Cirrus@Austlit

'A Constant Hum (2019) by Alice Bishop and The Glad Shout (2019) by Alice Robinson are new Australian additions to the burgeoning genre of climate fiction – or cli-fi. They depict the impact of a natural disaster – fire and flood – precipitated by climate change. It is the human consequences of such events that are the core of each book. The stories are set in areas around Melbourne where the two authors have lived. Both are narrated in the present tense. Both titles refer to sound: a low reverberation and a rallying cry, which set the tone for each text. Neither book makes comfortable reading. The questions Bishop and Robinson ask are linked: could these disasters have been prevented? But more importantly, how do we keep going?'  (Introduction)