Roadmaker's Return

My recent Friday Flash Fiction, Dog's Best Friend, was set in the world of the Roadmaker and received some positive comments from readers. In fact, Jupiter editor Ian Redman liked it so much that he's asked to reprint it in Jupiter. So look out for the Roadmaker's return in a future issue of Jupiter.

Roadbuilder Reviewed Again

Another reveiw of Jupiter XXII is on-line at SF Crowsnest and has this to say about Roadbuilder:

Gareth D. Jones' road stories have eventually run their course with 'Roadbuilder', the last of the five part series. I'll try not to make any puns about transport, which is difficult, but it has been an excellent journey. The people of this quaint land get to grips with computer technology in order to control the road-making machine. Whatever happened to make this a post-apocalypse world we don't really know but the machine has acted to connect disparate communities, strengthening society and advancing communication. However, one wonders how long will be before double yellow lines are painted along the new roads and parking wardens make an appearance?

Now there's an idea for the novel...

Book Reveiw: Quofum by Alan Dean Foster

I haven’t read an Alan Dean Foster book for years. I don’t know why, I enjoyed some of the early commonwealth novels – they were always exciting and entertaining. You know the problem when you return to something from your youth: it’s just not the same.


Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Diaspora by Greg Egan

Many of the themes and grand concepts from Egan’s earlier works come together in ‘Diaspora’, a book that left me dumbfounded with its astonishing scale. You’ve likely read other books that span millennia or even billions of year or that cross universes, but believe me this book will leave them all behind.


Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

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.

Magazine Review: Interzone #218

Having recently read and thoroughly enjoyed Chris Beckett’s collection ‘The Turing Test’, I was very pleased to discover that ‘Interzone’ #218 contains not one but three new Beckett stories. There’s also an in-depth interview with him as well as an interview with Gareth L Powell and the usual selection of reviews and columns to provide a diverse read.


Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Teranesia by Greg Egan

Teranesia is the made up name of a remote Indonesian island that forms the backdrop of this novel. It is the island where Prabir grows up with his biologist parents and where he and his sister return years later to investigate strange new creatures that have been discovered. In this book Egan shows that he can talk biology as convincingly as he can discuss maths and physics.


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.

First Final Review

The first review of Jupiter XXII containing my final Roadmaker story has appeared at SF Revu. Of Roadbuilder, Sam Tomaino writes:

The third story, "Roadbuilder" is, alas, the last installment in Gareth D. Jones' "Roadmaker" series. In this one, we get updates of the characters we have come to love from the other installments and more old technology is discovered and made to work. Things get wrapped up somewhat but I do hope that sometime Jones will turn this into a novel. He is talented at creating characters and has a style I enjoy.

Regular readers of this blog will know that there is indeed a Roadmaker novel in the pipeline, currently hovering around the 60,000 word mark.

October Poll Result

In line with my own thinking, A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back were voted best Star Wars films in last month's poll. There was one vote from some heretic for 'They're all tripe'.

No poll this month as I haven't give sufficient thought to coming up with something deep and meaningful.