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Landfall Review Online: Aotearoa New Zealand books in review

Climate Fiction for the Sunset Generation

September 1, 2021 Leave a Comment

Emma Gattey

Scorchers: A climate fiction anthology, edited by Paul Mountfort and Rosslyn Prosser (Eunoia Publishing, 2020), 280pp., $29

At the time of writing, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released its report on the physical science basis of climate change, including the role of human influence and the state of knowledge about possible climate futures. The findings are terrifying, sobering, devastating. They are also entirely unsurprising. Beyond the realms of climate research and science communication (although often with considerable overlap), fiction writers are among those who have long been grappling with eco-anxiety, futility and the overwhelming question of how on earth to compel people to care, and to act. [Read more…]

Filed Under: sci fi fantasy

Garden of Unearthly Delights

April 1, 2021 Leave a Comment

Tim Jones

Monsters in the Garden: An anthology of Aotearoa New Zealand science fiction and fantasy, edited by Elizabeth Knox and David Larsen (Victoria University Press, 2020), 607pp, $35

Editing anthologies is hard work. Editing speculative anthologies—those covering some combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror and related genres—is even harder work. Having co-edited two anthologies of speculative poetry, I’ve bumped up against the type of decisions that have to be taken both before the project starts and as it develops. What genres, what types of work, do and don’t qualify for inclusion? Do we take a narrow definition of the field or a wide one? Do we include only published work, only original work, or a mixture? [Read more…]

Filed Under: sci fi fantasy

Dystopia in a Time of Dystopia

July 1, 2020 Leave a Comment

Gina Cole

Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy: Volume 1 edited by Marie Hodgkinson (Paper Road Press, 2019), 194pp., $30

An unabashed Queer Pasifika Indiginerd geek, I am sitting in alert-level four lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and reviewing a science fiction/fantasy anthology. The irony is that fate has placed me within a narrative found in dystopian fiction as I read dystopian fiction. I keep picturing the meme doing the social-media rounds, of a ginger cat sitting on an empty bookshelf in a bookstore, the caption: ‘Postapocalyptic books have been moved to current affairs.’ This riff on our real-world rupture speaks to the ever-shifting nature of speculative fiction categories, while the cat is the epitome of a smug opportunist sitting in the little warm footprints left behind by migrating books. [Read more…]

Filed Under: fiction, sci fi fantasy

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