One of my favorite SF novels of last year, 36 Streets by T.R. Napper, won the Aurealis award for best SF novel. If you haven’t read it, do so. It’s a cyberpunk thriller set in a Chinese-occupied Hanoi. In the midst of a turf war between rival crime syndicates, gangster Lin Vu is ordered to find a missing game designer responsible for an addictive VR game called Fat Victory, in which the player lives out the American War in Vietnam as an American soldier. The game is doing a serious number on the brains of people who play it, and Lin’s boss suspects the Chinese army is behind its distribution. The novel is almost wall-to-wall action, but still manages a degree of sophistication akin to the best cyberpunk works of the last few decades. The long sequence in which Lin immerses herself in Fat Victory is visceral and memorable.
I’ve only read one other work among the Aurealis finalists – the Garth Nix story from Tor.com – but some of the other novels are available on Amazon and a few of the short works are available online. Definitely pick up 36 Streets, but don’t be afraid to dabble in the other finalists as well. Australian SF isn’t terribly well-publicized here in the U.S. and rarely shows up on the Hugo or Nebula shortlists, but it never hurts to see how the other side of the world dreams.
You can view the full list of Aurealis winners and finalists here.
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