LING MA Severance. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
In Severance the tropes of the post-apocalyptic genre are a jumping off point for an exploration of humanity that challenges and engages readers and exposes modern society. When Severance opens the apocalypse is underway and people are madly googling survival...
JAY KRISTOFF Lifel1k3. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Lifel1k3 is the first of a new series from internationally best-selling and prize-winning Australian author Jay Kristoff. Your body is not your own. Your mind is not your own. Your life is not your own. Humorous and profound in equal measure, Lifel1k3 is a...
JULIAN GOUGH Connect. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Connect is a big-ideas technothriller, with roots in cyberpunk and crazy artificial-intelligence science fiction. In 2010, Irish author Julian Gough created a stir when he called out the Irish writing establishment for not writing about anything contemporary. In 2018...
YOON HA LEE Revenant Gun: Machineries of Empire Book Three. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Revenant Gun delivers a deeply humanistic tale that furthers the concerns of the previous two volumes without being repetitive. Yoon Ha Lee wraps up his stunning Machineries of Empire trilogy with all of the style of the first two volumes. Both the...
SA JONES The Fortress. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
The Fortress provides strong examinations of patriarchal values, toxic masculinity and the places to which these values can lead. This chilling, challenging, sexually explicit work of speculative fiction explores and eviscerates aspects of patriarchal thinking. It is...
NICK CLARK WINDO The Feed. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
The Feed poses important questions about our addiction to and reliance on technology. The Feed is a post-apocalyptic tale with what can only be called a Black Mirror edge. As with that series, Nick Clark Windo is interested in exploring our relationship with...
LOUISE ERDRICH Future Home of the Living God. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Louise Erdrich successfully joins a long line of novelists exploring current issues through a cracked, extreme reflection of our own world. Dystopia has a long history in literary fiction. A breakdown in social order or a reshaping of society...
C ROBERT CARGILL Sea of Rust. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
C Robert Cargill proves there is still plenty of life in the post-apocalyptic robotic genre. Post-apocalypses now come in may flavours. One of those is the robopocalypse. Man builds robots, robots become sentient, man tries to reign in robot sentience, robots revolt....
NATASHA PULLEY The Bedlam Stacks. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
An adventure full of wonder and discovery in The Bedlam Stacks. Natasha Pulley burst onto the fantasy scene last year with her stunning debut The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. This slightly steampunk tale of Victorian London was full of charm and whimsy but...
SARAH GAILEY River of Teeth. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Gailey has delivered a fun, fast-paced, wild-west-style romp set in a possible America. Sarah Gailey’s River of Teeth has a killer alternative history premise – a riff on an actual plan by the US Government in the early 20th century to import and farm hippopotamuses:...
MEG HOWREY The Wanderers. Reviewed by Justine Hyde
Howrey casts us into the infinite reaches of the universe to ponder our aloneness. The word ‘planet’ is derived from the Greek word for ‘wanderer’. Greek astronomers thought the planets were inexplicable celestial bodies wandering through space against a...
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