I've not read as I don't read any fantasy, but it's a bit more awkward when it's a well-known SF author and I've not read any of their work. :o/

Anyway, I got to chat with authors Kim Lakin-Smith, Colin Harvey, Gareth L Powell and his wife Becky, Neil Beynon, John Meaney and his wife Yvonne, Mike Wood, Paul Cornell, Adam Colston, artist Andy Bigwood, Terry Martin of Murky Depths, Steve Upham of Screaming Dreams / Estronomicon, Del Lakin-Smith of Dark Fiction, and several others whose names I didn't note. Sorry.

It's especially nice to be able to chat to fellow authors about the trials and joys of writing.

I'm looking forward to my next con.

Book Review: The Last Reef by Gareth L Powell

I’ve been following Gareth L Powell’s work, or ‘the other Gareth’ as I like to call him, since we both had stories in ‘Aphelion’ in April 2005. ‘Six Lights Off Green Scar’ is one of the stories reproduced in this collection. What struck me about it at the time was the terse prose that somehow conveyed a mass of sensory information in few words, a quality that continues to define GLP’s work. Since then we’ve corresponded regularly and met up a couple of times, I joined Gareth’s Friday Flash Fictioneers, though I believe I coined the title, and we’ve collaborated on a flash fiction anthology (still available from OddTwoOut press). Having read all of this you may conclude that my review will be rather biased. Well you’d be wrong and I resent the implication.


Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

When Gareth Met Gareth

I recently attended the Convention for Science Fiction Authors Named Gareth, ConsFang, at the NEC in Birmingham where over 12,000 Gareths were present. While there I tracked down Gareth L Powell to find out what he was up to and how he got to where he is today.

You can read the full interview at SF Crowsnest.