Brendan Ritchie, Eta Draconis, UWA Publishing, May 2023, 250 pp., RRP $32.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760802615
This dystopic end-of-world science fiction novel for teenage readers won the 2022 Dorothy Hewett award as a manuscript. It is an engaging account of two sisters manoeuvring their ways out of their childhoods and out of their families. The attentive and detailed exploration of their relationship and their differently-taken steps towards maturity are depicted against the background of a decade-long phenomenon of meteor showers that have caused havoc across the planet.
The novel is set in Western Australia, mainly on a road trip between Esperance and Perth, not too far into the future. Vivienne, the older sister, is the pragmatic one, reserved and determined, and already set on her goal to find a career well out of the ways of small town life. Her sister, Elora, a dreamier girl, in awe of Vivienne, has chosen to study drama at university. It is a choice almost no one dares make in a world under random and devastating attacks from meteors. Elora’s quixotic choice, though, is true to her nature, and only time will tell whether her life will be as viable as Vivienne’s.
Their road trip under a fiery, groaning sky, blocked and side-tracked by craters, fires, explosions and convoys of caravans escaping the city, makes for strange and dramatic reading as these two young adults face important decisions for the first times in their lives. Brendan Ritchie writes with intelligence and confidence, and with what I felt was real curiosity and sympathy directed towards his characters, making for an engaging novel.
Recommended for readers 15 to 19 years, but in fact there is no upper limit to this novel’s possible readership.
Reviewed by Kevin Brophy (as a PDF document)
