The Enclave: a novella set within the world of A Calculated Life

The Enclave is set within the world of my debut novel A Calculated Life, finalist for the Philip K Dick Award and the Kitschies Golden Tentacle.

I’m thrilled to tell you that I’m working on a novella, The Enclave, which is a companion piece to my first novel, A Calculated Life. This SF novella will be one of four in a series including works by Alastair Reynolds, Simon Morden—such fabulous company!—commissioned by independent publisher NewCon Press. The fourth novella in the series will be announced in due course and all four will be published individually and later slip-cased to form a set. How exciting!

Since I completed A Calculated Life (47North), I’ve felt an itch to write a story set within the same world, one that weaves across the narrative rather than forming a sequel. So I’m excited to revisit life in the enclaves—home to society’s underclass late in the twenty-first century.

I’ve been radio silent in recent weeks for a good reason: I’ve been editing my third novel, Dreams Before the Start of Time. It’s a multi-generational story of two families spanning into the next century, and it will be published in April 2017 by 47North. In this novel, I imagine the impacts of likely advances in human reproductive technologies. It’s a standalone novel. However… one the main characters is Toni Munroe who appears in my second novel, Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind.

In other news, last weekend I had a fun time at Nine Worlds in London. I took part in panel events and I moderated the Ada Lovelace Day Conversation during which we debated the question:

Top of my reading pile this week!

Can science fiction inspire a life in science and technology? — prompted by an ongoing collaboration between organisers of the Ada Lovelace Day and the Arthur C Clarke Award. The exemplary panel included Hodder & Stoughton editor Anne Perry, authors Aliya Whiteley, Stephanie Saulter and Yen Ooi, and human-computer interaction specialist Stephanie Troeth.

I’ve come away from Nine Worlds with a long reading list and top of the pile are these two gorgeous books by Aliya Whiteley.

So I’m back at the desk, drafting The Enclave, and looking forward to seeing the cover concepts for Dreams Before the Start of Time.

Have a lovely August everyone, wherever on the planet you find yourselves!