Book Review: The Year of the Fruitcake by Gillian Polack
Could chocolate somehow bring about the apocalypse? Does a group of middle-aged women hold the fate of humanity in their hands? These are some of the many questions tackled in Gillian Polack’s new science fiction novel, The Year of the Fruitcake: or Aliens with Irony. It’s a complex, fiercely feminist narrative that tackles issues of colonialism, cultural appropriation, and the marginalisation of women.
Book Review: CATCHING TELLER CROW by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina
The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premier juried award for speculative fiction and were presented today in Melbourne. I had the privilege and delight of being part of the jury for the Best Young Adult Novel category. That particular award went to Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. I wanted to share a bit about this fantastic book, but please note the opinions here are my own and do not reflect the rest of the jury or the Aurealis Awards at large. Catching Teller Crow follows Beth Teller, who died in a tragic accident several months ago. Since then, she has been helping her father, a police investigator who is struggling to cope with his grief. His boss has sent him to a rural Australian town to oversee a case in which a children’s home burned down, claiming one adult victim. It should be a straight-forward job, something easy to facilitate a return to work for Michael Teller after his bereavement. But of course it’s not, as the Tellers discover when they begin interviewing Isobel Catching, a teenage witness.
