KAUFMAN, Amie & Meagan Spooner These Broken Stars Allen & Unwin, 2013 374pp $18.99 pbk ISBN 9781743318522 SCIS 1627427 Lilac is the only child of the richest man in the galaxy. Tarver is a decorated war hero and they are travelling through hyperspace in the enormous super luxury spaceliner, Icarus. Disaster strikes when the massive vehicle is pulled out of hyperspace and they might be the only survivors whose escape pod launched successfully. It lands on an unknown planet and together they must navigate the strange terrain, always vigilant for signs of other survivors, local inhabitants, troublesome animals, weather and…
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HENDRICK, Kate The Accident Text Pub, 2013 260pp A$19.99 NZ$26.00 pbk ISBN 9781921922855 SCIS 1610644 For her debut novel, Kate Hendrick has chose quite a complex narrative structure, which, although it may be challenging for some readers, also demonstrates her respect for readers who wish to work through the complexities to make meaning for themselves. It is based on one incident, a car accident on a rainy night in Sydney, which loosely connects three very different teenagers in quite disparate domestic situations. The narrative perspective changes constantly across the three of them, and the timeline moves similarly across the time…
GREGG, Stacy The Princess and the Foal HarperCollins, 2013 317pp NZ$24.99 ISBN 9780007469024 SCIS 1631836 Gregg ventures here into biography to tell the story of a real-life Arab Princess who, despite all odds, followed her dream of becoming a competitive equestrian. Only hard work, sheer determination, and her love for an orphaned foal set Princess Haya of Jordan on her path towards leading her team to victory in the Arab world’s toughest competition – The Kings Cup. At the time, she was only twelve years old and one of the challenges was to jump her horse over a car. Though…
GEMMELL, N. J. The Kensington Reptilarium Random House, 2013 297pp $16.95 pbk +e ISBN 9780857980502 SCIS 1627415 Here is a fast-moving farce that at first demands some close attention from the reader. It is all so ridiculous, and the plot far-fetched. Conveniently, a double spread immediately following the title page sketches, with headings, the cast of characters, in descending order of age: Basti (a somewhat sternly aloof Gentleman who stands erect with a cobra draped around his neck); Thomasina, a girl mostly referred to as Kick or Kicketty who is the eldest of the Caddy kids, and a mother substitute…
TAN, Shaun Rules of Summer Lothian, 2013 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9780734410672 SCIS 1626346 Shaun Tan produces picture books of singular vision. Not every understands all the themes within them, but all agree the illustrations and art within are sublime. Whilst he openly admits to deriving many of his illustrations from the classics, as many brilliant painters have done, he makes them his own and folds them into a story with layers of meaning and emotion. Many have remarked upon first reading they did not follow the story and this is a picture book indulgence. It is true many excellent authors…
FRENCH, Jackie The Road to Gundagai A&R, 2013 436pp $19.99 pbk ISBN 9780732297220 SCIS 1627429 Jackie French continues her love affair with historical country Victoria and New South Wales. Her new book focuses on a family of circus performers who are working their way through the lower alpine districts and plains – locations which have formed the heartland of Australia’s early rural identity. The twist here is it follows a group of people who are misfits, charlatans and performers. They do their utmost to appear mysterious and exotic to a rural audience who are hungry for distraction from the depression,…
FENTON-SMITH, Maree (text) Lilly Piri (illus.) Creatures of Magic Walker, 2013 257pp A$19.95 NZ$22.99 pbk ISBN 9781922077738 SCIS 1626735 Anna is delighted when a new family, with children, moves in next door. Things are not always as they seem, however, and Anna discovers that Violet Brown, like a number of other members of her family, is a witch, or, as her family prefers to be called, a creature of magic. Strange things start to happen in the area where they live; hooded and sinister figures appear as does a mysterious hound and other rather strange creatures. Rita Raton, the woman…
MACINNIS, Peter The Big Book of Australian History NLA Pub, 2013 292pp $39.95 ISBN 9780642278326 SCIS 1627840 It was never going to be possible to provide an in depth history of Australia from ancient times to the present in one volume. However, what this volume does do is to supply a broad history of Australia and its culture, which is more than sufficient to provide an overview and to encourage interested readers to read and research further any areas they find of particular interest. It can be dipped into or read from cover to cover. The written component of…
DAVIS, Tony The Big Dry A&R, 2013 220pp $15.99 pbk +e ISBN 9780732297633 SCIS 1615886 This is a post-apocalyptic novel set in a part of Australia devastated by catastrophic dust storms, called blasters, and searing heat. Why this has happened is never adequately explained and for some reason the resulting survivors have not been evacuated to other unaffected places (which are alluded to in a notice about the hospital being relocated). Twelve-year-old George and his younger brother Beeper are waiting for their father to return home. He went out to get supplies and has not come back. At first, George…
DASHNER, James The Eye of Minds Doubleday, 2013 310pp $19.95 pbk +e ISBN 9780857533142 SCIS 1628139 The game is on. This is a several-thrills-a-page adventure book for those who admire cleverness and anything to do with computers, programming, virtual worlds and online gaming. The novel is set in a near future world where most people, it seems, spend most of their lives in a virtual non-reality, playing games. To do this they lie in ‘coffins’, wired up in such a way that they can have all the sensual and sensuous aspects of reality-experience in their virtual-experience. So far so good. …