book review

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Rec160: The End Times of Markusz Zielinski, by Keith Stevenson – a race to the end

Novel

Title: The End Times of Markusz Zielinski

Author: Keith Stevenson

Publisher: self-published @ https://www.keithstevenson.com/books/end-times/

In which the Australian writer and publisher turns from the enjoyable space opera of his Lenticular books to harder science fiction, portraying the mad scramble to save a last outpost of life from a collapsing universe. Once again, Stevenson provides a living culture, enough details of the factions and entities to make the world believable without bogging down in details. Indeed, there’s not much room for minutiae, as the story unfolds apace, the conflict driven by a political agenda of greed, ego and self-interest. The titular Markusz, a mathematician who may just be able to save what’s left if given the chance, has the clever foil of a ‘ghost’ of his dead wife as well as a strong supporting cast to contextualise the science clearly enough to allow the reader to follow along. And then there’s the question of the strange haven deep within the planet itself, and the mysterious connection to the force devouring the universe. It’s a blast.

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Rec160: The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley – time well spent

Title: The Ministry of Time

Author: Kaliane Bradley

Publisher: Sceptre/Hachette, 2024

If you were to pick up The Ministry of Time, you may wish to flick straight to chapter 5, which opens thusly: “September found me in Pimlico, on a bench with Margaret Kemble*. The air was bisected by an iron hinge of autumn cold. Sparrows guested along the kerb, waltzing with the limp yellow leaves.” The “I” is the civil servant assigned to help Antarctica explorer Graham Gore acclimatise to life in the near future after he has been plucked from his own time (detailed in inserts). This is, as the name suggests, a time travel story, in which the pair are caught up in a beautifully presented attraction and dastardly deeds. As the quote shows, the writing is gorgeously descriptive, adding to superb character work and an engaging premise. But this excerpt should be enough to send you back to the start of this accomplished debut, and continue on, which is kind of what time travel is all about.

* We love Margaret (aka 1665). She is a fabulous character.

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Rec160: Beyond the Humming Downs, by Ellen Starsmore – fantasy that’s on song

BOOK

Title: Beyond the Humming Downs

Author: Ellen Starsmore

Publisher: self-published, 2025

I was provided with an ARC of this debut fantasy ‘with a dash of hopepunk’, and isn’t it great when, after a friend has spent years writing, rewriting, editing, polishing, and researching the self-publishing pathway, it all comes together. Our starcrossed lovers Adehl and Roh meet on the titular downs and there are sparks as their mystical energies (ellir) forge a connection. But Adehl has a secret, one that propels her and Roh on a risky journey that triggers the gradual unveiling of deeper political mischief. This is where the hopepunk kicks in, as the self-appointed guardians of ellir find their claim being challenged, with Adehl and Roh at the pointy end. It’s a tale gently and engagingly told, the world fully realised and the characters suitably complex. Fantasy readers who love horses and cool names for things will be rolling in hay with this one. I just hope we don’t have to wait as long for the next book.

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Rec160 — The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin, by Alison Goodman

Novel

Title: The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin

Author: Alison Goodman

Publisher: Harper Collins Australia

I devoured the Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin, the follow-up to the deliciously titled The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies. While having read the first will assist, it probably isn’t necessary to be moving on here, thanks to the careful placement of sufficient back story. The first featured three distinct adventures linked by an overarching plot involving a fallen nobleman with whom our point-of-view heroine, Gus, becomes entangled. This plot becomes the driving force of the Ladies Road Guide, with a secret cabal, a dollop of spies, and hindrances from societal and familial expectations adding healthy measures of intrigue and complication. Gus and her sister, Julia, make a formidable, but not infallible, duo, ably supported by a likeable supporting cast. The command of character and the Regency setting makes it a joy as the action thumps along like a rushing phaeton – mind those potholes, ladies! Just as pleasing is the clear suggestion that there is more to come. C’est magnifique!

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rec160: The Tin Roof Blowdown, by James Lee Burke

NOVEL

Title: The Tin Roof Blowdown

Author: James Lee Burke

Publisher: Orion, 2007

I’ve been hunting the Dave Robicheux crime series in second-hand book shops ever since I received a copy of Creole Belle. It blew my socks off: starting directly after the preceding book, the details were seamlessly inserted to allow me to follow the yarn and enjoy the adept characterisation and descriptions of Louisiana. The history and social layers of the state infuse the series. This title, a recent find set in New Orleans during and immediately after Katrina and then Rita, is one of the best so far. The storms’ devastation, a shooting of looters who picked the wrong house, and Robicheaux’s family under threat: it’s a compelling mix deftly balanced. Robicheux, a Vietnam veteran clinging to sobriety, remarks after a nightmare that he thought he would ‘never again have to witness the wide-scale suffering of innocent civilians, nor the betrayal and abandonment of our countrymen when they need us most. But that was before Katrina’. Still gives me goosebumps.

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rec160: Lotus Blue, by Cat Sparks

NOVEL

Title: Lotus Blue

Author: Cat Sparks

Publisher: Talos, 2017

In this debut novel from Canberra-based Sparks, Australia is a wasteland dotted by the fortress cities of the elite and the struggling outposts of the poor exposed to brigands, storms and the encroaching toxic sands of the Dead Red Heart. Star rides in one of the Vans that ferry goods and travellers across this blighted landscape. She is, not, however, like her compatriots, and when fate intervenes, the secret of her origin places her in the most dangerous of positions: a potential weapon both for and against a new menace. For buried in a sand-covered bunker, the titular AI has awakened, bringing with it cyborg soldiers and intelligent machines to further its designs. Former Templar soldiers caught between human and machine, the charming shyster Grieve, and wealthy fortune hunters are all swept into the search for the fearsome weapon. The result is a striking adventure story set in an intriguing world of wheeled boats, killer hi-tech storms and cybernetic wizardry.

>> Read an interview with Sparks about Lotus Blue @ the Australian Women Writers Challenge

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rec160: The Trespassers

The Trespassers, by Meg Mundell (UQP, 2019)

A murder on the high seas sets the scene for the second novel by Melbourne-based Meg Mundell, but this is no whodunnit.

Rather, the near-future setting serves as a mirror for the tensions of our turbulent times as, once again, Europeans flee their homes for the promise of a better life in Australia.

In this case, a plague is driving Irish and British residents to board sailing ships bound for Down Under in an employment scheme, but their vessel, The Steadfast, becomes a political hot potato when the voyage goes awry.

Told through the viewpoints of three beautifully drawn passengers, the story is dark and unremitting as friendships form and secrets surface under the most trying of circumstances.

Tighter than Mundell’s dystopian debut, Black Glass (2011), The Trespassers targets corporate accountability, the treatment of asylum seekers, and our moral compass in the Anthropocene as the stories of hearing-impaired boy Cleary, nurse Billie and teacher Tom intersect in a thoroughly engaging tale.

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rec160: Traitor’s Run

NOVEL

Title: Traitor’s Run: The Lenticular, Book 1

Author: Keith Stevenson

Publisher: Coeur de Lion, 2023

It’s been a few years since I first spied an early draft of this space opera, and my, isn’t it taller! The story is an accomplished presentation of interstellar empire building, pictured through the eyes of Udun and Rhees. Udun is regarded as a misfit among the empathic Kresz due to his adventurous spirit. He is presented in first person, our entry into the physiology, culture and planet of his insular people, who face world-changing rivalries among their Houses. As Earth’s Hegemony seeks to spread its influence into the Kresz’s chunk of space, known as the Lenticular, Rhees, a disgraced human fighter pilot, is thrust into a conspiracy of epic proportions. Their points of view sufficiently described the setting that a data file on the Kresz and glossary felt almost superfluous. Rather, I was on board for the ride as events pile pressure on both characters, leaving the story poised for the middle book of the trilogy. Sign me up.   

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rec160: Billy Summers

NOVEL

Title: Billy Summers

Author: Stephen King

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton, 2021

We’ve heard this one before. Maestro Stephen King knows it. His titular character knows it. And that’s just the start of this clever, assured tale of an assassin seeking to plump up his retirement fund on a last dicey job. King rounds the edges off his hired gun by giving him a conscience – he only hits bad men, while acknowledging the reality that he, too, is, if not a bad man, not a good man – and making him a reader and also, potentially, a writer. So we find a story within a story, the hitman telling his past as he navigates the perils of his last job. There is a nod to one of King’s early, most successful successes, and tips of the hat to the writer’s craft. There is the humanity that King does so well in creating his characters, the eye for the detail that brings locations alive.  And there’s a fittingly killer ending for an adroit thriller.

>> Read an extract

A version of this reviewed has previously appeared in the Herald Sun

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rec160: Neon Leviathan

COLLECTION

Author: TR Napper

Title: Neon Leviathan

Publisher: Grimdark Magazine, 2019

Aussie Napper’s excellent 36 Streets won a Ditmar award at a recent Canberra convention, where I picked up this handsomely presented collection of 12 stories offering similar Asian-infused cyberpunk goodness (two original to this volume, the longer penultimate piece thoroughly Orwellian). The stories range from the 2030s to a dystopia more than a century on, revolving around battlers of various ilks trying to keep their heads up, street criminals and soldiers trying to stay alive. Memory, (virtual) reality and identity are common themes in the gritty collection that notably draws on Napper’s experience in Australia and Asia – Vietnam in particular is a strong influence. As Adrian Tchaikovsky notes in his forward, several conjure a familiarity through the common use of the evolving Kandel-Yu device and memory pins, and characters also reappear. While a couple of stories lighten the mood with touches of sly humour and surrealist elements, the collection presents a satisfying journey through the dark roads of the future.