Shaun Prescott

Machine Man, Max Barry’s fourth novel, begins with its protagonist Charles Neumann searching for his mobile phone. It takes him twelve very funny pages to find it, but when he does it ushers in the novel’s central ‘tragedy’. It is easy to assume that Barry comes bearing a worn theme about modern society’s alarming reliance on technology, but he is no Luddite, and Machine Man’s central ... (read more)

Set in an imminent Tasmanian ghost town, B. Michael Radburn’s first novel departs from his previous work as a horror short story writer. This murder mystery unfolds in the rural town of Glorys Crossing, which is being consumed by a hydropower dam, and which all but the most stubborn townsfolk are leaving to make a life elsewhere. Told through the eyes of park ranger and chronic sleepwalker, Tayl ... (read more)

Black Glass, speculative fiction with a sentimental edge, explores a nation controlled by an intrusive surveillance culture and subliminal social engineering. Set in a dystopian future Melbourne where the formerly affluent inner-city Docklands district has become a ghetto of ‘vacant high-rise towers’ and marginalised ‘undocumented’ persons, Meg Mundell’s first novel outlines the climate ... (read more)