All Aboard for Mystery: Neil Williamson’s The Packet Sets Sail with NewCon Press (book news).

If you’ve ever suspected the first-class passengers on an Edwardian ocean liner were hiding more than their love of deck quoits and dubious shellfish, then Neil Williamson’s The Packet might just confirm your darkest suspicions.

NewCon Press, helmed by the ever-industrious Ian Whates, has just signed Williamson’s latest science fiction novella for world English publication — a story originally serialised in ParSec magazine. The deal was neatly brokered by agent John Jarrold, who seems to have a sixth sense for sniffing out excellent speculative fiction before the rest of us have even found our reading glasses.

So what’s The Packet about? Well, picture an early 20th-century ocean liner, all brass fittings, clinking teacups, and the faint odour of hubris — and then imagine things being not quite what they seem. Knowing Williamson, “not quite what they seem” could mean anything from time-displaced passengers swapping telegrams with future selves to eldritch postal deliveries from beyond the stars. One thing’s for sure: this isn’t your average trip across the Atlantic.

Williamson, who first popped up in Territories magazine back in 1994, has since built a formidable reputation in British speculative fiction circles. His novels — The Moon King, Queen of Clouds, The Memoirist, Secret Language, and The Ephemera — have all proved that reality, in his capable hands, is a deeply unreliable narrator. He’s been shortlisted for the British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards, which makes him either very talented or very good at time travel. Possibly both.

Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we love a tale that mixes mystery, manners, and metaphysics. So when The Packet docks at NewCon Press, we’ll be first in line with a boarding pass, a monocle, and perhaps a suspiciously ticking parcel marked urgent.

Bon voyage, Mr Williamson — and may your cabin stewards remain entirely human.