SF in Oz

Marianne de Pierres, author of the excellent Parish Plessis novels kindly pointed me in the direction of the Aurealis Awards website. Here her fellow Australian SF&F writers celebrate the finest writing in the genre. Alas, it can be quite some time before we see some of those authors being printed in the UK - some Australian bestsellers like Garth Nix or Marianne herself had been happily read by Aussies for some time before we got our eager little hands on them over here (and the reverse is often true of new British titles making it to Oz). Still worth having a look for the serious SF reader - you may well spot an author to watch for.


In the meantime Marianne's next Parish Plessis novel, Crash Deluxe, is due here in the UK from Orbit in June. If you haven't read this series yet I highly recommend it - Nylon Angel and Code Noir were a delightful surprise to me. I had no pre-knowledge of the series until Orbit kindly sent them my way and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed them and now look forward to the next volume. A strong female action-heroine, but a believable and sympathetic one, not the one-dimensional character so many other action-fuelled heroes end up as. This and a stylish, gripping prose makes it a great series for both the girls and the boys and also proves that you can have action without sacrificing plot or character.