Author: Andres Kabel

Neither traditional thriller nor standard police procedural, “Sheerwater,” the debut from Leah Swann, piles drama upon drama with calibrated evocation. The book kicks off powerfully: driving to a new life on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, escaping her fraught relationship with a volatile husband, a mother leaves her two young boys momentarily in the car while helping save the passengers of a crashed light plane, and when she returns to the car … the boys are gone. From there the book spirals in intensity, enmeshing the husband and a troubled local doctor. Each time a formulaic plot twist seems certain, author Swann subverts the genre and takes the story askew. The writing is as ferocious as the plot, bringing the coastline and the characters’ inner lives successively into the spotlight. If I caviled at some plotting confusion between the novel’s aims, I suspect that reflects more upon my faith in existing genre tropes than upon anything else, and the pages of “Sheerwater” turned in a blur of fascination. A fine read.

A concise examination of the carbon implications of a typical day’s meal, “Climate-Smart Food” is an easily entertaining ride through complex terrain. How does a cup of coffee impact my carbon footprint? My morning toast? How could my evening’s rice portion be better managed, across its lifecycle, to reduce emissions? How will global warming effect chocolate? How much more carbon intensive is chicken than my vegetarian meals? Dave Reay, a UK climate scientist, addresses such aspects of fourteen elements of a day’s three meals. Jammed with illuminations, it’s well worth a read, although some additional context would have helped a neophyte like me understand whether I should eat that banana (100-200g of carbon equivalent). And is “Climate-Smart Food” aiming to educate me about my food choices, or to educate policymakers about cutting food’s emissions, or to inform me about how a given food might suffer under global warming? I suspect the author intends all three but I longed for greater direction. Reay is a smooth, engaging stylist and this is a valuable resource.

“Three Dollars” made Australian author Elliot Perlman and it was one of my favorite books of that year, but since then I have felt that Perlman’s work has suffered under the weight of serious intentions. “Maybe the Horse Will Talk,” despite being a satire clearly intended to be comedic (and it does have some funny moments), labors over too many pages with a plot of overpowering complexity and characters that often perform roles. The basic story – a rookie lawyer, struggling to save marriage and finances, offers to make a loathsome client’s sexual harassment charges go away – is topical but the story’s machinations paled a bit for me. Perlman writes wonderful dialogue and the corporate world of Melbourne, if a tad over-parodied, rang true. Overall, an odd mixture of lad-lit and serious satire that makes for a slow read.

I’m as bedeviled by short-term horizons as most of us, so I turned to “The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World” with bated breath. With good reason: this book is a panoramic overview of a philosophy/mindset of far-seeking intergenerational morality. Philosopher Krznaric is a superb writer in charge of his material: wonderful, memorable structural organization of the book; comprehensive and fair-minded surveying of the terrain; and just the right amount of detail. He loves a pithy explanatory image and “The Good Ancestor” has a number of brilliant visual aids. I’ve always believed in responsibility towards younger and future humans, and recently I’d set myself a motivational timeframe of 2100, based on when my grandchildren might have grandchildren, but Krznaric has persuaded me to peer much, much further ahead, to expand my moral ambit. I encourage you to read “The Good Ancestor.” Its weighty subject is handled with such unassuming aplomb that I can guarantee at least one of his “six ways to think long” will strike a chord. And the second half of the book covers motivating examples of others acting rather than just thinking long-term. Scintillating.

Wildly inventive time travel always makes for fascinating sci-fi novels, and “Permafrost,” from the pen of renowned Alastair Reynolds, crackles with ingenious plotting. Set in the frigid wilderness of the Arctic in 2080 and 2028, a future Earth, poised on the precipice of doom, sends an elderly teacher back into the past to tweak their present. Valentina Lidova is an engaging heroine and the book’s early pages, chock full of character twists and explanatory time travel science, make for sprightly, intelligent reading. At 176 pages, novella length, I felt the the necessarily complex plot swamps any sense of story, and towards the end, when AIs are introduced, my involvement waned. So … intriguing ideas and a believable protagonist make “Permafrost” a short but perhaps uninspiring futuristic read.

Who can resist a fast-paced space opera novel in our current time? “The Final Dawn” kicks off a new series starring Jack Bishop, who volunteers for an experiment on a dystopian Earth, only to find himself careening through space with sentient automata fleeing criminals. Can he survive? Will he be able to return home when no one has even heard of Earth? Ashford is an engaging writer, well in command of his fast-paced plot, and the set-piece scenes in the void of space or in various spacecraft are wonderful. I especially enjoyed Bishop’s growing interrelationship with the eclectic group of automata. Space has never been so enjoyable to read about. Recommended for a fast read in front of a fireplace.