Science Fiction with Gareth L. Powell

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Welcome to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast, the weekly discussion of craft and technique for writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. And now here's your host, writer and educator, Brad Reed. Episode 21. Today we're talking with science fiction writer, writing coach, and author of Embers of War, as well as an upcoming book about writing, Gareth L. Powell. Welcome back to the podcast.

My name is Brad Reed, and I'm so excited that you're here with us today. Thank you so much for being a listener, and a very special thanks to the members of the Patreon team that keep us fired up and dedicated to producing great content every week. If you're interested in becoming part of the team, head on over to patreon. com slash Brad Reed writes to check out some of the great rewards you have access to as a team member. I first stumbled across today's guest on Twitter where he was posing a simple question to his Twitterverse. What can I do for you?

What followed was a thread full of support and kindness and insight about writing that brings a breath of fresh air to Twitter and many people's writing lives. He's a talented writer who often gives his time to helping fellow writers online and has a passion for his chosen genre. My guest today is Gareth L. Powell, who was born and raised in Bristol, England. He's a popular panelist and speaker at literary events and conventions around the UK and has run creative writing workshops and given guest lectures at a number of universities, libraries, and conferences. He's a frequent guest on local radio and has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 Today program.

His alternate history thriller Akak McAk won the 2013 BSFA award for best novel. His most recent novel, Embers of War, a space opera described as fast paced, fun, and full of adventure is now available through Titan Books. His short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Clark's World, and the year's best science fiction. And his story Ride the Blue Horse was shortlisted for the 2015 BSFA award. Luna Press will also be publishing About Writing, his field guide for aspiring authors in 2019. Welcome to the show, Gareth L.

Gareth L. Powell's Background

Powell. Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. It's great to have you here. Why don't we start off by just having you tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you become a writer?

What kind of things do you write? I've always wanted to be a writer ever since I was a kid. My mother always took myself and my siblings to the local library every week and let us get out a few books and read them.

So books were always a huge part of my life as I was growing up and I very quickly discovered science fiction. So when I started writing seriously back around the turn of the millennium, when I turned 30, I decided, right, if I'm going to write a book, it has to be now. So I went for science fiction because you write what you love, basically. And sci-fi was my first love reading wise.

So I started off, wrote some stories in interzone, places like that, had a short story collection out. Then I wrote four novels for Solaris. One was a space opera called The Recollection, and the other three were about a monkey called Akak McAk. And now I'm writing a trilogy of space operas for Titan Books. That's fantastic. What do you think it is about science fiction in particular that draws you to that genre?

I think it's that you can, firstly, that you can do just about anything and go just about anywhere. You're fairly unrestrained as a writer. You can play. If you want to comment on life today, you don't have to write about an accountant living in Brooklyn. You can write about, you know, an accountant living on the moons of Saturn or whatever.

But it's like the difference, I guess, between playing a violin and playing an orchestra. You just have so much extra to draw on storytelling wise. And secondly, it's for me, even if the book you're reading or writing is dystopian or whatever, science fiction is still, I think, quite an optimistic genre in the fact that there will be a tomorrow. The human race will go on and will do other things.

So it's kind of, it's good for perspective. I like that. That's something I never thought of with my students. I talk to them a lot about how science fiction is both kind of a reflection of a society, but also a predictor of where society might be able to go.

But I love that piece you just talked about with that hopefulness of it. I think that's something I'm going to share as I'm introducing my students to science fiction in the future. So you're our first guest here on Inside Creative Writing from across the pond, as we say. I'm curious to ask you about how you think an author's location or where they're from, where they grew up, affects their writing.

In other words, how do you think your writing or your approach to writing might be different because of your background as an Englishman? I think my writing fits very well into the sort of traditional British science fiction writing because with the Akak McAk trilogy, a lot of the influence on that were the sort of Michael Moorcock, Jerry Cornelius books and so forth. And a lot of influence on The Recollection was heavily influenced by M. John Harrison and people like that. And I've kind of come from that tradition, Moorcock, Ballard, and the others more so than the Americans. I mean, I started off reading Arthur C.

Clarke as a very young child. I did sort of read sort of Larry Niven and the American authors as well, but their fiction to me seemed much more removed from what I could understand as the sort of human experience because it was more kind of political. It was more based on competent individuals. Whereas the science fiction in Britain at the time, the individuals were very much not competent. They were very much everyman. And that was something that, sorry, I got a cat on the keyboard.

I could relate to. I could relate to that in a much more, in the same way that when Star Wars came out in 1975, I could relate to the fact that Luke Skywalker was a kid from a small town. I could relate to that much better than I could relate to Captain Kirk because he was an officer who'd been through officer training and was in a sort of quasi-military service, which was beyond my experience as a kid.

So it was a case of being able to relate. And I think I sort of related more to that kind of slight quirkiness in them and slight, I'm trying to think of a better word than anarchic, but unrestrained kind of stream of British science fiction. Yeah, nice.

Understanding Space Opera

So talk to me a little bit about your latest book, Embers of War. It's what they call a space opera. Now, for those unfamiliar with that term, space opera, tell us a little bit about what makes this a space opera. What is a space opera? And then just a little bit about that book. Well, the term space opera started off as a pejorative term way back in the, I'm not sure, 30s, 40s, where at the time you had soap operas, which were sort of shows that were broadcast on the radio, sort of pulp shows sponsored by soap manufacturers.

And the idea was to get people in just to see the commercials. And so they had these, that's where soap opera came from. But they also did Westerns, which became known as horse operas. And I think Champion the Wonder Horse is probably an example. And then they also, they did space ones, and they were thinly disguised Westerns with spaceships instead of horses. And they were just called space operas from the soap opera.

And it was a term of sort of denigration. But then as the years went on, much like the term hippie started off as a term of abuse, but was adopted. And the term punk was a put down, but was adopted and taken on board. Space, people started consciously writing space opera. And that was sort of widescreen, big, big themes, big canvases, lots of action, lots of thought, lots of cosmic wonder. It's gone through several evolutions in the, around about the turn of the century, there was a big renaissance and they called it the new space opera with people like Ian Banks and so on writing this kind of new space opera.

And now and Alistair Reynolds. And now we're kind of in a, I'm not really sure where we are at the moment, but there seems to be a new crop of space opera writers coming through with sort of James S. A. Corey, obviously leading the charge. Adrian Tchaikovsky's amazing Children of Time. Evan Newman is in there as well.

And there's me and then there's many others, Aliette de Bodard as well. So there's this whole new crop of sort of space opera writers. And I think we use space opera because we don't have another term to use really.

Female Protagonists in Embers of War

But what it basically means is big spaceships, big themes, widescreen action. Sure, sure. Now I'm in the middle of Embers of War right now. I'm not typically much of a science fiction reader, but I'm really, really enjoying this book. And I can't be helped but be struck by the many compelling and realistic portrayals of female protagonists that you're using in Embers of War. Can you tell me a little bit about either the writing or the planning process that led you to cast so many women as protagonists in this book?

It wasn't a greatly conscious decision, to be honest. And in fact, I had to go back and change a couple of the characters to male because otherwise it would have, I think, would have been a complete whitewash of female characters. I don't know. I've always written all my previous books as well. I've got quite, very strong female and the discipline to spend the time doing doing the work. I mean, there's that that's all it comes down to is doing the work.

Challenges of Being a Full-Time Author

And the other the other I'm a full time author as well now. So one of the biggest challenges is earning a living because 20, 30, 40 years ago, you could pay your rent for the month on the sell of a short story. You know, Philip K. Dick, you know, he would he would sell a short story. That was a month's income. He was happy.

So nowadays it's, you know, you sell a short story and it's 100 bucks, maybe. It doesn't last long. You said you sell a novel and, you know, unless it's a massive big seller, it's not going to keep you, you know, it's a few months worth of groceries and you'd have to write six or seven a year just to get a decent income.

So, yeah, that's that's more of a challenge now that the while everything else has gone up, the amount writers earn has seems to have stayed the same. So that's why I've gone into that's why I've got a Patreon page now, which I'm experimenting with. Tell us a little bit about your Patreon page. How can we find you there and what kind of what kind of resources can we can we expect there? Well, if you search, search me on Patreon, I think I think it's Patreon dot com slash GL Powell, I think. And on there, there's for those unfamiliar with Patreon, it's it's a way that fans can support an artist or a writer by making a small monthly payment of a dollar or a couple of dollars a month.

And if enough people do it, that that artist gets the money they need to complete their project or to write. So I've gone on there and I wanted to give value for money. I didn't expect anyone just to support me because I'm me.

So I offer several different reward levels. And there are is a monthly serial that I write a monthly fiction serial that you can get if you subscribe five dollars a month or more. There's if you subscribe one dollar a month or more, there's deleted chapters. There's there's bits of old screenplays I've written. There's all sorts of blog posts and whatnot to read. And also I've got a mentorship program on there, which is full at the moment, but people pay twenty dollars a month and each month I will review a thousand words of their work, critique it, edit it and offer suggestions and help.

So that's been quite successful and that's been a lot of fun because, I mean, I'm editing something like 16, 17,000 words worth of work a month now just to do that. But it's, I feel I'm giving back. I'm giving for people's support. I'm providing a service, but also providing a sort of bringing people together and making a community as well.

Helping Aspiring Writers

So that that leads us into something that is actually the way that I stumbled across you on Twitter is your kind of heart for helping up and coming or struggling writers. What motivates you to spend so much time helping those writers out there? It was a couple of years ago, actually. I was I was on Twitter. I think it was around the whole Brexit vote when that was happening. And Twitter had become quite a toxic place.

And obviously with with politics in general now, a lot of Twitter is fairly toxic. People just yelling at each other about one view or another. And it's become quite horrible. And I looked at it and I thought, I'm really not enjoying Twitter anymore.

So I thought that old adage about be the change you want to see in the world. So I thought, right, I am going to use Twitter in a very, very positive way. That's that's gonna be what I'm gonna do.

So I just started. I just posted up a tweet saying, hey, any aspiring writers need any help? And somebody wrote back and said, yeah, I need a name for a character.

And so I gave them a name. And somebody else wrote back and said, oh, if you get stuck doing, you know, this or that, what should you do? And I gave them a bit of advice. And suddenly, and it's sort of grown from there.

But I just I just help people and you put out something positive into the world like that, and it kind of comes back. I've got, I've been doing that for a year, maybe, maybe more now. And my follower count has doubled and the reactions and the, and the sort of, I can't think of the word, but the, what I'm getting back from people is really positive. And I've got a nice bunch of Twitter followers now and we chat and we talk and I feel that by opening up and saying I want to help, it's helped Twitter for me and it's helped the universe for me become a more, a more friendly place. And it's also made people more, more well disposed to my fiction as well, which is a nice side effect as well, because they think that's the guy that helps people. I'll read something he's written.

So it's, yeah, it's been a hugely rewarding experience and I'm glad, I'm glad I did that instead of just sort of quitting Twitter in disgust, which was my other option. So it's, it's been good. How can people follow you on Twitter? It's quite easy. I'm just at Gareth L. Powell.

So it's it's quite easy to find me. Great. I'll have links to all that as well as your Patreon stuff on the show notes.

So for our listeners out there would like to check that out. You can head over to bradreedwrites. com. Click on the, this episode, you'll find the show notes there.

So question I always like to ask writers before we finish up our interview is if you could go back in time before you published your first book and meet yourself there, what advice would you give yourself? Buy shares in Apple. It's yeah, I don't know, really. I think it would, it would be, don't try and impress anybody else. Write from the heart, write what you want to write. And I've kind of, I have done that, but my first novel Silver Sands was kind of a bit of a mess because it was trying to write what I thought, what I thought a sci-fi novel should be.

And then in my second novel, The Recollection was much better, much is where I found my voice because I stopped trying. I thought, right, I'm going to write this is going to be the book I've wanted to write since I was a kid and just set forward from that perspective. So I guess it would be, don't, don't write what you think you should write, write what you want to write. Great. Yeah.

Overview of Embers of War

So before we call it a day here, why don't you tell us a little bit more about Embers of War? That's your current book that is out now. Just a little bit about the story, the characters, why we should pick that up. Cool. Well, Embers is set three years after a very destructive war between two human factions, a war that ended with a big atrocity by one of the factions. And it follows some characters who fought in the war, including a heavy cruiser called the Trouble Dog, who was involved with her siblings in the perpetration of the atrocity following orders.

But since then has grown, accidentally grown a conscience. So she's resigned her commission and had most of her weaponry taken away. And she's joined an organization called the House of Reclamation, which is sort of like, it's sort of a rescue organization, sort of cross between the Thunderbirds and the Coast Guard, I guess, which helps stranded space travelers and ships in distress.

And so she's trying to kind of atone for her massive body count by helping people and rescuing people. She's crewed by a crew of people who were on the opposite side of the war, but have also joined this house as well. And together they're kind of, they're finding out who they are now in the wake of all that and how they can help the universe, how they can grow as people and how they can just live with what's happened and what they've done. And when a liner goes missing with a celebrity on board, they're dispatched to try and find it. And, but the celebrity is not who they seem and there's interstellar politics and all sorts of things. And without giving too much away, it all ends up in a big fight.

So it's, it's kind of an adventure novel, but it's much more kind of, it's much deeper sort of character, not introspection, but the, the, the kind of experiences the characters have been through very much inform the way they approach this, this, this book. It's kind of like, so somebody said the other day, it's like, it's as if it's, it's as if Star Wars started three years after the second Death Star blew up. So all, all that's gone. And now it's coming to terms with everything that's happened.

So, well, it's a fantastic read. Like I said, I'm about midway through it right now and I'm amazed by your power or your ability to be able to make me emotionally connect so deeply with a spaceship and kind of the, the, the trauma and the, as you said, atonement that the ship is trying to go through. So it's a really unique perspective that I haven't experienced in fiction before, and I'm really enjoying that.

So thank you for that great book. Thanks. So thanks so much, Gareth, for hanging out with us here at the Inside Creative Writing Podcast. Best of luck with your current projects. And we look forward to checking them out. You'll have, we'll have to have you back on again when you're about writing book comes out.

We're, we're excited to see what that's all about. Thank you very much. Today's wise word comes from writer Kazuo Ishiguro. And I thought it was in keeping with Gareth's advice to avoid writing what you think people want to read, but and ensure that we can keep producing it every week.

So until next week, remember the best way to improve your craft is by writing. That's what I'm off to go do, and I hope you're off to do the same. Let's get some words on paper this week, and we'll meet up again next week for another episode of the Inside Creative Writing Podcast. Thanks for listening to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast with your host, writer and educator, Brad Reed. We'll be back next week.