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This novel is set in an apocalyptic world many years into the future of Australia. Young Nat journeys along the vast reaches of the Darling River to search for his uncle, and is plunged into a grim and frightening world.
Dedication: The tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky - seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness. - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
How Do We Define the Climate Change Novel?Deborah Jordan,
2014single work criticism — Appears in:
Climate Change Narratives in Australian Fiction2014;(p. 33-40)'How do we best define a climate change novel? Given the complexities of climate change, as a real, scientific and cultural phenomenon, global warming demands a corresponding degree of complexity in fictional representation. Recent popular debates here and overseas raise further questions about what exactly constitutes a climate change novel. Does a climate change novel need to be set in the present? Or set in the future? Set during the time of climate change and extreme weather events, and the associated food scarcity and water wars, or can it be well after that —such as George Turner’s iconic The Sea and Summer? Are these novels best framed in context of utopian studies and science fiction studies? Andrew Milner has contextualised The Sea and Summer in terms of understanding the history of Australian science-fictional dystopias. For him, science fiction, whether utopian or dystopian , is ‘as good a place as any’ for ‘thought experiments about the politics of climate change’. He rejects the widespread ‘academic prejudice in literary studies against science fiction dystopias’ arguing that science fiction cannot readily be assimilated into either high literature or popular fiction (as genre). ' (33)
New World Orders and the Dystopian Turn: Transforming Visions of Territoriality and Belonging in Recent Australian Children's FictionClare Bradford,
Kerry Mallan,
John Stephens,
2008single work criticism — Appears in:
Journal of Australian Studies,vol.
32no.
32008;(p. 349-359)Through the 1990s and into the new millennium, Australian children's literature responded to a conservative turn epitomised by the Howard government and to new world order imperatives of democracy, the market economy, globalisation, and the IT revolution. These responses are evidenced in the ways that children's fiction speaks to the problematics of representation and cultural identity and to possible outcomes of devastating historical and recent catastrophes. Consequently, Australian children's fiction in recent years has been marked by a dystopian turn. Through an examination of a selection of Australian children's fiction published between 1995 and 2003, this paper interrogates the ways in which hope and warning are reworked in narratives that address notions of memory and forgetting, place and belonging. We argue that these tales serve cautionary purposes, opening the way for social critique, and that they incorporate utopian traces of a transformed vision for a future Australia. The focus texts for this discussion are: Secrets of Walden Rising (Allan Baillie, 1996), Red Heart (Victor Kelleher, 2001), Deucalian (Brian Caswell, 1995), and Boys of Blood and Bone (David Metzenthen, 2003).
New World Orders and the Dystopian Turn: Transforming Visions of Territoriality and Belonging in Recent Australian Children's FictionClare Bradford,
Kerry Mallan,
John Stephens,
2008single work criticism — Appears in:
Journal of Australian Studies,vol.
32no.
32008;(p. 349-359)Through the 1990s and into the new millennium, Australian children's literature responded to a conservative turn epitomised by the Howard government and to new world order imperatives of democracy, the market economy, globalisation, and the IT revolution. These responses are evidenced in the ways that children's fiction speaks to the problematics of representation and cultural identity and to possible outcomes of devastating historical and recent catastrophes. Consequently, Australian children's fiction in recent years has been marked by a dystopian turn. Through an examination of a selection of Australian children's fiction published between 1995 and 2003, this paper interrogates the ways in which hope and warning are reworked in narratives that address notions of memory and forgetting, place and belonging. We argue that these tales serve cautionary purposes, opening the way for social critique, and that they incorporate utopian traces of a transformed vision for a future Australia. The focus texts for this discussion are: Secrets of Walden Rising (Allan Baillie, 1996), Red Heart (Victor Kelleher, 2001), Deucalian (Brian Caswell, 1995), and Boys of Blood and Bone (David Metzenthen, 2003).
How Do We Define the Climate Change Novel?Deborah Jordan,
2014single work criticism — Appears in:
Climate Change Narratives in Australian Fiction2014;(p. 33-40)'How do we best define a climate change novel? Given the complexities of climate change, as a real, scientific and cultural phenomenon, global warming demands a corresponding degree of complexity in fictional representation. Recent popular debates here and overseas raise further questions about what exactly constitutes a climate change novel. Does a climate change novel need to be set in the present? Or set in the future? Set during the time of climate change and extreme weather events, and the associated food scarcity and water wars, or can it be well after that —such as George Turner’s iconic The Sea and Summer? Are these novels best framed in context of utopian studies and science fiction studies? Andrew Milner has contextualised The Sea and Summer in terms of understanding the history of Australian science-fictional dystopias. For him, science fiction, whether utopian or dystopian , is ‘as good a place as any’ for ‘thought experiments about the politics of climate change’. He rejects the widespread ‘academic prejudice in literary studies against science fiction dystopias’ arguing that science fiction cannot readily be assimilated into either high literature or popular fiction (as genre). ' (33)
