One of many indicators of a profitable quick story for me is that they’re: properly, quick, but additionally unforgettable, remaining as flashes of brilliance within the reminiscence. Generally they’re little glimpses into one other place the place a world, a spot or a state of affairs is ready up, examined after which left after a couple of hundred phrases. They are often fragments of a much bigger story or setting or stand alone. Generally I feel that if you happen to’re left pondering, “Nicely, what occurs subsequent?” you’re on to a very good factor.
Though Gareth is probably greatest identified for his award-wining SF novels (5 nominated for the BSFA Finest Novel, 2 winners, with Embers of Battle and Evening of Knives additionally Locus Award finalists) it’s maybe value declaring that his apprenticeship goes again a lot additional. He lower his tooth so to talk in writing quick tales.
This assortment of 32 tales collects many of those tales thus far. Starting from 1992 to 2005, and with ten beforehand unpublished tales, it’s a pleasing choice of tales that replicate Gareth’s expertise.
Gareth says from the beginning that he has taken his unique 22 and given them a slight makeover, little question dusting off the previous copies and checking for inconsistencies. I didn’t discover something main myself.
The tales themselves should not in chronological order however are often put collectively in teams. For instance, there are two Embers of Battle tales, which followers of the novel (2018) will little question recognize, though you may learn them and like them, as I did with out having learn the novel.
Going additional again there are two ‘Ann Szkatula’ tales, primarily based round a fearsome character who travels throughout a Chernobyl-like wasteland of the West Nation of England an alien spaceship crash-landed right here, making a no-go zone round Bristol and the Severn Estuary.
His well-known award-winning story from 2006, Ack-Ack Macaque, a few speaking ape fighter-pilot in an alternate historical past is right here too in its unique quick story type, earlier than being taken away and written as a novel collection.
The e book’s title comes from the fairly Philip Okay Dick-like ‘An Examination of the Trolley Drawback Utilizing A Sentient Warship and a Rotating Black Gap”, which appears to be like at that previous moral thought experiment dilemma of who would you save in a trolley bus accident, however with a science-fictional edge.
Within the palms of a lesser author, this e book may appear to be nothing greater than a rag-tag assortment of odds and ends, an assemblage of stuff printed earlier than. And but there’s a cohesion right here. There are a variety of themes that run all through the tales. Though there are exceptions, I felt that there was a basic sense of melancholy all through most of the tales. A lot of them appear to contain characters ruminating on previous relationships, usually failed. The overriding impression is one among entropy and decay, with every little thing worn out, drained and run-down. There’s a basic ennui, a sense that our future is fairly darkish and miserable, a world of decay and squalor with characters struggling to make a residing.
The tales Gonzo Laptop computer, Sizzling Rain and The Final Reef are a collection of tales set in locations as various as London, Marseille and Mars, the place the evolution of AI has led to hi-tech machines turning into self-aware and harmful. Consider them as just like the Terminator films, though typically the main focus is on the folks affected by such world occasions.
To go along with this, there’s a couple of tales with a cyberpunk-ish vibe, the place the lengthy black leather-based coats, mega-weaponry and decaying city landscapes lit by flickering neon wouldn’t be misplaced in one thing like Blade Runner or Cyberpunk 2077.
A few of these tales are 7 pages lengthy, though most are round 20 pages or so. To these used to trilogies of 700+ pages such brevity is usually a little alarming.
Though the tales are set in quite a lot of locations, they do really feel fairly British, though I’m hard-pushed to really outline what meaning. The truth that most of the tales are set round Bristol and the West Nation (little question reflecting Gareth’s residence roots) made me smile. Science fiction doesn’t simply occur off-world, however right here on Earth, in Britain, as properly.
It jogs my memory a bit of of the previous New Worlds journal tales of the 1960’s when there was usually a give attention to issues occurring in Britain, though with visits to overseas locations and overseas planets. Consider Gareth writing as a brand new Ballard, or as a brand new Michael Moorcock writing a newer Jerry Cornelius to provide the tales a uniquely British dystopian perspective.
Briefly, it is a strong assortment with sufficient selection to maintain these pages turning and supply sufficient flashes of brilliance to make the tales usually memorable. In addition they offer you an thought of Gareth’s writing and the way it has developed. It made we need to go and browse these novels I haven’t learn but, which is an indication of a very good assortment for me.
© 2025 Mark Yon
Paperback | Titan Books
WHO WILL YOU SAVE? by Gareth L. Powell
October 2025 | 422 pages
ISBN: 978 180 3368 658
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