Vagrancy in a Post-Apocalyptic Landscape

THE VAGRANT
Peter Newman
Harper Collins, RRP29.99
April 2015

Vagrant

An unnamed man makes an illegal drug deal in a post-apocalyptic city, no sooner has he walked away from the deal than he is betrayed, such is our first introduction to the character The Vagrant in Peter Newman’s debut science fiction novel.* Thankfully The Vagrant has enough tricks up his sleeves that he continues on if not unscathed then at least free to continue his journey. Lucky, really, or else the novel would have been several hundred pages shorter than what it was. Continue reading

The Dead Lands

THE DEAD LANDS
Benjamin Percythe dead lands
Hachette Australia,  April 2015,  R.R.P. $29.99

It seemed fitting to be reading post-apocalyptic event fiction about a parched city as we move officially into an El Niño event. Thankfully we will have a couple of months of respite thanks to the Indian Ocean Dipole. Not so in the Sanctuary, a fortified city once known as St. Louis. Here water is precious, the city’s wells are guarded and the contents rationed.

In this rather depressing future, most of humanity has been wiped out by what began as a rather vicious strain of influenza and ended in a nuclear missile volleying match. Continue reading

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