Stefen’s Bookclub – August

Terra Nullius
by Claire G Coleman

To keep cost down for folks I try to make sure that the book I set for book club each month is in paperback. That means sometimes I have to wait for something to come down in format. I decided a year ago that Terra Nullius was going to be a book club book. The rest has just been waiting for the small format. It’s by Claire Coleman who is originally from WA but now lives in Melbourne, so she’s a local author which is also something I feel strongly about. Actually, as a Southern Noongar woman, she’s as local as it’s possible to be. The book itself is, in my opinion, part of the science fiction tradition of LeGuin, Atwood, Butler and Tepper. It’s science fiction, but it’s also about things that are real. It’s set in a place like Australia, but not exactly like it. It’s got settlers and natives and we watch the interactions between them. It’s sadly familiar and confronting, but it’s also more than you think and as the story unfolds ideas and preconceptions are challenged and it’s likely to take the reader places they hadn’t expected to go. I’m very much looking forward to discussing this one.