by NRB | 28 Aug 2014 | SFF |
A grimoire, ancient magic – and cage fighting. This novel romps through it all. Warning! Wizards are no longer weedy, spectacle-wearing dorks with wimpy scars on their heads waving sticks and reciting pig Latin. In the world of Bound, the first in the Alex Caine...
by NRB | 29 Jul 2014 | SFF |
This unsettling new work incorporates echoes from previous books and forces readers to ask what they want from a novel. I’ve read a few books by Christopher Priest now, and I have to confess that often I don’t really understand what is going on in them; but still I...
by NRB | 8 Jul 2014 | SFF |
This debut weaves a prodigious tapestry around its drowned world; the result is an example of the best of contemporary Australian fantasy writing. The city of Caeli-Amur was born out of the imagination of Australian writer Rjurik Davidson in 2005 with his Ditmar...
by NRB | 6 May 2014 | SFF |
Sci-fi, crime, the supernatural and a savvy female ranger – Marianne de Pierres mixes them all in this first instalment of a new series. In the future Australia of Peacemaker we seem to be managing. There have been ructions, wars and incidents due to water shortages,...
by NRB | 13 Feb 2014 | SFF |
Immersive, layered and compelling: this standout science fiction debut rewards persistence. Ancillary Justice, the debut novel from American author Ann Leckie, has been garnering a fair bit of buzz around the speculative fiction community over the past few months and...
by NRB | 16 Jan 2014 | SFF |
This debut is a fresh – and refreshing – addition to the tradition of Australian dystopian fiction. Oh, and there’s trucks. Post-apocalyptic dystopian stories have been popular for a long time now and seem increasingly so. They allow us to play out our worst...
by NRB | 21 Nov 2013 | SFF |
Alien technology, interplanetary travel, Artificial Intelligence and the origin of the universe are among the many ideas explored in this complex and entertaining novel. Analog Science Fiction and Fact was my magazine of choice as a teenager. Often it featured stories...
by NRB | 6 Aug 2013 | Fiction, SFF |
This is fiction on the edge of the now – a contemporary thriller that moves backwards and forwards in time. Wil Parke prays it’s a case of mistaken identity when he’s waylaid in an airport toilet by a couple of guys who stick a needle in his eye and propose radical...
by NRB | 25 Jun 2013 | Fiction, SFF |
Hallucinatory, worldly and entertaining science fiction with a lot to say about the human condition. Michael Kearny is a particle physicist working on developing quantum computing. He’s also a serial killer haunted by a horse-headed apparition he calls the Shrander....
by NRB | 22 Dec 2016 | Fiction, Non-fiction |
This year, we’ve asked some of our regular reviewers to nominate the best book they have read in 2016. The result is a diverse and fascinating round-up. Ashley Kalagian Blunt David Hunt’s Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia, Volume 1: From Megafauna to...
by NRB | 13 Oct 2022 | Fiction |
The author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel travels through time in her new novel. If there’s pleasure in action, there’s peace in stillness. Emily St John Mandel takes us on a delightfully strange journey through time in her latest novel. In the distant future,...
by NRB | 1 Jul 2021 | Fiction, SFF |
The author of Lexicon returns with a new novel of multiple murders and multiple worlds. ‘I hate that you make me do this’, he said, and even as she struggled, she could see that he did indeed look regretful, like a man forced to put down a pet dog, one he’d loved that...
TIM WINTON Juice. Reviewed by Robert Goodman24 October 2024Tim Winton’s new novel dives into a post-climate-change world where violence [ … ]
EMILY TSOKOS PURTILL Matia. Reviewed by Ann Skea22 October 2024Emily Tsokos Purtill’s debut novel ranges across continents to tell the stories [ … ]
STEVEN HAMILTON and RICHARD HOLDEN Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck17 October 2024Australia’s Covid response may have had problems, but Steven Hamilton and [ … ]
ELIZABETH STROUT Tell Me Everything. Reviewed by Michael Jongen15 October 2024Pulitzer-winner Elizabeth Strout explores themes of isolation and connection in [ … ]