Reign or Shine – Michelle Rowen
Bloomsbury Allen & Unwin, 2010
288 pages
RRP: AU$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-8027-9534-2

Review by Liz Grzyb

Nikki Donovan is a typical teenager. She’s just moved to a new town and a new school after her mother married husband #4, and the Winter Formal is coming up! However, her dreams of the most popular boy in the school are disrupted by a strange boy who seems to be stalking her telling her bizarre stories about her father being a demon king.

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Where’s My Jetpack? A guide to the amazing science fiction future that never arrived – Daniel H. Wilson, PhD.
Allen & Unwin Bloomsbury, 2007
192 pages
RRP: AU$22.95
ISBN: 978-0-7475-8286-1

Reviewed by Cat Sparks

I have to confess that I wanted to like this book long before I actually opened it. It’s a stylish-looking publication, all jet black and silver and shimmering electric blue. Author Wilson, whose previous title How to Survive a Robot Uprising also piques my interest, takes us through a selection of familiar SF tropes: flying cars, teleportation, unisex jumpsuits, space elevators, cryogenic freezing and ray guns, etc, outlines their position in our cultural consciousness, then explains where we’re at with them all, scientifically speaking, in terms of the here and now. Wilson writes with good humour and he knows his stuff.

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The Moneylender’s Daughter – V A Richardson
Allen & Unwin Bloomsbury, 2006
382 pages
RRP: AU$15.95
ISBN: 9780747578192

Reviewed by Nicolee Baxter

It is 1637. The moneylender’s daughter seeks the admiration of her father who wishes he had a son instead of a daughter. His rejection of her leads her to swing between betraying him to, and protecting him from, his various enemies. One of his enemies is Adam Windjammer whose family fortune was lost, thanks to the manipulations of the moneylender. Adam struggles to recover his family’s livelihood as the moneylender seeks to take it from him.

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The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr Punch – Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
Allen & Unwin Bloomsbury, 2006
96 pages
RRP: AU$22.95
ISBN: 9780747588443

Reviewed by Nicolee Baxter

The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr Punch is a moody, mental walk through a man’s memories of himself as a seven year old boy. Recalling visits to his grandparents, the boy regards the conversations and behaviour of the adults around him with simple acceptance. However, recalling those conversations and behaviour with his adult perspective, he begins to question them. The memories insinuate disturbing family secrets.

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Ophelia – Lisa Klein
Allen & Unwin Bloomsbury, 2007
325 pages
RRP: AU$15.95
ISBN: 9780747587330

Reviewed by Kate Williams

If you have ever studied, read or seen Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and, let’s face it, few of us have escaped unscathed then Lisa Klein’s Ophelia will provide at least an entertaining read littered with familiar characters and quotations. For those of us who always thought that Ophelia was given short shrift compared to the male characters in the play then this book is even more satisfying.

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