Current Issue #488

Book Review:
Rise and Shine

Adelaide author Patrick Allington returns with a dystopian and darkly satirical view of the future.

Rise and Shine imagines a world in the not-too-distant future where eight billion humans have died, with the remaining survivors living within the twin cities of Rise and Shine.

Protected from acid rain by an enclosed bubble, crops and livestock have been annihilated, humans are riddled with tumours, and the population ‘feeds’ off graphic, stylised footage from a never-ending war.

In his first novel since the Miles Franklin-nominated Figurehead in 2009, Adelaide writer Patrick Allington again vividly paints a dystopian future that pushes the reader to explore the human condition. Rise and Shine occasionally tries to take on too much, but the dark humour of this biting satire carries the reader through. This is a Day of the Triffids for our times.

Author: Patrick Allington
Publisher: Scribe

Kylie Maslen

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Kylie Maslen is a writer and critic from Kaurna/Adelaide, and the author of Show Me Where it Hurts: Living with Invisible Illness (Text Publishing).

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