An Interview with Gareth L Powell: 4 September 2007

Gareth L Powell is a speculative fiction writer from the UK. Critics have likened his work to Richard Morgan and Charles Stross. Recently, he has been published in America, Europe and the Middle East, and his work translated into Polish, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish and Portuguese. Earlier this year, his short story The Last Reef made the long lists for both the BSFA and BFS awards for Best Short Story, and placed highly in the 2006 Interzone Reader’s Poll.

Gareth keeps a blog at: http://garethlynpowell.blogspot.com, with links to online examples of his work.

Well Gareth, it seems like it’s been a very busy year for you since we last spoke. Could you tell us about the books you’ve signed deals for?

Since we last spoke, I’ve been fortunate enough to sign deals with two very cool independent presses, Elastic Press and Pendragon Press. Elastic Press are going to publish my debut short story collection, The Last Reef and Other Stories, in August 2008. This collects together many of the stories I’ve had published in print and online magazines over the last four years, including the two stories that have appeared in Interzone.

Then in 2009, Pendragon Press are going to publish my first novel, Silversands - a breathless cyberpunk yarn, shot through with planetary politics, espionage and subterfuge. I’ve also just released a collection of poetry, entitled: Los Muertos. This is my second poetry collection. It includes around forty poems, new and old, and can be ordered via my website.

I understand you’ve also been busy academically?

That’s right. Somehow I found time to take the Institute of Direct Marketing’s Certificate in Direct and Interactive Marketing, and pass with credit – an achievement I’m still very proud of.

Has that experience helped shape the way you write your fiction?
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Interzone Cover Artwork All In One Place

On and impluse, I did a search for old Interzone covers on google images, and came back with this site which holds most (if not all) the covers of Interzone from Issue 1 to Issue 199, which strangely enough is exactly where I started subscribing to it.

I particularly liked the way the cover changed slightly from Issue 1 to Issue 2, the total eclipse of the sun moving off centre and the colour changing. Very effective, if simplistic.

You can see how the artwork progressed, and the way in which ’sf’ is being portrayed through art is changing.

It’s also amusing to see how the Interzone logos change over the years, of which I prefer the newest. Although that’s not to say the older ones weren’t ‘cool’ in their day - they just look kind of dated now, which isn’t really true of the artwork itself, it’s stood the test of time.

My favourite is Issue 16 as it reflects the kind of stories I rate high on my list - a world which is similar to our own on the surface, but strange when examined closely.

Looking at the covers, quite a few names jump out. Most notably, J.G Ballard, Christopher Priest, Jonathan Carroll (which I never realised had written for Interzone), Ian Watson, Kim Newman, Greg Bear, Bruce Sterling,, Greg Egan, Eric Brown and William Gibson, to name but a few. Which goes to make an impressive lineup.

A great archive, which covers the covers of the world’s best, British and longest running, sf magazine, although, sadly, the names of the artists are missing.

The Bourne Story Is Back (calm down girls)

This isn’t really scifi, but when I saw The Bourne Identity (and The Bourne Supremacy to some extent) it reminded me of Philip K Dick (probably Paycheck) - a person struggling with his environment, not knowing who he really was, or is, and venturing to find out by learning about what’s locked in is mind.

Let’s hope it keeps the same vein as the earlier movies (and ok, I admit I’ve only read the first book, couldn’t quite get into the others).

Matt Damon returns as the trained assassin Jason Bourne for the latest showdown in The Bourne Ultimatum. In the follow-up to 2002’s The Bourne Identity and 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy—the smash hits that have earned over $500 million at the global box office—acclaimed director Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy) joins returning cast members Julia Stiles and Joan Allen and new additions David Strathairn, Paddy Considine and Edgar Ramirez.

All he wanted was to disappear. Instead, Jason Bourne is now hunted by the people who made him what he is. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, he is undeterred by the barrage of bullets and a new generation of highly-trained killers. Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was.

Now, in the new chapter of this espionage series, Bourne will hunt down his past in order to find a future. He must travel from Moscow, Paris, Madrid and London to Tangier and New York City as he continues his quest to find the real Jason Bourne—all the while trying to outmaneuver the scores of cops, federal officers and Interpol agents with him in their crosshairs.

The Bourne Ultimatum was shot in Morocco, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Bourne Ultimatum Teaser Trailer:

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British Fantasy Award Longlist: The Last Reef: Gareth Lyn Powell: IZ202

Gareth Lyn Powell’s story The Last Reef has been longlisted for the British Fantasy Award. It was first published in Interzone 202 and complimented by illustrations by Vincent Chong.

You can read an interview with Gareth Lyn Powell here.

And read the story, The Last Reef on the Interzone site.

DNA – The Source of Life, the Universe and Everything

By Simon Hope

Forty-two.

It’s like a Freemason’s handshake to fans of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Forty-two. The answer to life, the universe and everything. Just one of a series of clever in-jokes that bind millions of Hitchhiker fans around the globe.

In 1979, soon after publication of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, author Douglas Adams was invited to a book signing at a small science fiction shop in Soho. As he drove he was held up by what he assumed to be a demonstration. It was only on arrival that he realised the massive crowds were there to meet him. Rarely has a book, particularly a sci-fi comedy novel, created a following of such scale. The Hitchhiker’s Guide had morphed from a cult radio series into a publishing success overnight. A phenomenon was born.

Life
Douglas Noel Adams was born in Cambridge on 11 March 1952 (one of his favourite gags being that he preceded Crick and Watson’s own discovery of DNA in Cambridge by some nine months). After a strange start to life – Adams claimed to have made a habit of walking into lamp-posts as a child – he quickly found his vocation. By the age of eleven his first piece of writing had been accepted into print – a short story for Eagle annual. Despite the many detours he would take along the way, it appears the writing bug was unshakeable from that early age.
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