2019 has seen an absolutely bumper crop of dystopian, post-apocalyptic and other speculative fiction stories which don’t fit neatly into either category. With the real world as tumultuous as it is, I can’t help but wonder if it’s making science fiction authors’ jobs that bit harder to imagine a dark and scary “other” world. With […]
Books
Review: Who’s Afraid of the Quite Nice Wolf? by Kitty Black
The Quite Nice Wolf doesn’t fit in with the local wolf pack. He commences training to become a proper wolf – one that’s BIG and BAD. Can he help the wolf pack with their master plan? For ages 3 – 6 years. Review by Amy Wakley-Ahearn I don’t know about you, but my kids have […]
Review: Eve of Eridu, by Alanah Andrews
Emotions are dangerous; restraint of feeling is necessary for a peaceful society. ~ Book of Eridu Nuclear fallout and and biological warfare have driven the few remaining people underground to try to keep the human race alive in a new society they call Eridu. Several generations later, Eve is entering her final cycle before the […]
Review: The Shining Wall, by Melissa Ferguson
LeaderCorp didn’t care about people. Everything was a transaction to them. If the cost exceeded their benefit, there was no point. The Shining Wall, by Melissa Ferguson, imagines a future dystopia that mashes together all the worst possible scenarios from a deeply humanised perspective – climate change, human destruction (increased radiation levels are mentioned), exploitation […]
Review: Watershed, by Jane Abbott
The brutality of climate change has destroyed civilisation as we know it in Watershed‘s dystopian future. The seas have risen and the last time it rained on land was decades ago. Catastrophic weather patterns have rendered all forms of advanced technology useless. For a long time, anarchy reigned. In the Citadel, the Tower has built […]
Review: The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
The Library Book, by Susan Orlean, is simply wonderful. It made me want to go to my nearest library to sit and contemplate and just breathe in the bookish goodness. It’s ostensibly a non-fiction book about the 1986 fire which destroyed the Los Angeles public library, including over 400,000 books. Orlean weaves her story of […]
