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.

"Silversands" 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. ( )

Silversands by Gareth L. Powell is one of those delightful surprises that you run across while searching the internet for something else.

I was searching for another author and stumbled upon a link to Silversands.

The story started out slow for me but by the end of the sample I was hooked and had to download the rest.

This is the story of Avril Bradley a young woman who has been orphaned and is looking for her father. A man she only knows from a photograph and her mother's memories. To quirk up the equation, her search has taken her aboard a star ship that travels through a wormhole that has so many random destinations that it's improbable that she'll succeed.

After many jumps and a cargo full of refugees from a failed settlement on another star system they seem to have lucked into finding the ship that her father was supposed to have been aboard. In a strange turn of events something causes a malfunction in their ship, when they attempt to communicate with the other ship. Suspicious and unsure what caused their problem, they are forced to seek help from the settlers on the planet below the ships as their cargo begin to awaken from a long sleep.

This is where the story begins to weave into a convoluted set of political plots and strange events that point to Avril and her quest.

This has some excellent world building that helps drive the plot.

Though I found some of the plot to be predictable it did not interfere with my enjoyment of the story.(I can't really mention more about it without spoiling things) There were plenty of ways for the whole plot to play out and Gareth gives us plenty of surprises.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys Science Fiction and is looking for some fresh new ideas and Characters.
There's plenty of room for more stories in this universe.

J.L. Dobias ( )