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Paul McAuley won the PHILIP K. DICK AWARD for his first novel and has gone on to win the ARTHUR C. CLARKE, SIDEWISE, BRITISH FANTASY and JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARDs. He gave up his position as a research biologist to write full time. He lives in London.
A thrilling chase-cum-travelogue through a beautifully depicted
Antarctic wonderland... an impressively vast story in a short
punchy novel.
*GUARDIAN*
It is one of the best post-climate change novels yet written - and
one of McAuley's best books.
*SFX MAGAZINE*
A chase thriller set in late 21st-century Antarctica that combines
elements of Jack London,J.G. Ballard and William Gibson. A
significant contribution to writing about the anthropocene.
*THE ECONOMIST*
McAuley is a nature poet of imaginary lands .
*LOCUS*
A haunting and engaging piece of science fiction that is every bit
as good a piece of writing as the best literary fiction.
*POPULAR SCIENCE*
Austral combines a solid science scenario with a taught thriller in
an all too plausible future. For an SF reader, or indeed any reader
that considers matters beyond the day after tomorrow, what is there
not to like?
*CONCATENATION*
Austral is a beautifully written novel, which portrays in stark and
stunning terms the new frontier of Antarctica.
*FOR WINTERS NIGHTS*
Deeply sad and tender.
*James Bradley, author of Clade*
Cli-fi transcendent.
An exquisite human story set on an undiscovered continent of our
near future.
Austral may be McAuley's best yet. And the best near-future novel
yet written.
Paul McAuley has quickened science fiction. The future has
changed.
*Stephen Baxter*
The excitement of a new country appearing right here on Earth, a
real possibility that is quite fascinating in itself, is doubled
down here by way of a thrilling kidnap-and-rescue plot that ranges
across this beautiful new landscape, showing how we will soon be
not only terraforming Earth, but finding new ways to take care of
each other. It's a vivid example of science fiction at its
best.
*Kim Stanley Robinson, author of RED MARS*
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 fat in a
way that enhances her strength and endurance, and in the context of
her race, is only ever mentioned as a positive. Halleluia. It can
be done.
*Joanne Harris, author of THE GOSPEL OF LOKI*
Bleakly beautiful, Austral is both a finely-honed character study
and a powerful evocation of landscape and change, delivered with
icy clarity. This is the kind of fiction we will need as the
Anthropocene takes hold.
*Alastair Reynolds*
A beautifully worked tale of post-environment collapse Antarctica,
and a genetically-tweaked cold-adapted woman's attempt to escape.
As ever McAuley writes superbly: his prose is always elegant
without being showy, expressive and clear without ever being
pedestrian. And he's capable of gorgeous descriptive vividness.
Plus: rounded characterisation and a tremendous command of tension
and pace . . . There's something deceptively simple about Austral:
you read it quickly, and it lives in your head for a long time
after.
*Adam Roberts*
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