raven_morgan's review against another edition
5.0
Nightsiders collects four interwoven short stories, all set in a future Perth (the capital city of Western Australia). The city has been devastated by war and extreme climate change, most of its population left in the Evacuation. Those who remain survive by sleeping during the day and being active during the relatively cooler night. As a result, Perth is now known as the Nightside.
The stories in this collection are The Painted Girl, Nation of the Night, Paper Dragons and The Schoolteacher’s Tale. Each will be discussed individually, and at the end of the review I will add my thoughts on the entire collection.
The Painted Girl
Our introduction to the Nightside comes in the form of Kyra, a thirteen-year old girl who has been travelling with an older woman, Nerina, for ten years. For the first time in their travelling, Nerina is taking Kyra to the Nightside. There, Kyra meets the titular painted girl, Alicia, and her people, the Drainers. Unlike most, the Drainers have the ability to walk during the heat of the day. Through this meeting, Kyra discovers truths about her own life, and is given a choice as to where she wants it to go next.
This story is a vivid introduction to the Nightside and its denizens. Kyra, as a young girl who remembers nothing other than travelling with Nerina, emphasises the wonder and the horror of what has become of one-time Perth. This is no utopia, but a place in which life is eked out using whatever means possible.
In another author’s hands, the Nightside could have remained a bleak place, the stories focused on the depravity and horror that people could stoop to in order to survive in such a changed world. But Isle gives us something very different: in Alicia and the Drainers, and in Kyra herself, there is hope. And importantly, Kyra is given a choice, after a life in which she has had little.
Nation of the Night
This story revolves around Ash, a seventeen-year-old resident of the Nightside. Ash is transgender, and seeks surgery and hormone therapy. With medical care in the Nightside limited or nonexistent, he seeks the closest thing he can find, his friend Professor Daniel. Pre-Evacuation, Daniel was a professor of mathematics, but now lives totally indoors, reliant on others to bring him water and food. Through Daniel, Ash secures a referral to a hospital in Melbourne, and travels East. There, he finds Melbourne as changed as Perth, but in different ways. The city is overcrowded, and they are trying to keep out as many people as possible.
Again, this story could have hopelessly bleak. Both cities have fallen apart, and in both, people are struggling. The fact that, even in this kind of world, Ash finds acceptance and the treatment he needs, is heartening, and like Kyra being given a choice in The Painted Girl, a sign that humanity is not entirely lost.
Paper Dragons
In this story, we are back in the Nightside, following a teenager, Shani, who we first see scrounging in the remains of old house, along with her friend Ichiro (Itch). This is part of what people of the Nightside to do survive. On this trip, they find useful items such as razors, but Itch also finds the sheets of what he believes to be a play. They bring the play to Tom Roper, who runs the Player’s Troupe. They discover that what they have found is a screenplay from a pre-Evactuation soapie revolving around teenagers, and seek to put it on as a play. When they do, things in the Nightside begin to change.
This is a story of expansion: of the view we are given of the Nightside and how those born pre- and post-Evacuation have coped with the changes to the city. Ash is here as one of the players in the Troupe, returned from his trip over East and wiser for it.
This story reads almost as an elegy for the lost world. It is a tribute to the power of stories and art (even those stories from a soap opera) and the way they can spark change.
The Schoolteacher’s Tale
The final story centres around Miss Wakeling, the oldest person in the Nightside and schoolteacher to the young people. She is one of the few Elders who leave their houses, and on this occasion we see her – reluctantly – take a longer journey out to the Edge to celebrate the wedding of Shani and Ichiro (who we first met in Paper Dragons).
Miss Wakeling’s point of view gives a different insight to that of the younger protagonists of the other stories. She refers to the city mostly still as Perth, and recognises many old landmarks and place names as they travel.
Like Kyra in the first story, Miss Wakeling is given a choice by the Aboriginal Elders she finds attending the wedding. It is this choice that will begin to lead the Nightside and its people into the future.
In conclusion
Nightsiders was always going to be a collection I was drawn to. I love the idea of characters dealing with a dystopia, and setting such a story in my home city of Perth? I’m sold immediately.
I loved the threads that twine through these stories. There are characters who appear again and again – Ash, Professor Daniel, Shani and Itch, Miss Wakeling – which really emphasises the smallness of the population which remains in the Nightside. Fascinating, too, are the little hints of how people are biologically beginning to change. Many of the children born into the Nightside have better night vision than the Elders, and the Drainers are known to have some kind of mutation that lets them walk during the heat of the day. Merging all of these things, and the knowledge of the old and new Nightside, as well as that of the Aboriginals still walking on country, has the potential to lead to a new kind of humanity. With the hints that the readers are given about the chaos in the rest of Australia, it is easy to see the once-abandoned Perth giving rise to a place that will lead the country entire into the new world.
There is much diversity in this world, also. People of colour are represented, along with diverse gender identity. More importantly, this also seems to be a world which doesn’t see the difference at all – everyone is simply accepted for who and what they are.
It should also be noted that the majority of the protagonists were female, and of diverse age. And, unlike in many other dystopias, all of these females are given agency, and there is no sexual assault or rape used as a plot device. All of these women are ultimately capable of looking after themselves and of each other.
The cover design by Amanda Rainey is, as always, outstanding, and the quality of the print book is high.
As the first collection in the Twelve Planets, Nightsiders sets a very high bar for the project, and is highly recommended, even if you’re someone who doesn’t usually read dystopias.
The stories in this collection are The Painted Girl, Nation of the Night, Paper Dragons and The Schoolteacher’s Tale. Each will be discussed individually, and at the end of the review I will add my thoughts on the entire collection.
The Painted Girl
Our introduction to the Nightside comes in the form of Kyra, a thirteen-year old girl who has been travelling with an older woman, Nerina, for ten years. For the first time in their travelling, Nerina is taking Kyra to the Nightside. There, Kyra meets the titular painted girl, Alicia, and her people, the Drainers. Unlike most, the Drainers have the ability to walk during the heat of the day. Through this meeting, Kyra discovers truths about her own life, and is given a choice as to where she wants it to go next.
This story is a vivid introduction to the Nightside and its denizens. Kyra, as a young girl who remembers nothing other than travelling with Nerina, emphasises the wonder and the horror of what has become of one-time Perth. This is no utopia, but a place in which life is eked out using whatever means possible.
In another author’s hands, the Nightside could have remained a bleak place, the stories focused on the depravity and horror that people could stoop to in order to survive in such a changed world. But Isle gives us something very different: in Alicia and the Drainers, and in Kyra herself, there is hope. And importantly, Kyra is given a choice, after a life in which she has had little.
Nation of the Night
This story revolves around Ash, a seventeen-year-old resident of the Nightside. Ash is transgender, and seeks surgery and hormone therapy. With medical care in the Nightside limited or nonexistent, he seeks the closest thing he can find, his friend Professor Daniel. Pre-Evacuation, Daniel was a professor of mathematics, but now lives totally indoors, reliant on others to bring him water and food. Through Daniel, Ash secures a referral to a hospital in Melbourne, and travels East. There, he finds Melbourne as changed as Perth, but in different ways. The city is overcrowded, and they are trying to keep out as many people as possible.
Again, this story could have hopelessly bleak. Both cities have fallen apart, and in both, people are struggling. The fact that, even in this kind of world, Ash finds acceptance and the treatment he needs, is heartening, and like Kyra being given a choice in The Painted Girl, a sign that humanity is not entirely lost.
Paper Dragons
In this story, we are back in the Nightside, following a teenager, Shani, who we first see scrounging in the remains of old house, along with her friend Ichiro (Itch). This is part of what people of the Nightside to do survive. On this trip, they find useful items such as razors, but Itch also finds the sheets of what he believes to be a play. They bring the play to Tom Roper, who runs the Player’s Troupe. They discover that what they have found is a screenplay from a pre-Evactuation soapie revolving around teenagers, and seek to put it on as a play. When they do, things in the Nightside begin to change.
This is a story of expansion: of the view we are given of the Nightside and how those born pre- and post-Evacuation have coped with the changes to the city. Ash is here as one of the players in the Troupe, returned from his trip over East and wiser for it.
This story reads almost as an elegy for the lost world. It is a tribute to the power of stories and art (even those stories from a soap opera) and the way they can spark change.
The Schoolteacher’s Tale
The final story centres around Miss Wakeling, the oldest person in the Nightside and schoolteacher to the young people. She is one of the few Elders who leave their houses, and on this occasion we see her – reluctantly – take a longer journey out to the Edge to celebrate the wedding of Shani and Ichiro (who we first met in Paper Dragons).
Miss Wakeling’s point of view gives a different insight to that of the younger protagonists of the other stories. She refers to the city mostly still as Perth, and recognises many old landmarks and place names as they travel.
Like Kyra in the first story, Miss Wakeling is given a choice by the Aboriginal Elders she finds attending the wedding. It is this choice that will begin to lead the Nightside and its people into the future.
In conclusion
Nightsiders was always going to be a collection I was drawn to. I love the idea of characters dealing with a dystopia, and setting such a story in my home city of Perth? I’m sold immediately.
I loved the threads that twine through these stories. There are characters who appear again and again – Ash, Professor Daniel, Shani and Itch, Miss Wakeling – which really emphasises the smallness of the population which remains in the Nightside. Fascinating, too, are the little hints of how people are biologically beginning to change. Many of the children born into the Nightside have better night vision than the Elders, and the Drainers are known to have some kind of mutation that lets them walk during the heat of the day. Merging all of these things, and the knowledge of the old and new Nightside, as well as that of the Aboriginals still walking on country, has the potential to lead to a new kind of humanity. With the hints that the readers are given about the chaos in the rest of Australia, it is easy to see the once-abandoned Perth giving rise to a place that will lead the country entire into the new world.
There is much diversity in this world, also. People of colour are represented, along with diverse gender identity. More importantly, this also seems to be a world which doesn’t see the difference at all – everyone is simply accepted for who and what they are.
It should also be noted that the majority of the protagonists were female, and of diverse age. And, unlike in many other dystopias, all of these females are given agency, and there is no sexual assault or rape used as a plot device. All of these women are ultimately capable of looking after themselves and of each other.
The cover design by Amanda Rainey is, as always, outstanding, and the quality of the print book is high.
As the first collection in the Twelve Planets, Nightsiders sets a very high bar for the project, and is highly recommended, even if you’re someone who doesn’t usually read dystopias.
thiefofcamorr's review against another edition
5.0
Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
I wish there was more! The writing quality was astounding and I could easily visulise the scenes, especially occurring near where my mum's side of the family live rurally.
I would love to read a novel from this author, based around these events.
anna_hepworth's review
5.0
Brilliant, tightly-written short gems. All set in a 'post-apocalyptic' post-climate change wars city on the edge of survival.
margreads's review against another edition
4.0
I hadn't read anything by Sue Isle before but knew as soon as I heard what the setting was that I wanted to read this collection of four short stories, one of which (Paper Dragons) had previously been published. The collection is predominantly set in the city where I was born, the city where most of my relatives still live, the city I visit quite regularly - Perth in Western Australia. This Perth however is only barely recognisable as the city I love to visit.
The book is set in the near future in a world where there has been dramatic climatic change in addition to bombings that have destroyed much of the infrastructure and housing. The temperatures soar during the day, forcing the few hardy souls who remain to take shelter where ever they can find it, and water is scarce. Most of the activity happens at night, hence the community being known as the Nightside. Most people have been evacuated to the East, and for the most part those who have been left behind have been forgotten.
The first story in the collection is The Painted Girl. The main character is Kyra, a young girl who travels with Nerina. They have travelled from place to place always being careful to behave appropriately as they travel through other groups areas and never to outstay their welcome. For the first time they that Kyra can remember, they are headed into the city proper. This story has familiar elements - the isolation you feel coming into an established community and not knowing how to act, a coming of age tale where getting to know yourself is made harder by the fact that you are not who you thought you were at all, but the harshness of the environment sandblasts these providing a rawness that is quite affecting.
The second story is Nation of the Night, and this is the story that is for me the lynch pin of the collection. The main character of the story is Ash, a young man born into a female body, and desperate for the gender reassignment surgery that will help him be the young man he feels himself to be. He has no choice but to head East to Melbourne for his operation. Whilst there are people that Ash meets in Melbourne that are welcoming to him as an outsider, the authorities or not. The city that I live in now is portrayed as overcrowded with refugees and suffering from it's own climactic issues, different from those faced in Perth, but with its own devastating implications for those who live in this city. As well as looking at the identity issues for Ash, there is also discussion of the fate of refugees in the city and the difficulties that they face like being able to provide and educate their families, as well as dangers facing those who don't belong. To me, this felt like a political statement given the emotional reactions that people have to the refugee issue, not only in Australia, but also in other places around the world.
The third story in the collection, Paper Dragons, is the one that worked least well for me, not so much because of the story itself but because of what we had already learned about the world. This story focused again on the younger members of the group with Ash appearing again within the narrative. I did think about using the word tribe rather than group but hesitated to do so, but there is almost a tribal feel to the group with all the members having prescribed duties. I think that the tribal element really comes to the fore in the fourth story, but more on that later. When on a mission to search through some of the dwellings for anything that might be of use to the group, Itch and Shani find some papers, which turn out to be a manuscript. When the troup of Players talk of performing the play, there is opposition from within the group as they fear that some of the memories of the past may be awakened and cause new ideas to be born that may cause changes that some within the group. The power of entertainment to provoke discussion and change is an interesting concept to explore in this setting.
Continuing with the idea of change and growth, the fourth story is also one I found very touching. In The Schoolteacher's Tale, Ellen Wakeling (the teacher of the title and oldest member of the group) is asked to perform the function of elder at an assembly to be held outside of the time and in conjunction with a tribe of native Australians. Whilst the vast majority of the people who live in this Perth stay close to the city centre, a few hardy souls have been spreading out into the surrounding areas, and now, there is a chance to move out to the Edge. For Ellen the trip to the Edge is a journey that forces her to think about the way that the people left behind in the colony have learned the skills that they need to survive and whether it is time for new ways to be examined and put into place. In some ways the expansion into the surrounding areas, and the meeting up with the Aboriginal communities felt a bit like a chance for recolonisation this time in partnership rather than through conflict.
Part of the reason I think that this story affected me as much as it did was that I recognised the journey that Ellen took, out through Mt Lawley, along the railway line (no longer in use in this book), out past the Peninsula hotel, as this is the route that I take most times I go to Perth and visit my family.
This book and Love and Romanpunk are completely different books, connected only in that they have been published as part of the Twelve Planets series, but they were both really good reads, and I can't wait for the next one to arrive in my mailbox in the next few weeks. I will definitely be ordering the future releases in the series and can't wait to see where I am taken next.
The book is set in the near future in a world where there has been dramatic climatic change in addition to bombings that have destroyed much of the infrastructure and housing. The temperatures soar during the day, forcing the few hardy souls who remain to take shelter where ever they can find it, and water is scarce. Most of the activity happens at night, hence the community being known as the Nightside. Most people have been evacuated to the East, and for the most part those who have been left behind have been forgotten.
The first story in the collection is The Painted Girl. The main character is Kyra, a young girl who travels with Nerina. They have travelled from place to place always being careful to behave appropriately as they travel through other groups areas and never to outstay their welcome. For the first time they that Kyra can remember, they are headed into the city proper. This story has familiar elements - the isolation you feel coming into an established community and not knowing how to act, a coming of age tale where getting to know yourself is made harder by the fact that you are not who you thought you were at all, but the harshness of the environment sandblasts these providing a rawness that is quite affecting.
The second story is Nation of the Night, and this is the story that is for me the lynch pin of the collection. The main character of the story is Ash, a young man born into a female body, and desperate for the gender reassignment surgery that will help him be the young man he feels himself to be. He has no choice but to head East to Melbourne for his operation. Whilst there are people that Ash meets in Melbourne that are welcoming to him as an outsider, the authorities or not. The city that I live in now is portrayed as overcrowded with refugees and suffering from it's own climactic issues, different from those faced in Perth, but with its own devastating implications for those who live in this city. As well as looking at the identity issues for Ash, there is also discussion of the fate of refugees in the city and the difficulties that they face like being able to provide and educate their families, as well as dangers facing those who don't belong. To me, this felt like a political statement given the emotional reactions that people have to the refugee issue, not only in Australia, but also in other places around the world.
The third story in the collection, Paper Dragons, is the one that worked least well for me, not so much because of the story itself but because of what we had already learned about the world. This story focused again on the younger members of the group with Ash appearing again within the narrative. I did think about using the word tribe rather than group but hesitated to do so, but there is almost a tribal feel to the group with all the members having prescribed duties. I think that the tribal element really comes to the fore in the fourth story, but more on that later. When on a mission to search through some of the dwellings for anything that might be of use to the group, Itch and Shani find some papers, which turn out to be a manuscript. When the troup of Players talk of performing the play, there is opposition from within the group as they fear that some of the memories of the past may be awakened and cause new ideas to be born that may cause changes that some within the group. The power of entertainment to provoke discussion and change is an interesting concept to explore in this setting.
Continuing with the idea of change and growth, the fourth story is also one I found very touching. In The Schoolteacher's Tale, Ellen Wakeling (the teacher of the title and oldest member of the group) is asked to perform the function of elder at an assembly to be held outside of the time and in conjunction with a tribe of native Australians. Whilst the vast majority of the people who live in this Perth stay close to the city centre, a few hardy souls have been spreading out into the surrounding areas, and now, there is a chance to move out to the Edge. For Ellen the trip to the Edge is a journey that forces her to think about the way that the people left behind in the colony have learned the skills that they need to survive and whether it is time for new ways to be examined and put into place. In some ways the expansion into the surrounding areas, and the meeting up with the Aboriginal communities felt a bit like a chance for recolonisation this time in partnership rather than through conflict.
Part of the reason I think that this story affected me as much as it did was that I recognised the journey that Ellen took, out through Mt Lawley, along the railway line (no longer in use in this book), out past the Peninsula hotel, as this is the route that I take most times I go to Perth and visit my family.
This book and Love and Romanpunk are completely different books, connected only in that they have been published as part of the Twelve Planets series, but they were both really good reads, and I can't wait for the next one to arrive in my mailbox in the next few weeks. I will definitely be ordering the future releases in the series and can't wait to see where I am taken next.
rivqa's review against another edition
3.0
This was a lovely little YA short story collection - well written and interesting, but I felt she could have taken it so much further. Perhaps she will?
margreads's review
4.0
I hadn't read anything by Sue Isle before but knew as soon as I heard what the setting was that I wanted to read this collection of four short stories, one of which (Paper Dragons) had previously been published. The collection is predominantly set in the city where I was born, the city where most of my relatives still live, the city I visit quite regularly - Perth in Western Australia. This Perth however is only barely recognisable as the city I love to visit.
The book is set in the near future in a world where there has been dramatic climatic change in addition to bombings that have destroyed much of the infrastructure and housing. The temperatures soar during the day, forcing the few hardy souls who remain to take shelter where ever they can find it, and water is scarce. Most of the activity happens at night, hence the community being known as the Nightside. Most people have been evacuated to the East, and for the most part those who have been left behind have been forgotten.
The first story in the collection is The Painted Girl. The main character is Kyra, a young girl who travels with Nerina. They have travelled from place to place always being careful to behave appropriately as they travel through other groups areas and never to outstay their welcome. For the first time they that Kyra can remember, they are headed into the city proper. This story has familiar elements - the isolation you feel coming into an established community and not knowing how to act, a coming of age tale where getting to know yourself is made harder by the fact that you are not who you thought you were at all, but the harshness of the environment sandblasts these providing a rawness that is quite affecting.
The second story is Nation of the Night, and this is the story that is for me the lynch pin of the collection. The main character of the story is Ash, a young man born into a female body, and desperate for the gender reassignment surgery that will help him be the young man he feels himself to be. He has no choice but to head East to Melbourne for his operation. Whilst there are people that Ash meets in Melbourne that are welcoming to him as an outsider, the authorities or not. The city that I live in now is portrayed as overcrowded with refugees and suffering from it's own climactic issues, different from those faced in Perth, but with its own devastating implications for those who live in this city. As well as looking at the identity issues for Ash, there is also discussion of the fate of refugees in the city and the difficulties that they face like being able to provide and educate their families, as well as dangers facing those who don't belong. To me, this felt like a political statement given the emotional reactions that people have to the refugee issue, not only in Australia, but also in other places around the world.
The third story in the collection, Paper Dragons, is the one that worked least well for me, not so much because of the story itself but because of what we had already learned about the world. This story focused again on the younger members of the group with Ash appearing again within the narrative. I did think about using the word tribe rather than group but hesitated to do so, but there is almost a tribal feel to the group with all the members having prescribed duties. I think that the tribal element really comes to the fore in the fourth story, but more on that later. When on a mission to search through some of the dwellings for anything that might be of use to the group, Itch and Shani find some papers, which turn out to be a manuscript. When the troup of Players talk of performing the play, there is opposition from within the group as they fear that some of the memories of the past may be awakened and cause new ideas to be born that may cause changes that some within the group. The power of entertainment to provoke discussion and change is an interesting concept to explore in this setting.
Continuing with the idea of change and growth, the fourth story is also one I found very touching. In The Schoolteacher's Tale, Ellen Wakeling (the teacher of the title and oldest member of the group) is asked to perform the function of elder at an assembly to be held outside of the time and in conjunction with a tribe of native Australians. Whilst the vast majority of the people who live in this Perth stay close to the city centre, a few hardy souls have been spreading out into the surrounding areas, and now, there is a chance to move out to the Edge. For Ellen the trip to the Edge is a journey that forces her to think about the way that the people left behind in the colony have learned the skills that they need to survive and whether it is time for new ways to be examined and put into place. In some ways the expansion into the surrounding areas, and the meeting up with the Aboriginal communities felt a bit like a chance for recolonisation this time in partnership rather than through conflict.
Part of the reason I think that this story affected me as much as it did was that I recognised the journey that Ellen took, out through Mt Lawley, along the railway line (no longer in use in this book), out past the Peninsula hotel, as this is the route that I take most times I go to Perth and visit my family.
This book and Love and Romanpunk are completely different books, connected only in that they have been published as part of the Twelve Planets series, but they were both really good reads, and I can't wait for the next one to arrive in my mailbox in the next few weeks. I will definitely be ordering the future releases in the series and can't wait to see where I am taken next.
The book is set in the near future in a world where there has been dramatic climatic change in addition to bombings that have destroyed much of the infrastructure and housing. The temperatures soar during the day, forcing the few hardy souls who remain to take shelter where ever they can find it, and water is scarce. Most of the activity happens at night, hence the community being known as the Nightside. Most people have been evacuated to the East, and for the most part those who have been left behind have been forgotten.
The first story in the collection is The Painted Girl. The main character is Kyra, a young girl who travels with Nerina. They have travelled from place to place always being careful to behave appropriately as they travel through other groups areas and never to outstay their welcome. For the first time they that Kyra can remember, they are headed into the city proper. This story has familiar elements - the isolation you feel coming into an established community and not knowing how to act, a coming of age tale where getting to know yourself is made harder by the fact that you are not who you thought you were at all, but the harshness of the environment sandblasts these providing a rawness that is quite affecting.
The second story is Nation of the Night, and this is the story that is for me the lynch pin of the collection. The main character of the story is Ash, a young man born into a female body, and desperate for the gender reassignment surgery that will help him be the young man he feels himself to be. He has no choice but to head East to Melbourne for his operation. Whilst there are people that Ash meets in Melbourne that are welcoming to him as an outsider, the authorities or not. The city that I live in now is portrayed as overcrowded with refugees and suffering from it's own climactic issues, different from those faced in Perth, but with its own devastating implications for those who live in this city. As well as looking at the identity issues for Ash, there is also discussion of the fate of refugees in the city and the difficulties that they face like being able to provide and educate their families, as well as dangers facing those who don't belong. To me, this felt like a political statement given the emotional reactions that people have to the refugee issue, not only in Australia, but also in other places around the world.
The third story in the collection, Paper Dragons, is the one that worked least well for me, not so much because of the story itself but because of what we had already learned about the world. This story focused again on the younger members of the group with Ash appearing again within the narrative. I did think about using the word tribe rather than group but hesitated to do so, but there is almost a tribal feel to the group with all the members having prescribed duties. I think that the tribal element really comes to the fore in the fourth story, but more on that later. When on a mission to search through some of the dwellings for anything that might be of use to the group, Itch and Shani find some papers, which turn out to be a manuscript. When the troup of Players talk of performing the play, there is opposition from within the group as they fear that some of the memories of the past may be awakened and cause new ideas to be born that may cause changes that some within the group. The power of entertainment to provoke discussion and change is an interesting concept to explore in this setting.
Continuing with the idea of change and growth, the fourth story is also one I found very touching. In The Schoolteacher's Tale, Ellen Wakeling (the teacher of the title and oldest member of the group) is asked to perform the function of elder at an assembly to be held outside of the time and in conjunction with a tribe of native Australians. Whilst the vast majority of the people who live in this Perth stay close to the city centre, a few hardy souls have been spreading out into the surrounding areas, and now, there is a chance to move out to the Edge. For Ellen the trip to the Edge is a journey that forces her to think about the way that the people left behind in the colony have learned the skills that they need to survive and whether it is time for new ways to be examined and put into place. In some ways the expansion into the surrounding areas, and the meeting up with the Aboriginal communities felt a bit like a chance for recolonisation this time in partnership rather than through conflict.
Part of the reason I think that this story affected me as much as it did was that I recognised the journey that Ellen took, out through Mt Lawley, along the railway line (no longer in use in this book), out past the Peninsula hotel, as this is the route that I take most times I go to Perth and visit my family.
This book and Love and Romanpunk are completely different books, connected only in that they have been published as part of the Twelve Planets series, but they were both really good reads, and I can't wait for the next one to arrive in my mailbox in the next few weeks. I will definitely be ordering the future releases in the series and can't wait to see where I am taken next.
tsana's review
4.0
Nightsiders by Sue Isles is a collection of four short stories set in the same world. It is part of Twelfth Planet Press's Twelve Planets series, twelve collections which are showcasing the work of twelve Australian female authors. I believe it's the only one so far to be entirely science fictional (that said, the only other I've read is Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts -- an excellent blend of Roman mythology, the past and the future -- and I'm not sure what's planned for the rest of the series).
Nightsiders is set in Western Australia, in and around Perth. I want to say it's post-apocalyptic, but that's not quite true. It seems part local apocalypse, part generalised catastrophic climate change. The Australian climate has changed so that the west coast is no longer particularly habitable, with hints at the start that things are better in the east. The former city of Perth is now generally referred to as Nightside, because the people living there have turned nocturnal, seeking shelter during the heat of the day and going about their business in the marginally cooler nights.
A few words on each of the stories:
The Painted Girl
13 year old girl has been with walking with an older woman (who isn't her mother) as long as she remembers. One day, her life abruptly changes and she learns there's more to it than she'd realised.
The Nation of the Night
Ash, 17 year old a trans boy, goes east for an operation. The story is mostly about the stark differences between the parched west and the drowning east. He quickly learns that life is far from perfect in Melbourne, even if they still have hospitals and infrastructure. In Nightside (aka Perth), everyone helps their neighbours, in Melbourne, the infrastructure is overcrowded and they're trying to keep out as many surplus people as they can manage.
Paper Dragons
Some of the kids in Nightside put on a play based on some old TV scripts they found in an abandoned home. Turns out it's a soap about the trivialities of teenage life as in our time. Nightside's entire population of old folk (who remember life before the bombings and the evacuation) turn out to watch.
The Schoolteacher's Tale
This was my favourite story. Mostly, I think, because it filled in some of the gaps left by the other stories with teenage protagonists who didn't know life before Nightside. The titular schoolteacher is a 70 year old woman who had been mentioned as a key figure in the lives of the characters in the previous two stories. We are exposed to some of her reminiscences of how much the world has changed and, through the story, we learn a bit of where Nightside is headed in the future.
~
It sort of feels strange that I can summarise each of the stories in a few sentences but barely even touch on what the stories are really about. Partly this is avoiding spoilers, and partly because there are some themes and ideas that run through all four stories which are hard to pin down to just one of them.
An idea that runs through all the stories (though features the most in the first one) is that of the Drainers. They are a group of people with a genetic mutation that gives them a tolerance for the harsh sun and helps them go a bit longer between sips of water. They come out during the day when everyone else is sleeping, and hide in caves and drains (hence the name, I suppose) at night. There are stories of them eating people or draining their blood and, because they move about when everyone else is sleeping, they're regarded almost as reverse vampires, a notion which appealed to me.
All the children protagonists have adapted better to life in Nightside than the adults. They have good night vision (and poor day vision) and, of course, they are used to the only life they have ever known. One theme that ran heavily through the first three stories is that of abandonment. In the two middle stories, the children were abandoned by parents who went east during the evacuation. There's a heavy implication that this happened to almost all of the children of Nightside, with some of the remaining adults acting as foster parents to many of them. It sort of felt a bit much. Of course, the children that weren't abandoned when their parents went east wouldn't have still been around. But really, children are pretty much top of the list of things parents take with them when leaving a war zone. Where are the parents that stayed behind with children? Where are the children whose parents were killed rather than left? I appreciate that the theme of abandonment fits in with the greater theme of Nightside being abandoned by its former inhabitants and the rest of the country, but it felt a little bit lopsided by the time I got to the end.
On a happier note, this was a collection full of strong and well drawn female characters. With the exception of Ash (trans) in the second story, all the protagonists were female. There was also a good balance of male and female secondary/background characters, which is always nice to see.
To a small degree, the setting put me in mind of Daughters of Moab by Kim Westwood, but the writing style was very different and thematically the setting and the idea of adaptation to a hostile environment were the only things the two have in common.
Overall, I found Nightsiders an interesting read.
Rating 4 / 5 stars
Nightsiders is set in Western Australia, in and around Perth. I want to say it's post-apocalyptic, but that's not quite true. It seems part local apocalypse, part generalised catastrophic climate change. The Australian climate has changed so that the west coast is no longer particularly habitable, with hints at the start that things are better in the east. The former city of Perth is now generally referred to as Nightside, because the people living there have turned nocturnal, seeking shelter during the heat of the day and going about their business in the marginally cooler nights.
A few words on each of the stories:
The Painted Girl
13 year old girl has been with walking with an older woman (who isn't her mother) as long as she remembers. One day, her life abruptly changes and she learns there's more to it than she'd realised.
The Nation of the Night
Ash, 17 year old a trans boy, goes east for an operation. The story is mostly about the stark differences between the parched west and the drowning east. He quickly learns that life is far from perfect in Melbourne, even if they still have hospitals and infrastructure. In Nightside (aka Perth), everyone helps their neighbours, in Melbourne, the infrastructure is overcrowded and they're trying to keep out as many surplus people as they can manage.
Paper Dragons
Some of the kids in Nightside put on a play based on some old TV scripts they found in an abandoned home. Turns out it's a soap about the trivialities of teenage life as in our time. Nightside's entire population of old folk (who remember life before the bombings and the evacuation) turn out to watch.
The Schoolteacher's Tale
This was my favourite story. Mostly, I think, because it filled in some of the gaps left by the other stories with teenage protagonists who didn't know life before Nightside. The titular schoolteacher is a 70 year old woman who had been mentioned as a key figure in the lives of the characters in the previous two stories. We are exposed to some of her reminiscences of how much the world has changed and, through the story, we learn a bit of where Nightside is headed in the future.
~
It sort of feels strange that I can summarise each of the stories in a few sentences but barely even touch on what the stories are really about. Partly this is avoiding spoilers, and partly because there are some themes and ideas that run through all four stories which are hard to pin down to just one of them.
An idea that runs through all the stories (though features the most in the first one) is that of the Drainers. They are a group of people with a genetic mutation that gives them a tolerance for the harsh sun and helps them go a bit longer between sips of water. They come out during the day when everyone else is sleeping, and hide in caves and drains (hence the name, I suppose) at night. There are stories of them eating people or draining their blood and, because they move about when everyone else is sleeping, they're regarded almost as reverse vampires, a notion which appealed to me.
All the children protagonists have adapted better to life in Nightside than the adults. They have good night vision (and poor day vision) and, of course, they are used to the only life they have ever known. One theme that ran heavily through the first three stories is that of abandonment. In the two middle stories, the children were abandoned by parents who went east during the evacuation. There's a heavy implication that this happened to almost all of the children of Nightside, with some of the remaining adults acting as foster parents to many of them. It sort of felt a bit much. Of course, the children that weren't abandoned when their parents went east wouldn't have still been around. But really, children are pretty much top of the list of things parents take with them when leaving a war zone. Where are the parents that stayed behind with children? Where are the children whose parents were killed rather than left? I appreciate that the theme of abandonment fits in with the greater theme of Nightside being abandoned by its former inhabitants and the rest of the country, but it felt a little bit lopsided by the time I got to the end.
On a happier note, this was a collection full of strong and well drawn female characters. With the exception of Ash (trans) in the second story, all the protagonists were female. There was also a good balance of male and female secondary/background characters, which is always nice to see.
To a small degree, the setting put me in mind of Daughters of Moab by Kim Westwood, but the writing style was very different and thematically the setting and the idea of adaptation to a hostile environment were the only things the two have in common.
Overall, I found Nightsiders an interesting read.
Rating 4 / 5 stars
hammard's review
3.0
An interesting short story collection of a post-climate change Australia. I found that it was largely more concentrated on the world building than character or plot but still enjoyable for what it was.
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