A thrilling chase-cum-travelogue through a beautifully depicted Antarctic wonderland... an impressively vast story in a short punchy novel. * GUARDIAN *
It is one of the best post-climate change novels yet written - and one of McAuley's best books. * SFX MAGAZINE *
A chase thriller set in late 21st-century Antarctica that combines elements of Jack London,J.G. Ballard and William Gibson. A significant contribution to writing about the anthropocene. * THE ECONOMIST *
McAuley is a nature poet of imaginary lands . * LOCUS *
A haunting and engaging piece of science fiction that is every bit as good a piece of writing as the best literary fiction. * POPULAR SCIENCE *
Austral combines a solid science scenario with a taught thriller in an all too plausible future. For an SF reader, or indeed any reader that considers matters beyond the day after tomorrow, what is there not to like? * CONCATENATION *
Austral is a beautifully written novel, which portrays in stark and stunning terms the new frontier of Antarctica. * FOR WINTERS NIGHTS *
Deeply sad and tender. * James Bradley, author of Clade *
Cli-fi transcendent.
An exquisite human story set on an undiscovered continent of our near future.
Austral may be McAuley's best yet. And the best near-future novel yet written.
Paul McAuley has quickened science fiction. The future has changed.
* Stephen Baxter *
The excitement of a new country appearing right here on Earth, a real possibility that is quite fascinating in itself, is doubled down here by way of a thrilling kidnap-and-rescue plot that ranges across this beautiful new landscape, showing how we will soon be not only terraforming Earth, but finding new ways to take care of each other. It's a vivid example of science fiction at its best. -- Kim Stanley Robinson, author of RED MARS
Oh boy, it's a good one. A cracking setup; great writing; great pacing; a genuinely fresh narrative voice, and for once - hooray! - a male author writing a complex, first-person female narrator who is neither a broflake's wet-dream, nor a wooden stereotype. Austral is big, strong, powerful, and yet with real vulnerabilities; a flawed and relatable heroine with agency, feelings and spirit. And to cap it all, Austral is fat - genetically edited to be fat in a way that enhances her strength and endurance, and in the context of her race, is only ever mentioned as a positive. Halleluia. It can be done. -- Joanne Harris, author of THE GOSPEL OF LOKI
Bleakly beautiful, Austral is both a finely-honed character study and a powerful evocation of landscape and change, delivered with icy clarity. This is the kind of fiction we will need as the Anthropocene takes hold. -- Alastair Reynolds
A beautifully worked tale of post-environment collapse Antarctica, and a genetically-tweaked cold-adapted woman's attempt to escape. As ever McAuley writes superbly: his prose is always elegant without being showy, expressive and clear without ever being pedestrian. And he's capable of gorgeous descriptive vividness. Plus: rounded characterisation and a tremendous command of tension and pace . . . There's something deceptively simple about
Austral: you read it quickly, and it lives in your head for a long time after. * Adam Roberts *
