Cirrus@Austlit

'This collection of short fiction is an imagining of the impact - personal, interpersonal, psychological and existential - of our forthcoming colonisation of Mars. It interweaves threads of the isolation, loss and alienation of living on inhospitable Mars, if with a nascent love of its cold, harsh beauty, as humanity truly becomes a bi-planetary species.' (Publication summary)

'When Saroo Brierley used Google Earth to find his long-lost home town half a world away, he made global headlines.

'Saroo had become lost on a train in India at the age of five. Not knowing the name of his family or where he was from, he survived for weeks on the streets of Kolkata, before being taken into an orphanage and adopted by a couple in Australia.

'Despite being happy in his new family, Saroo always wondered about his origins. He spent hours staring at the map of India on his bedroom wall. When he was a young man the advent of Google Earth led him to pore over satellite images of the country for landmarks he recognised. And one day, after years of searching, he miraculously found what he was looking for.

'Then he set off on a journey to find his mother.

'A Long Way Home is a moving and inspirational true story of survival and triumph against incredible odds. It celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit – hope.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Two couples enjoy a fun, perfectly bourgeois Friday evening drinkies and afters arrangement, until one night something rather untoward occurs involving a pair of taxis at cross purposes. Having bitten off more than they can comically chew, the four deal with things rationally, irrationally, openly and in honestly utter denial, calmly and in wide-eyed panic, with much good humour and much much worse, until all that remains is for the lots to be drawn for those who will come, and who will go. But what of the Beastie, and Babel? What rough beast has been unearthed in the ruins of Babylon, and slouches towards Baghdad to be born? Your attendance is required.'

Source: Parnassus Den website, http://www.parnassusden.org.au
Sighted: 31/10/2007