CHRISTOPHER PRIEST The Adjacent. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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...
RJURIK DAVIDSON Unwrapped Sky. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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...
MARIANNE DE PIERRES Peacemaker. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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,...
ANN LECKIE Ancillary Justice. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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...
ANDREW MACRAE Trucksong. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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...STEPHEN BAXTER Proxima. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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...MAX BARRY Lexicon. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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...M JOHN HARRISON Light: Book One of the Kefahuchi Tract. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
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....
NRB reviewers pick their best books of 2016
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...
EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL Sea of Tranquility. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
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,...
MAX BARRY The 22 Murders of Madison May. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
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...
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