Cirrus@Austlit

'In the town of Gainesville, Cooper Fox has a special place in people’s hearts. Since the car accident that wiped his memories, Cooper has been...a little foggy. Cooper doesn’t know how to do much, but one thing he instinctively seems to know about is strength training, and with his help, Gainesville High’s football team has just won the Mid-States final. With Cooper the hero of the hour, the whole town is getting ready to celebrate in style. 

'When three strangers crash the party and decide to pick on the harmless-looking guy carrying a cooler full of sodas, they trigger something inside Cooper. Afterwards, the folks in Gainesville can never look at him in quite the same way. Is he really just a regular guy who suffered a brain injury in a car crash, or is he someone else? Or something else?  

'As Cooper tries to come to terms with baffling new memories, he’s about to be plunged into a terrifying world of secret experiments and covert assassins that will test his new-found abilities to the limit.' (Publication summary)

'Why do some societies collapse into lawless savagery while others prove resilient and lasting?

'On Zero Day of the first and last cyberwar in human history, the internet went dark, transport and power grids collapsed and cities began to starve, showing just how vulnerable the world could be to a targeted campaign of online sabotage. This final instalment of this prescient epic of civilisation collapse finds the small ragtag band of survivors come together to face a new, but eerily familiar threat - the rise of a fascist militia among the ruins of a failing country.

'With American Kill Switch, John Birmingham’s End of Days trilogy comes to a high-octane, thrilling conclusion.' (Production summary)

'Space opera on an epic scale – as it should be. Part two of a violently energetic and energetically entertaining three-part mil-SF extravaganza.

'Centuries after they were defeated and exiled to Dark Space, the Sturm have returned. Disgusted by the new technologies humankind have come to depend on, they intend to liberate us, by force if necessary.

'With their advanced tech rendered null by the Sturm's attack, humanity face certain annihilation. Their only hope lies with a few brave souls who survived the initial onslaught: the Commander of the Royal Armadalen Navy's only surviving warship; a soldier sentenced to die; a young royal, forced to flee when her home planet is overrun and her entire family executed; the leader of an outlaw band, and the infamous hero of the first war with the Sturm hundreds of years ago.

'If they are to stand any chance of survival, these five heroes must shed their modern technology and become the enemy. Their resistance might be humanity's only hope.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'For one brief shining moment it seemed humanity’s inability to imagine much beyond our lived experience was irrelevant. Covid was coming for us all.' 

'On Zero Day of the first and last cyberwar in human history the internet went dark, transport and power grids collapsed, and cities began to starve. Ten days later millions have died from thirst and starvation, from violence, and from the simple failure of the world’s machines to keep them alive.   

'This second installment of John Birmingham’s End of Days trilogy finds James O’Donnell and his friends Rick, Michelle and Melissa hunkered down in the wilderness, where they know a horde of starving, desperate exiles from the graveyard of the US East Coast is heading their way.  

'On the far side of the continent, in the Pacific Northwest, Jonas Murdoch helps lead the good folk of Silverton in defending themselves from waves of starving and desperate refugees pouring out of Seattle.   

'And slowly, cautiously navigating the inland waterways of California, Jodi Sarjanan and Ellie Jabbarah negotiate an apocalyptic landscape of burning skyscrapers and marauding gangs.   

'All of them are seeking sanctuary. A safe place where the madness hasn’t penetrated. But does such a place exist?  

'And what if they need to sacrifice their very humanity in the struggle to reach it?' (Publication summary)

'Every modern city has one week’s worth of food to feed itself. Then it will collapse. 

'Cut off the resources to New York, Sydney, or even a mid-size metropolis, and millions will soon starve. In Zero Day Code we see those immense and open, hyper-complex, networked supercities of the new millennium die. And in the last moments we see their vengeance take form as all the best and worst traits of humanity bubble to the surface. 

'Zero Day Code is set in a realistic near future with dwindling global food supplies under increasing pressure from worsening droughts, floods and extreme weather events. Written by prolific Australian writer John Birmingham, the thriller follows a handful of survivors from the first day of society’s descent into violent, uncertain futures. 

'James, a consultant to the US National Security Council, is the first to suspect that the worldwide emergence of a crippling computer virus is actually a cover for something else - a devastating cyber-attack by China on the food distribution system of the United States. The attack is a bid for the Middle Kingdom to distract America as it seizes the food bowl of South East Asia and feeds its starving population. But Beijing has miscalculated.

'Follow the missions of an embittered activist chasing salvation, a single mum rescuing her child from a frantic San Francisco and an army veteran who has long retreated from society, as the world they knew crumbles around them.' (Publication summary)

'Centuries after their defeat, the Sturm have returned with an overwhelming attack on the fringes of human space. On the brink of annihilation, humankind's only hope is a few brave souls who survived the initial onslaught.

'Everybody thought the Sturm were dead, engulfed by the Dark. They were wrong. Centuries after their defeat, the enemy has returned with an overwhelming attack on the fringes of human space.

'On the brink of annihilation, humankind's only hope is a few brave souls who survived the initial onslaught: Commander Lucinda Hardy, thrust into uncertain command of the Royal Armadalen Navy's only surviving warship; Booker3, a soldier of Earth, sentenced to die for treason, whose time on Death Row is cut short by the invasion; Alessia, a young royal of the Montanblanc Corporation, forced to flee when her home planet is overrun and her entire family executed; Sephina L'trel, the leader of an outlaw band who must call on all of their criminal skills to resist the invasion.

'And, finally, retired Admiral Frazer McLennan, the infamous hero of the first war with the Sturm hundreds of years ago, who hopes to rout his old foes once and for all – or die trying. These five flawed, reluctant heroes must band together to prevail against a relentless enemy and near-impossible odds. For if they fail, the future itself is doomed.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'John Birmingham's father died. And his life fell apart. The next six months were spent grinding through the dark forests of depression until he finally emerged out of the darkness onto sunlit upland. A unique yet universal story, On Father reaches out to everyone who has experienced and survived deep grief.'   (Publication summary)

'John Birmingham is a master of good writing and funny lines. He has written a thousand stories, some true, some not so much. These are the best ones and they're so good, and so funny, there has been no barrel-scraping involved. Really, this book could have been much longer. 

'The pieces contained within these pages run the gamut from the early felafel days to the shiny age we live in where Donald Trump is the President of the USA. And it does not shy away from the greatest controversy of our age: potato cake vs potato scallop. 

'These hilarious pieces cover a wide range of topics from food to fitness and politics to pork, in all its glories. And, of course, fashion. Ever the equal opportunist, John Birmingham skewers them all.' (Publication summary)

'This gonzo guide is a lesson in the practicalities of writing: how to be productive, professional and maybe one day even pay the rent.'

'Topics covered include ‘How to slay writer’s block’, ‘What the hell is workflow?’, ‘How to write 10,000 words in a day’ and ‘The best apps for writers’.'

'How to Be a Writer is a kick-arse writing guide with a tough-love approach, written for the internet generation. John Birmingham is lauded as a prolific writer working across multiple genres. Here he shares his secrets. And some hard-core, real-world practical advice. And a few excellent descriptions of explosions.' (Source: Publisher's website)

'On the eve of a huge, breakout success, a poor but brilliant young game developer is pulled out of her world, and time itself, by a cowboy desperately searching for the daughter he lost two hundred years ago.

Cady McCall is ready to be rich and famous. She has sacrificed everything, putting her work ahead of family and friends. Now with breakout success and huge, insane wealth so close she can taste it, her life is blown apart by Deputy Marshal John 'Titanic' Smith, the man who rescues her from two muggers, only to carry her off into history. Lost on the seas of time, Smith is desperate to get home to his family in 1876, and now Cady is lost along with him, facing danger and finding love in Victorian London, Ancient Rome and in the near-future America of President for Life Donald Trump.'

(Publication Summary)

''As the convoy growled and squeaked to a halt in the dark, angry militiamen and soldiers began to shout and wave at the Australians, demanding they move aside. The Brave Ones' vanguard presented as a B-movie vision of some pirate biker gang from Hell, a rat bastard outfit in black tee-shirts, camouflage pants, long hair and bandanas, with axes in their eyes and guns at the ready.'

'The Brave Ones follows the Indonesian Army's Battalion 745 as it withdrew from East Timor after the 1999 independence vote, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. Birmingham's unflinching account reveals the scorched-earth tactics of the retreating troops, and shows just how close Australia came to armed conflict with Indonesia.' (Publication summary)

''There were too many of them. Lucille was nowhere Dave could see and only a faint mournful sigh reached him from where she lay . . . It was time to die, the hero's journey over.'

'New York is on fire, the streets are overrun, and the Demon Horde is feasting. With the world's greatest city in chaos, all eyes are on Dave Hooper, the superhero destined to save mankind.

'But hero or not, Dave is just one man and he's short of allies. He soon finds himself relying on Karen Warat: art dealer and Russian deep cover agent. Smart, dangerous and armed with a magic sword, Dave knows not to trust her. He also knows that without her, New York will fall.

'While the United States military try desperately to hold off the Horde, Dave and Karen realise that the monsters have a powerful new weapon - one of their best warfare strategists is working for them. With the enemy using the military's own tactics against them, defeat seems imminent.

'To have any chance of survival, mankind needs its Champion more than ever. The world needs Dave to become the hero he is meant to be.' (Publication summary)

'Two bright geometric shapes, metallic flashes picked out in the morning sun, moving impossibly fast and straight amidst the visual clutter and chaos of forest and rock...

''Is it dragons, Dave, is that what it is? Because I'm not ready for dragons...'

'A dragon brings down the Vice President's plane, a monster army is camped outside Omaha, and an empath demon springs an undercover operation in New York.

'New Orleans was just the beginning. New and different demons are breaking through all over America, and Dave Hooper has a new enemy with more guile and guts than the celebrity superhero, still stumbling in his role as Champion. While his agent fields offers for movies and merchandise, Dave is tasked with ending a siege in Omaha, saving his friends and deciphering the underrealms' plans to take over the earth.

'As an ancient and legion evil threatens to destroy mankind, Dave has to decide what kind of man he wants to be and the nature of his role in this new world. He may not be the hero humanity deserves, but he's the only one we've got.' (Publication summary)