ALIX E HARROW The Everlasting. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Alix E Harrow’s time-travelling new novel asks questions about our most cherished national myths and what might happen if they were to change. Alix Harrow’s latest fantasy is a story about the power of stories. And while there have been plenty of these, this is a...
CLAIRE NORTH Slow Gods. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Claire North’s new novel might be science fiction, but the problems her characters face have many resonances with those of our world. Since the time-looping The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North has explored many of the more popular corners of...
KESHE CHOW For No Mortal Creature. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Australian Keshe Chow’s award-winning debut The Girl With No Reflection became an international bestseller. Her second does not disappoint. In her hidden magical village, Jia Liu hasn’t felt as though she belongs for a long time, ever since it became clear...
T KINGFISHER Hemlock and Silver. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Poison, mirror worlds, a life in danger and a seemingly impossible task – T Kingfisher’s latest fantasy has them all. And a talking cat. Healer Anja isn’t fully comfortable with being called a healer, as her main passion is studying poisons and their antidotes...
IAN McEWAN What We Can Know. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
How will the future judge us? Ian McEwan’s new novel looks back at our world from the perspective of 2119. In a year that has already delivered some fascinating climate fiction, one of England’s best, Ian McEwan, enters the fray. What We Can Know is a book about a...
KA LINDE The Robin on the Oak Throne. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
KA Linde continues her Oak and Holly fantasy series with plenty of intrigue, engaging characters – and a content warning. As another orphan in the aftermath of the war between monsters and humans, Kierse has never had time to worry about being unable to remember her...
RF KUANG Katabasis. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
The bestselling author of Yellowface returns to dark fantasy with her new novel set amid university life – and Hell. RF Kuang burst into the global literary scene with her satirical work Yellowface. But for some she was already there, following a debut trilogy of...
RHETT DAVIS Arborescence. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
The new novel from the award-winning author of Hovering asks big questions about the environment, AI, and what it means to be human. Rhett Davis burst onto the Australian literary scene in 2020 with the Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award for his book...
BEN PEEK The Red Labyrinth. Reviewed by Lucy Sussex
Slim but richly imaginative, Ben Peek’s new novella combines dystopia and dark fantasy to hold a mirror to current times. In 1958, Patrick White decried Australian literature’s tendency to be the ‘dreary dun-coloured offspring of journalistic...
SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA The Bewitching. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Silvia Moreno-Garcia mixes Mexican mythology with the history of US witchcraft in this new novel, once again reinventing genre tropes. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of the most varied – and consistently interesting – authors in modern fantasy and horror. She is...
JENNIFER MILLS Salvage. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
The new novel from the author of Dyschronia and The Airways is climate fiction focussed on human adaptability. There is plenty going on in Australia at the moment that reflects the impacts of climate change. Massive bushfires, years-long droughts, tropical cyclones...
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