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'James Bradley’s novel The Silent Invasion – the first in a trilogy for young adults – is set precisely 10 years from now, but Bradley’s 2027 doesn’t feel at all futuristic. Rather, it’s a world in which the anxieties of the current day have taken concrete forms. Alien spores capable of colonising all life, including humans, have arrived on planet Earth. Australia is divided in three: the alien-colonised Zone covers the north, separated from the south by a thin strip of land known as the Transitional. A powerful government agency known only as Quarantine scans the citizens of the south for signs of “the Change” and clinically executes those who have been infected.' (Introduction)
'Ouyang Yu’s fifth novel is a fictionalised retelling of the life of William Edward “Billy” Sing, a Chinese-Australian soldier who achieved fame as a crack-shot sniper at Gallipoli. It’s also a dark and somewhat unhinged work, full of wild diatribes, grotesque visions, bitter jests and facile word games.' (Introduction)
