Comes the Night

Comes the Night by Isobelle Carmody (Allen & Unwin) PB RRP $24.99 ISBN: 9781760294762

Reviewed by Melissa Wray

Will lives in a futuristic world protected from the extreme weather conditions on the outside. Over the years he has embarked on many challenges designed by his uncle to solve clues and uncover their hidden meanings. Little does he realise how important these challenges will be after his uncle dies unexpectedly.

This book has a range of supporting characters that hold the attention of the reader just as much as the main character, Will. His best friend Ender and her twin sister Magda are both created with significant differences, but are just as important to the storyline. The relationship that plays out between Will and his separated parents adds another layer of complexity to the story. As does the new feelings for Ender that begin to creep to the surface for Will. Plus, there is also the additional layer of grief that is embedded in the storyline after the loss of Will’s uncle.

This story is packed with multiple storylines, characters, action, danger and high stakes as well as interesting characters that have their own traits that the reader soon gets to know. Carmody has created two thrilling worlds full of detail and description.

The first world is the real-world Will lives in with the threats of danger and extremist actions as well as the carefully constructed world that is closely monitored including food eaten and exercise had.

The second is the dreamscape Will finds himself in that soon becomes one of sinister characters and extreme danger. Both are carefully constructed and written in a way that shows a huge breadth of imagination, planning and consideration by Carmody.

The precarious position that Will finds himself him as the story unfolds, soon builds to an exciting and dramatic conclusion. Comes The Night is perfect for any fan of fantasy or science fiction. It is suitable for a 12+ year readership.

Greylands

Greylands by Isobelle Carmody (Ford Street Publishing)

PB RRP $18.95

ISBN 978-1921665677

Reviewed by Francine Sculli

When I was a teenager, I remember reading Isobelle Carmody’s The Gathering. It’s darkness, and the messages it harboured, were so intense it has affected me until this very day. Greylands did not impact me any less and its potency still gnaws away as I write this review. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Greylands is such an important book that everyone should read it. (It is also a book that every writer should read, if not simply for Isobelle’s inspiring foreword!) While pegged as a young adult novel, this is a book whose metaphor and meaning can transcend any age barriers.

Greylands is Jack’s story, our teenage male protagonist who lives with his younger sister Ellen and his father David. Jack’s mother has recently died and his father has become an empty vessel who no longer feels anything and while Jack, too, is grieving the loss, his feelings are suppressed with the responsibility of his sister and his concern for his father. One night, after being awakened by a dream of his mother having wings on her back, Jack goes to the bathroom and is taunted by memories of the day his mother died. His troubled, sleepless faces peers back at him in the mirror but soon the mirror starts to ripple and he wakes up in a place devoid of colour, smell and feeling – the greylands.

In the greylands, Jack meets Alice – a young and elusive girl with wings on her back – who is carrying and protecting a secret bundle that glows. Drawn to her, his captivating and heart-racing journey through the foreboding greylands begins. Alice is not the only one he encounters on his journey through grief, pain, love, redemption and forgiveness – he is chased by savage wolvers, faces a laughing beast whose laughter has become more like sadness and a fun park that is wrought with confronting memories and truth. Jack becomes torn between the ‘real’ world and that of the greylands and is only able to leave the greylands once he uncovers the truth of his mother’s death, the disclosure of Alice’s identity and secret bundle and confronts his own grief once and for all.

Greylands is rich with metaphors about life, loss, grief, love and existence and equally rich with evocative language, a gripping story, captivating characters and a fully carved other world that Isobelle Carmody has truly mastered. It is unbelievably touching and profound. 

Trust Me Too

Trust Me Too edited by Paul Collins (Ford Street Publishing)

PB RRP $24.95

ISBN 978-1921665585

Reviewed by Francine Sculli

Trust Me Too is a wildly diverse collection of short stories and poems, edited by Paul Collins, that is jam packed with intoxicating tales written by an all-star line up of Australian writers. In her introduction, Judith Ridge sums the collection up perfectly: “If reading is something you do to find your way into the lives of other people, whatever kind of world they live in, you will find something to enjoy and ponder on within.”

And there is definitely no shortage of worlds and lives to explore in this collection; nor a shortage of themes, motifs and genres that will perfectly engage the middle-readers audience, but the one thing that truly binds this anthology is the thrilling sense of adventure and strong themes. From the very first story, Kerry Greenwood’s ‘The Calabar Crystal’, readers are thrown right into the very heart of a historical otherworldliness through the daring adventures and discoveries of best friends, Red and Liam, who unearth Liam’s eccentric great-aunt’s secrets from Zimbabwe.

There is no turning back from the benchmark of Greenwood, and the ripping pace continues as readers travel from world to world meeting strong characters of both old and young who encounter everything from a lone child raised by dingoes, scavenger hunts with prized ashes, sci-fi detective deaths inspired by plagues of rats, failed rock star fathers, cartoon farmers plagued by Zombies and so very much more. The big draw card of the Obernewtyn novelette ‘The Journey’ by Isobelle Carmody, is well worth its weight in gold. Carmody outdoes herself, once again, with a brilliant sci-fi story of Hannah, her telepathic powers and groundbreaking research. Hannah, drawn to the corporate city in search of people like her and a research internship that could change her life, finds herself attacked by a nunazi ganger and rescued by Jake Obernewtyn who shares his wisdom and creates a new path for Hannah.

The Obernewtyn novelette, however, does not outweigh the brilliance of this anthology as a whole. Each and every story, poem and illustration is well crafted and stands impressively on its own. This collection really does present the best of the best and there is so much to chew on that it is almost impossible to even select a stand-out.