Nightsiders by Sue Isle

Paperback • 141pp • RRP AUS$18
ISBN 978-0-9808274-3-9
Cover design by Amanda Rainey
Published March 2011

In a future world of extreme climate change, Perth, Western Australia’s capital city, has been abandoned. Most people were evacuated to the East by the late ’30s and organised infrastructure and services have gone.

A few thousand obstinate and independent souls cling to the city and to the southern towns. Living mostly by night to endure the fierce temperatures, they are creating a new culture in defiance of official expectations. A teenage girl stolen from her family as a child; a troupe of street actors who affect their new culture with memories of the old; a boy born into the wrong body; and a teacher who is pushed into the role of guide tell the story of The Nightside.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction by Marianne de Pierres
  • The Painted Girl
  • Nation of the Night
  • Paper Dragons
  • The Schoolteacher’s Tale

Paper Dragons was shortlisted for Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Short Story, 2010

Reviews

Sue Isle has created a daunting, yet not hopeless day after tomorrow Western Australia; linked stories all set in the same moment, the moment, for various characters, when you realise that climate change has won, and civilisation is not coming back. So you stop mourning, and you move on… Made me wish there was a novel.

– Gwyneth Jones

Nation of the Night, and this is the story that is for me the lynch pin of the collection… As well as looking at the identity issues for Ash, there is also discussion of the fate of refugees in the city and the difficulties that they face like being able to provide and educate their families, as well as dangers facing those who don’t belong. To me, this felt like a political statement given the emotional reactions that people have to the refugee issue, not only in Australia, but also in other places around the world.

The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader