Books

(courtesy Graywolf Press) The end of the world, it will not surprise those of you who are studiously paying attract to the current deleterious drift of our planet into, variously depending on the news of the story, into climate change catastrophe, AI annihilation and fascistic governance, is very much on Continue Reading

When I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel a good chunk of years ago, two things stood out for me in a novel full of clever and emotionally resonant storytelling. First, that the author possessed a brilliant capacity for imaginative world-building, for predicting what might lie just over Continue Reading

(courtesy Text Publishing) One of the things that makes or breaks a sci-fi novel is how well an author establishes a sense of evocatively definitive time and place; half-do it and you find it hard to imagine the world they create as anything real or tangible, potentially hobbling the ability Continue Reading

(courtesy Allen & Unwin – Australia) One of the reasons this reviewer loves science fiction is because at its heart, it is devoted to exploring, thinking through and celebrating big ideas; woven into its storytelling DNA is an impelling need to peek behind the curtain, to wonder why things are Continue Reading

(courtesy Macmillan Publishers) One of the marks of an exceptionally good writer is the ability to take a story steeped in a fantastical premise, one ripe with all kinds of imaginative possibility and to do something impactfully meaningful with it. It’s a real art; lean too hard into the fantastical, Continue Reading

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) It is always a pleasure of the greatest magnitude when you dive into a sci-fi novel which always promises some thrillingly big and sweeping storytelling and it goes even bigger and bolder than you expected. It’s hard to be surprised in our everything-on-the-table preview-manic digital Continue Reading

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) One of the most enduring motifs in space operas is the idea that a renegade, diverse bunch of people, all of good heart and relatively pure soul, which is rare in a rough-n-tumble, dog-eat-dog galaxy, can find each other, come together, forge a found family against Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Some seven years ago when I had the great fortune to read Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, it became quickly apparent that here was a protagonist I was going to really love … A LOT. Queenie was everything you could want in a leading character, so much so Continue Reading