Science fiction novel short listed for Age book of the year

Hi all,

Steven Amsterdam's novel Things We Didn't See Coming, is on a short-list of five for the Age Book of the Year Awards. The novel "makes use of science fiction and apocalyptic themes" and much of it is set in the near future. The Age also says his writing "recalls the work of writers such as Aldous Huxley and Cormac McCarthy".

I saw Steve speak at the Emerging Writer's Festival and he either didn't mention the speculative fiction nature of his novel or I missed it. So out of the 30 or so writers I saw speak over nine sessions two wrote science fiction. Steve told us about his long road to being published (see previous posts). I wonder how much of that was due to his novel being science-fiction?

It's great to have an Aussie science fiction novel achieve mainstream acclaim.

I have a number of reasons to buy Things We Didn't See Coming: readers of this blog would know that I am into apocalyptic fiction and I enjoyed the suspense and bleakness of The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Graham.