William Campbell Powell

@willcampowell.bsky.social

1970 Followers 2029 Following

Author of TEARDOWN🌈📚 (NineStar), EXPIRATION DAY (YA/SF, Tor), also writes short SFF, long SFF/HF/Crime/contemporary. Software engineer (retired). Politics Green #FBPE bit.ly/TeardownBook https://williamcampbellpowell.com He/him

He huffed. “Leave it alone, Kai. I am what I am. And you are what you are. I happen to like pretty, sexy girls. But I desire that voice. I want that voice to front our band.” “And what if she’s neither?” “Huh?” “The world is full of women who aren’t pretty or sexy, who aren’t big-Black-momma. They’re just plain Jane, flat-chested, more banjo clock than hourglass, all the way to princess-Fiona-looking and beyond. Do you still want that voice if the face or the body doesn’t match the dream?” Jamie made a face as though I’d broken his favourite toy. I wondered if I’d gone too far. “Fair challenge,” he said at last. “It would make a difference. I can’t pretend it wouldn’t. But she’s got a hell of a voice. And she’s the bird in the hand. We’ve got four days to the first gig. Princess Fiona is hired.” “Hang on. What about the rest of the band?” “They aren’t here. We need to make a decision now.” “What about me…” I began. I glanced at Jamie, who wasn’t saying anything. He was looking I-want-this right back at me. Maybe I could push Jamie on this, but was I willing to pay the price?
On the road to music fame, desires and dreams collide. Smashwords Ebook Week Sale! Use code: EBW50 https://bit.ly/TeardownAndSmash
On the road to music fame, desires and dreams collide. Smashwords Ebook Week Sale! Use code: EBW50 https://bit.ly/TeardownAndSmash
Cover image of The Best of MetaStellar Year 4, listing (some) author names and with a medieval-themed graphic of an armoured foot pressing down on a wounded goblin. Nice!
Broken hearts can become games of shadows on the ballroom floor…. — “The Power We Give” by Larina Warnock The perfect alien planet for human life might not be all it's cracked up to be.... — “Dream Planet” by Jordan Maison Sometimes, androids will do anything for a hot cup of coffee…. — “Coffee Robot” by Bryce Paradis
3 copies of 'The Best Of MetaStellar Year Four' standing on a wooden chest.
The drizzle stopped about two hours before sundown, and a moderate breeze began to dispel the remaining mists. Night fell. Across the valley floor the earth was everywhere churned into mud by hundreds — thousands — of hooves. Dotted here and there were the broken mounds of rhinuffalo that had stumbled and fallen under those same hooves. It was feast time for many, though. Avians, mammals and reptiles drawn down from the high rocks and the neighbouring valleys — all came to share in the banquet of shattered flesh across the valley floor. And where the mud gave way to mostly un-trampled grass, a boy lay, battered and bloodied, beyond hope, sobbing with his last strength after all tears had failed.
Book cover: a white van with 3 of the band in the back. The van is driving towards a distant city - Berlin - with several landmarks visible. Text: Smashwords Ebook Week Sale! Use code: SSW50
Picture: Teardown book cover - white van driving towards Berlin skyline Text: Smashwords July Sale! Use code:SSW50
"The Securidad would have a field day here," said Sally, holding up book. Sam looked at the spine, but the title meant nothing. "What's special about this?" he asked. "Is it a banned book?" "Oh yes, Sam, this one alone will get you twenty-five years hard labour. It's Holinshed. It's his ‘Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland’, written before the Pax Hispanica." She looked around, scanning the books. "There's about a thousand years of hard labour on these shelves." She opened the book in her hand, at random. "We had kings, once." "And a queen," Sam replied. "The Painted Tyrant, they called her." "She had another name. Elizabeth Gloriana. She's not in this book - it was written before she came to the throne. But she wasn't the only queen. There was Matilda. And Æthelflæd. And - long ago - Boudicca, who led a revolt against the Romans."
Book cover: a white van with 3 of the band in the back. The van is driving towards a distant city - Berlin - with several landmarks visible. Text: Smashwords Ebook Week Sale! Use code: SSW50
40% Off! bit.ly/TeardownBook Use code: Pride2025 (Pride Month 2025 only, ebook only)
From my notifications: Google reports Trending: Chat GPT not working ChatGPT has been down for several hours due to an OpenAI outage.
6 books in three rows of 2: Writing Short Stories vs Write A Novel Crime and Thriller Writing vs Writing Science Fiction Save the Cat! Writes A Novel vs The Heroine's Journey
Six books from top left, clockwise: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid Expiration Day by William Campbell Powell Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton Teardown by William Campbell Powell Espedair Street by Iain Banks
Eva Cassidy, one of the great voices of the 20th century
Anais Demoustier
Surrounded by partying figures, a man wearing an orange fedora and sporting a slight beard is engaged in earnest discussion with an off-picture character.
Teardown book cover (white van driving towards Berlin) advertising: Book Tour Sale! US: $0.99 UK: £0.99 May 12-25, 2025 (bit.ly/BuyTeardown - ebookonly)
At the right of the picture, author William Campbell Powell is pictured playing his self-built bass guitar. Also pictured are two of the original band members who also toured Germany - the drummer and the lead singer/harmonica player.
I lay in bed hardly able to breathe but there were people to sedate me, pump air into me calm me down when I thrashed around hold my hand and reassure me play me songs my family sent in turn me over to help my lungs shave me, wash me, feed me check my medication perform the tracheostomy people on this ‘island of strangers’ from China, Jamaica, Brazil, Ireland India, USA, Nigeria and Greece. I sat on the edge of my bed and four people came with a frame and supported me or took me to a gym where they taught me how to walk between parallel bars or kick a balloon sat me in a wheel chair taught me how to use the exercise bike how to walk with a stick how to walk without a stick people on this ‘island of strangers’ from China, Jamaica, Brazil, Ireland India, USA, Nigeria and Greece. If ever you’re in need as I was may you have an island of strangers like I had.
Three lego figures occupy a stage, bathed in red light. On the left, Jake, the lead guitarist. Centre-back is Kai, the drummer. Jamie, Kai's brother, and the band's bassist occupies the right of the stage. Front and centre is a microphone in a stand. But there is no singer.
Lego figures representing the TEARDOWN band. From left to right: Lead guitar: Jake, playing his beloved stratocaster Backing vocals: Lotte, front of stage Drums: Kai, non-binary main character Lead vocals: Dom, woman of mystery, who joined the band on the way to their first gig Violin: Neale, also the owner and driver of a rather rickety white van Bass guitar: Jamie, playing a black Rickenbacker bass. He's Kai's brother.
My workstation - two large monitors, together with music recording equipment (microphone and MIDI controller)
Teardown cover, lilac sky, white van on the road to Berlin, with the band in the back.
The baton descended. There came a deep sub-bassoon rumble, that settled on Sam’s chest and shook his ribs. Surely no instrument played by human hand could make such a sound? More instruments joined – violins and flutes darting in and out of a cadence of equally-sprightly cornetts. Sam closed his eyes for a moment, letting the music build a picture in his head. An older time, but not a simpler one. Inglaterra, yes, it was definitely Inglaterra, but there was smoke and fire. War lay upon the land, and the people were without hope. Faces, bloody and soot-blackened, sprang up before his eyes. Conquerors marched through streets, and the defeated English dared not lift up their heads but must direct their resentment at the ground. The smoke cleared a little and now Sam smelled fresh air, spring grass. A bell tolled slowly, monotonously, and the last of the Tudors tottered out of her cell, and laid her head upon a block. A roll of drums, an axe swung down - just once - and Elizabeth Gloriana, the Painted Tyrant, was dead.
“Where are they?” “Further to the right, havildar,” the naik replied. “Going under the middle arch of the great bridge.” “It is called Londres Bridge, naik, and it is very famous. There has been a bridge there since the time of the Romans.” “I have not heard of these Romans. Were they important?” “They held this land for four centuries. About as long as the Spanish.” “I do not see why anyone would want to conquer this filthy land. It is cold and wet. And it smells of rotting fish.” “Do not worry about the smell, naik. Just steer for the middle arch.” “Yes, havildar.”
A description of the options for April 2025 #TimeTravelAuthors hashtag, posting about aspects of time travel writing. The relevant one for this post is that it's an even-numbered day, so I can post what I like!
He chose Árvakr. He soothed the poor beast as much as he could, speaking soft words, looking him in the eye. All his skill with horses, all the forgotten love, all returned in that moment. “Come, Árvakr. Your mistress needs you now. Come, old lady.” He saw his gentle words working. The horse’s fear began to fade. But not too much. That wouldn’t do at all. He unhitched the mare, led her away from her companion Alsviðr, round and toward the board, knowing that if he made a mistake, if he lost the animal’s trust, Árvakr might cripple him or even kill him.
Sam had stood a while outside the “Queen”, beneath the creaking sign. He felt lousy; his body still ached from the kicking, and the chill spring breeze made him shiver. Those warm fires in the inn behind him... Maybe he should just head home. The rest would do him good, and maybe his landlady, Mrs Colclough, could be sweet-talked into rustling up some hot soup. She’d complain and tell him that she ought to charge him extra, but she never did. A fierce exterior, but a heart of gold… He started walking. As he got into his stride, breathing deeper, he began to shrug off the chill. The noonday sun, low as it still was this March day, blessed him with a little warmth. His bruised face throbbed less, and the thaum-weakness left his limbs. He almost felt good.
“Make the Opening”, the centaur had said. “Quickly.” So Jessica had reached, and hands and mind had worked the stuff of between-worlds, which spat sullen fires at her, and which she batted away. The fires ceased, and now she felt the skin between the worlds pucker and split. Before her appeared the rain-soaked landscape she had left that morning. Behind her… The centaur sprang through, with Sophona draped over zhir back. Behind her, the red sun that had been setting was now rising, oddly fast, but Jessica was running through the Opening, fleeing a world gone mad.
“I say ‘we’, though it was my parents’ generation. Still, they admitted me to their council when I came of age, and I went along with those decisions, though I hated their cowardly plan. I longed to bring you back, but my arguments swayed no minds. And the Usurper’s power has grown, while we have dwindled.” “How many?” Jessica demanded. “How many are you, on this Witches Council?” “Fifty.” “Fifty?” “Well, forty seven. No, forty six. Paul Martin was one of us.” “That’s not a lot to overthrow an evil empire, is it?” “Evil empire? No. Politically, it is not an empire. Truehome has no notion of countries, bound under … Oh, I am sorry. You are making a joke to ease the despair of being bound up in a lost cause. And a reference to your genre culture, which I failed to observe, having spent far too much time as a fucking cat.” “Ah. I’m sorry about that, too. Anyway, you were starting to tell me about the resource situation. Was that forty six, including me, or are we in fact forty seven?” “Put like that, we are forty seven.” I just said we. Did I just sign up to this crazy scheme? “Right. So I know the resource pool. Not the biggest team I’ve worked with, but not the smallest, either. How big is the competition? Or is it ‘everybody else’.”
Now available Teardown Book cover, showing a white van and band members driving towards the Berlin skyline
Ficus elastica, in a red pot.
Book cover: a white van with 3 of the band in the back. The van is driving towards a distant city - Berlin - with several landmarks visible. Text: Smashwords Ebook Week Sale! Use code: EBW50
“It should not surprise you to know that the Securidad has other operations in progress, some relating to the Lance, others not. Try not to impede those operations and give assistance to those relating to the Lance. You may have seen the badges of the Securidad before” - all three nodded, but Kay moved on without requiring an answer - “and I am issuing badges to each of you. Without them, you might experience difficulties. Show them, and you will be surprised at what they will get you into - or out of…” Kay smiled at his own wordplay. An iron-grey smile that did not reach the eyes. He reached into a desk drawer and drew out three wallets. He slid them across the table one-at-a-time. Sam took his easily, as did Moreno. Kay waited for each to examine their badge and put it away. Then he passed the last badge to Sally and waited for her to take it. Sally looked at the wallet as though it contained a deadly spider. She did not move, save to look up at Kay. They locked gazes and long seconds passed. “When this is done,” she said, eventually. “I will return this badge and carry it no more. Understand?” Kay smiled back his iron-grey smile. The eyes did not change. “Understood.”
On Sale! US: $2.99 UK: £2.39 ( bit.ly/BuyTeardown - ebook only ) The image shows the book cover: A minvan with three people in it is shown driving towards the distant skyline of Berlin.
The author, William Campbell Powell, stands holding a brand-new paperback of Teardown, published 2024-12-10
A book cover with wording: Could we have one normal gig? Please? Teardown (the title) William Campbell Powell (author name) The cover shows a white van, driving towards Berlin. Three of the band members can be seen in the rear window. The right-hand wing mirror is broken and dangles loose. There is a bumper sticker in the shape of a heart, left half is the union flag of Great Britain and the right half is the flag of the European Union.
“So fuck you, Jessica. You are so smart in some ways, so dumb in other ways. I should have stayed in Three Rocks, but I didn’t. And now I get to watch from afar while you go to your doom. Which will not be a cut throat. But will be the life of a puppet. While I will go back to Three Rocks and tell the granddaughters I don’t yet have that I could have been the lover to the regnax in the golden cage. But I turned her down.” Pelea was done. Done in style — head held high, chin defiant — and only slightly spoiled by the tears running down her cheeks. Jessica wiped her own tears away. “Come here,” she whispered. “You are too good an adviser to leave behind.” “You come here,” Pelea replied, and opened her arms wide.
Now it was done, and he’d be glad not to have to endure another journey like the one from the station. He’d felt every rut and cobblestone, and more than once he’d cried out as he’d felt the rib grind. The driver had helped him climb the stairs, and carried his bag, and Hallett had been so grateful that he’d reached into his coat, hoping that he might have a small coin to offer. “No, mate,” the driver had said. “I ‘eard what you done. You’re the Peeler what saved the life of that reporter. Bloody ‘ero, you are, mate.” Now he looked down at the bed, and Mrs Anderson nodded. “I expect you would like to rest after the journey. You were very brave. It must have hurt a lot. Let me help you remove your clothes.” — Just the slightest hesitation before those last three words. “I can do …” “Yes, you can. But you’ll likely open that knife cut again. So be quiet and let me help you.”
Technologists! Illicit dabblers in black science! Sam knew the words from the escuela de policía. Electricus saltans. Chemistry. But the reality was somehow more foul. But was it? With thaum being so scarce, there were stories of other ways. People needed heat and light, and if thaum wasn’t to be had, then people were going back to the traditional ways. Tinder-boxes and kindling. Those trees in Silvertree Place, cut down for fuel. He’d tried to buy a tinder-box only the other week, and there were none to be had in the market at any price Sam could afford. But one of the traders had offered him something called a lucifex, and he’d bought a box-full. Was that Technology? And was it so bad?
A government building, one of many in Whitehall. A small room, with a desk and three chairs facing. The man from the Securidad looked disarmingly ordinary. Grey-haired, and of a Mediterranean cast, wearing a mousy-brown jacket and charcoal trousers, plain shirt and pastel-toned cravat, he could have been designed to not stand out. His voice, too, was grey, but the grey of iron. No hint of a Spanish accent, though he must have been Spanish. “Call me Kay,” he’d announced in his grey voice. “As in the letter of the alphabet. At my level we don’t use names.”
Hallett stretched out his feet a little closer to the meagre flames that guttered in the fireplace. He yawned. "Tired, Hallett?" the sergeant asked. "An old soldier like you? I should put you on extra duties." "I'm thinking, Sergeant. I'm thinking it's political." "So am I, Hallett. And I'm thinking twice about what I said. Do it on your own time, I said. That's not right. I'm taking you off the beat. The constables will gossip, but you need to be free to investigate this." "Thank you, Sergeant." "You have one week. I don't want to see you in uniform in that time. Find something smart." "Yes, sir. Er, I don't even have a smart coat…" "You're not walking out with a fancy lady, Hallett. Your best drinking rags will do." "Yes, sir." "And get some bloody sleep, man."
She looked back at Jessica at last. Hard stare was gone, replaced by a burgeoning grin. “You are going to do it, aren’t you? You’re going to take on the evil Regnax.” “Ah, less of the ‘evil Regnax’. Politics.” “The hell with politics. She is evil. You know that, don’t you?” “This is my aunt you’re talking about.” “Who executed precisely twenty-nine of your mother’s staff, so she could build a pyramid of heads and place your mother’s on top.” “That’s true? I thought it was just a dream.” “You didn’t know? No-one’s told you. Oh gods and fishes, I’m so sorry.”
“MacNeish, this is too much!” he yelled, gesturing back at the doorway, where Allders had appeared. “You force your way in to see this criminal. You then attempt to coerce my officer into revealing the identities of informants, and even to suborn my man. Out! Get out of this cell, from this office, and do not return.” “Inspector MacNeish, if you please, sir. You misunderstand, Officer Lewis…” “I understand perfectly well,” Lewis responded, his anger dismissed and replaced with icy calm. “You are a sly one, but you will not play your tricks here. You may leave on your own two feet, or you may leave in the clutches of my turnkey yonder, but you will leave.” For a moment, Hallett thought MacNeish might resist. The turnkey had stepped into the cell, arms free and ready to seize whomever his master designated. And MacNeish had risen to his feet and faced him; the veteran sergeant of Quatre Bras peering calmly through the smoke of battle. “Ye think ye’ve got what it takes, laddie?” he said, and the turnkey faltered. “Ach, get out o’ my way, ye scrawny chiel. I’m leavin’.”
Paul Weller, the modfather of British music.
Amidst all those thoughts, I became aware of how my body was settling into the feel of the kit. It felt part of me, as my old kit had been part of me. I kept playing, shuffling at random through a thumb-drive of some newer favourites and old blues tracks. Crossroads. It Serves You Right to Suffer. Midnight in Harlem. And that broke me. Dom’s voice sang out from one of the demo tracks she’d sent us. I kept going, kept playing while the tears rolled down my cheeks. But that was fine. They were my memories, and I would a million times have rather had them than not. If it was time for some of them to come out and get a little airing, then it was time. I let the track run through to the end, then stopped the playback and put my sticks down.
Inside, it was obviously a community hall. Noticeboards carried posters and flyers for even more clubs—Karate, drama, volleyball, model railway, cross-stitch. A hundred other notices in Czech hung on the walls without any recognisable words or pictures to help me. Beyond the foyer, we passed into an already-busy bar area and to the main hall. The main hall, a huge cavern, had varnished wooden floors with a volleyball court marked out in red tape and other courts in a rainbow of colours. And at the far end, a stage with proper lights, curtains, and room to spread out. Oh, and a backdrop of a fairy-tale landscape, complete with castle, left over from some amateur dramatic production. Yay! Then came a great booming sound from behind us. We turned to a huge bear of a man, grinning and with arms outstretched in greeting. My ears tuned in to his speech, and I realised this was Lotte’s uncle. “… you will excuse my English, please. I am Peter.”—which he pronounced Payter—“Welcome to the Crossroads Blues and Jazz Club. Welcome! Welcome!”
The book cover for TEARDOWN shows three of the band members driving in a white van down the middle of a road towards a city. The skyline features a number of famous buildings in Berlin - in particular the Dom (cathedral) the radio tower and the Reichstag building. The driver-side wing mirror of the van is damaged, dangling down, and there is a heart-shaped sticker on the rear of the vehicle formed by combining the flags of Great Britain (on the left) and the European Union (or the right). At the top, the tagline reads "Could we have one normal gig? Please?" Beneath the tagline is the title - TEARDOWN - and at the very bottom, the author name 'William Campbell Powell'
The bus lurched and swung left, past a school named for a long-dead parliamentarian. Or possibly a royalist. I ought to know; it had been my old school till I’d turned sixteen. But it had all seemed irrelevant to the more immediate problem of not getting picked on for being different. There were a dozen ways and more to be different, whether it was for being too ugly, too geeky, too slow on the uptake, too shy, too dark, not dark enough, having a funny accent, or a fundy religion, or being an aspie, being too posh, being too poor, liking the wrong music, or football team, or playing oddball sports, or using last year’s tech; not liking girls, not liking boys, not liking either, liking both. Plus others, plus combinations. By more than one marker, I was weird, and I hadn’t always kept my head down. But there’d definitely been no bullying at Sir Long-Dead-Parliamentarian School. Or Royalist, as the case may be. Oh no.
“That I can understand. You are stubborn. You like the world to be just so, and you make your plans accordingly, and you do not like it when someone—what is it—déranger?” “Disrupt. Yes. I get angry when folks change my plans. But I’m not a control freak.” “Good. You are aware of the danger. You went for a long walk last night.” I smiled. “Yes. I had a lot of poison to dump in the Rhine.” She laughed. “Very funny. There is a time for anger, and channelling it can accomplish much. But if you are always angry, it will destroy you. So, I make you this offer. If you feel the anger is growing, and you need to take a walk, I will walk with you. As a friend. Will you do that?”
I’d had a guitar stolen once. I’d left it in a mate’s car. They broke in to steal the radio—an expensive sound system—but they’d found my guitar under the blanket on the back seat. It wasn’t particularly expensive or good, but it was my guitar. This was before I switched to drums, and it had been my very first instrument bought with my own money. I’d earned it with months of slogging a paper round. The police said it had probably been kids, stealing to fund a drug habit. They didn’t even want the guitar for itself, which I could have forgiven. No, the bastards just wanted stuff they could sell for a quick high, over and gone. That hurt.
The flag of Germany consists of 3 equal, horizontal bars, in black, red and gold (from the top down).