3.5 stars - Thank you, NetGalley, for this preview copy.Although I love Paul McAuley's prose, and there are exquisite passages (Please see below) , not enough of the book is of his previous quality. There are a number of interwoven stories, some in the past, one is fantasy, and one is in the present. Only the one in the present has real forward motion, the others do not quite come alive. Worse, those interfere with the pacing and tension of the main story.The world-building is very good, but not...

Such an oddly plotted novel. 3 stories 1 set in the present which is the most engaging about the central character Austral, another about some past events ( although interesting doesnt really add much) and a 3rd fictional/fantasy story which to me is purely random. The 3 together really create a confusing mess. The setting is original and I think the author has/had promise with this world just unfortunately not this story. The ending was a little of a letdown. One thing which was great with this...

This one was a slow starter for me. The description of the story sounded interesting and intriguing but during the first few chapters it did not grab me. You know how some books grab you instantly? This was not one of them.I persevered however and am glad I did, the story and the world building got better and better and overcame all my early gripes with it. It is set sometime after 2040 (I think, it is not a big thing) in a world where global warming has escalated to the point that large portion...

Austral is a husky, a specific type of genetically modified human suited to the cold of Antarctica. Like all huskies, she is bigger and stronger than unmodified humans. Huskies are also generally despised and discriminated against. Austral has had a rough life, which we find out about as the book progresses. I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. At the beginning, it's kind of grim. Austral, who was imprisoned much of her life, is working at a prison camp. She is thrust into a unten...

dnf @ 25%Just not for me I'm afraid, I found none of the characters likeable and the writing style irked me. That's not to say there wasn't anything to love, and I'm sure others will find plenty to admire and enjoy.

Cli-fi. We had a discussion on it at SFFWorld a while back, and the impression was that, with global changes occurring, it was going to become an increasingly relevant and important topic in science fiction. If not in real life.And here is the proof. Paul’s latest book is a travelogue of gangsters, pursuit and revenge across a landscape of climate change.If you are a regular genre reader, you may know this already. However, it is relevant here, that often with a science fiction novel it is not j...

I was sent this proof by the publishers, and oh boy, it's a good one. A cracking setup; great writing; great pacing; a genuinely fresh narrative voice, and for once - hooray! - a male author writing a complex, first-person female narrator who is neither a broflake's wet-dream, nor a wooden stereotype. Austral is big, strong, powerful, and yet with real vulnerabilities; a flawed and relatable heroine with agency, feelings and spirit. And to cap it all, Austral is fat - genetically edited to be fa...

After enjoying a non-fiction book about rewilding recently (Wilding), I was delighted to realise that this is essentially a sci-fi novel on the same topic. While the central plot is is a snowy chase similar to The Left Hand of Darkness, it is as far from being a straightforward thriller as Le Guin’s novel. The story is being recounted by the protagonist Austral, who is both contemplating her past and justifying her choices. Her family were ecopoets, a group that sought to introduce dynamic biodi...

Before I go any further I want to say that I really enjoyed this. I read it in four chunks of time over the course of five days. I could have probably read it over a shorter timespan but there is so much within this that makes you sit back and think that I had to do just that!Austral is a genetically modified human living in the not too distant future. A future where climate change is slowly wrecking our planet (recognise anything?). The ice caps are melting at tremendous rates and Antarctica is...

Well, McAuley pulled it off, sorta kinda. So long as you don't look too close -- like at the textbook deus ex machina ending, which was OK (sorta kinda) to get the biter bit.My problems weren't with McAuley's writing or extrapolations -- if you've read his short story "The Elves of Antarctica," you will recognize the setup, and it's a nice one: with climate change, there will be winners and losers. The Antarctic Peninsula is a winner. (As always, read the publishers summary first.) My problem w...

I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway, but this did not influence my review.The premise is that a genetically modified woman (a husky), lives in the not too distant future, where the ice caps have melted substantially, and a group of people known as Ecopoets live and exist outside of society, and are attempting to rebuild. The story opens with Austral, the husky, working in a prison, reflecting on what led her to kidnap a girl in an attempt to start a new life. The world that McAuley...

'Fiction can help to make the possible consequences of global warming by illuminating the nature of the catastrophe through stories on a human scale.' Review to follow. Secures McAuley's slot in the top pantheon of contemporary SF writers: devastating, humane, extraordinarily harsh and beautiful.

A couple months back my father surprised me for asking for some recommendations for Science Fiction novels. You see my father is extremely well read in non-fiction, but he is not a novel guy at all. He has read three novels as long as I know him. He is a retired professor of political science and his school is known for environmental affairs so it was not so weird that he was interested in Cli-fi. It was a term I taught him when he said he wanted to read some novels that dealt with the future of...

Sometime in the near future climate change has led to the thawing and wilding of parts of Antarctica. It’s still a cold, harsh place, but it’s also home to a sizable and growing population attracted by its natural resources. Austral is the daughter of an ecopoet and a husky: a person whose genes have been edited to cope with the climate and environment, though her difference means she is feared and discriminated against by others. She’s had a tough life, first growing up on a remote island where...

A gorgeous, haunting novel—brimming with fractal stories-within-stories—about a fugitive on the run through the backcountry of the new nation established on a greening Antarctica. McAuley's unskimmably precise prose conjure the bleak beauty of the internal and external landscapes the protagonist navigates as she tries to find her way in a world where humanity has become the primary agent of change—the biosphere increasingly subject to the vicissitudes of human nature.