Gareth Powell's first novel punches above its (159 page) weight on ideas, plot and credible people

I came to Gareth Powell via his "Ragged Alice" stand-alone novel and his "Embers Of War" galaxy-spanning epic Science Fiction trilogy. He's on my 'read whatever he writes' list, so when I saw that his first short novel had been given a makeover and was on available as an ebook for $0.99, I had to get a copy.

"Sileersands" is only 159 pages long but it punches above its weight. 

The universe it's set in has enough scope for at least a trilogy - an Earth diaspora through wormhole gates built by an unknown race and which we know so little about that ships can't select a destination, they just have to roll the dice. 

The plot is paced like a thriller, with action almost from the first page, murky relationships, betrayals, power plays and everyone trying to kill or capture our heroine.

There are big themes in common with Gareth Powell's other books: the relationships between AIs and humans, the impact of living long lives and what it means to be human once you can be cybernetically augmented, genetically modified or cloned.

While I love all this stuff, the things that keep me coming back to Gareth Powell are that, in his books, actions have consequences and even key characters may not make it to the end of the book and that the people are real, relatable and central to the story. Powell's talent for making me believe in his characters is what makes his books special for me.

Here's an example of the kind of writing he uses to do this. This is a description of one of the characters meeting with his ex-wife:¨¨

'She smiled. The corners of her lips crinkled up in a way that had once been irresistible but was now only comfortably familiar. The passion in their relationship had been one of the first things to go, second only to trust. In its place, however, there was a stubborn fondness.'

'stubborn fondness' - there's a phrase to conjure with.

This was Gareth Powell's first book and you can already see the focus on people that makes his Science Fiction work so well.

This is a description of one of the characters meeting with his ex-wife:¨¨

'She smiled. The corners of her lips crinkled up in a way that had once been irresistible but was now only comfortably familiar. The passion in their relationship had been one of the first things to go, second only to trust. In its place, however, there was a stubborn fondness.'

 

I like the idea of 'stubborn fondness'. It sounds real to me.

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Lockdown is an odd thing. It gives me a huge amount of time to read but it also makes it hard to concentrate. My solution is to read books in parallel so that, when I lose focus on one, I can move to another, and to use a mix of ebook and audiobook so that I don't have headphones welded to my ears all day.

Here's what I'm reading just now:

I'm having a lot of fun with 'The Southern Book Club's Guide To Killing Vampires'. It's scarier than I expected

Actually, it's mostly menacing rather than terrifying. It feels plausible and real with the attendant sense of powerlessness and despair.

I'm hoping to finish it today.

I'm reading 'The Invisible Guardian' for Snakes & Ladders.

It's translated from Spanish and is the first book in a trilogy set in the Basque country.

It's been on my TBR for a while and I have high hopes of it.

'Silversands' is a novella from Gareth Powell, who wrote the 'Embers of War' SF trilogy. This is one of his early pieces.

He put it on Kindle with a new cover and a 99p price tag that I couldn't resist.

'True Grit' isn't technically a Friday read because I can't start it until tomorrow but it's downloaded and ready to go as this weekend's Pandemic Buddy Read.

I've seen both of the movie versions. I bought the book because, even from the opening paragraph, I could see that the book was likely to be more powerful.

"Light of Impossible Stars" is a deeply satisfying read that does something very rare: it ends a trilogy in a way that not only doesn't disappoint but excites and surprises.

I loved the first two books in this trilogy, "Embers Of War" and "Fleet of Knives" so I'd pre-ordered the final book and dived into it as soon as it arrived.

Like it's predecessors, it was a fast-paced, page-turning, epic science fiction story, crammed with original ideas and strong world-building, yet what kept me reading were the characters in the book and the empathy and humour of the writing.

All of the books have followed multiple storylines that slowly reveal the big picture. The strength of the characterisation, especially in this final book, keeps those storylines intimate and relevant.

I'd say it kept the book human but some of the main characters are not human and part of the strength of the book comes from how clearly their thoughts and hopes are articulated,

Gareth Powell is very good at letting his characters be themselves, without judgement or apology, where the character is a genocidal psychopathic poet, a warship who has grown a conscience and resigned her commission, a non-human engineer who believes in work and rest and the world tree, a young woman trying to discover who or what she is or an ex-military officer looking for redemption through service.

I like the fact that, in this world, actions have consequences: not everyone survives, those that do survive are often damaged and neither the pain nor the occasional love is glossed over. I like that some characters fail to learn and are doomed to repeat their mistakes while others grow, develop and find new mistakes to make and some just get by day to day as best they can.

I admire the truly epic scale of the plot and the depth of the world-building and that, despite how strong the plot and SF ideas are, they never push the characters out of the way.

Now that I've read all three books, I want to go back and read them again, so that I can take in the grandeur of the big picture and spend more time with characters I've grown to know well.

Finally, I have to say that I am, as I'm sure I'm supposed to be, deeply attached to Trouble Dog and I hope to hear more of what happens to her now the trilogy is over.

"Light Of Impossible Stars" works very well as an audiobook with different narrators presenting chapters written from the point of view of the main characters. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.

... I like the way Gareth Powell writes and I admire the breadth of topics he writes about.

This is the third book of the Embers Of War trilogy, that I've read as they were published.

Embers of War

Fleet of Knives

I had "Light Of Impossible Stars" on pre-order so I could read it as soon as it became available. I've put all reading challenges to one side so I can give this my attention. It's epic SF at its best: fast-paced, credible and still surprising. I've only just started and already I'm immersed in it.