kim westwood – works

Shortlisted: Best Science Fiction Novel, Aurealis Awards

It’s the 9th Year of Tribulation, and in a world torn asunder, a small corner of Australia is having a chaotic rebirth…

Eustace Crane sits morosely in his wingless aeroplane at the gates of the Kingdom Fort True Believer Centre while, inside, the Followers of Nathaniel wait for their promised paradise to appear. If it doesn’t, the Nathans’ unwitting captives, the daughters of Moab, will be their ticket out of Tribulation.

A day’s stride away, Eustace’s taciturn ‘fixer’, Assumpta Viali, is enjoying her solitude. From the top of her lighthouse eyrie she can almost see the Sorry Plains, where the Children of the Maglev are going about the daily business of sacrificing themselves to the trains.

Assumpta is called upon to catch and despatch two runaways from Kingdom Fort; but while tracking her quarry, her allegiances are challenged when she finds out what the Nathans are planning as a ‘cure’ for Tribulation.

The hunter and the hunted forge an uneasy alliance—until fate puts them in the path of another escapee out on the Sorry Plains, who’s not only discovered his joie de vivre but a fabulous secret.

In this gene-and-genderbending story, conflicting interests spectacularly collide as the landscape and its history emerges to be the most powerful force in determining the trajectory of the survivors’ lives.