World Shaker

World shaker

A brilliant steam punk fantasy that will hook you form the very first page…

Set in an age of juggernauts, when vast mechanical monsters roll across the continents, competing for trade and power, Worldshaker is hugely enjoyable melodrama set in an alternative reality.

In this thrilling fable about tyranny and revolution, 16 year old Colbert is a naive boy who has led a sheltered existence, never questioning the society he lives in. As the nominated successor to his grandfather, Sir Mormus Porpentine, Supreme Commander of the juggernaut, Worldshaker, he can expect to enjoy power and influence and respect for the rest of his life. Then Riff, a Filthy girl from Below, explodes into his cosy world, beginning a chain reaction that causes Colbert to question everything, including loyalty to members of his own family, and ultimately to join in a rebellion against the cruelty and oppression of an imperial-style system.

Peppered with tantalizing hints of a forbidden romance, and depicting a world like ours but strangely altered, Worldshaker is reminiscent of Philip Pullman's The Northern Lights.

A darkly atmospheric and engrossing coming of age story for readers aged 13+.

"I loved Worldshaker! The idea of alternative histories for the world is deeply fascinating and in Worldshaker Mr Harland has provided a marvelously otherly vision of the 21st Century with wonderfully bizarrely named people and a claustrophobic setting of rivets, iron and steam, rustling silks and stiff collars and even stiffer manners; dark, twisting, bustling, brilliant- steam-punk, if I dare use the term, at its purest, its truest… And amidst it all, a strong indictment of the imperialistic ravages of the Western world. What a delight to read the words of a soul who shares the same firm tastes and love of playful language. Very, very glum when it comes to an end- returning to the book I was in the midst of reading when I took up Worldshaker, I find it very thing and pallid in comparison.- D.M Cornish- author, Monster Blood Tattoo.

Richard Harland was born in Huddersfield, England, and migrated to Australia in 1970. After several years as a singer, songwriter and poet, he became a lecturer in English at University of Wollongong. He resigned to become a full-time writer in 1997. He now lives in Figtree, eight kilometers south of Sydney. His first book was the comic horror novel, The Vicar of Morbing Vyle, which has since become a cult classic. In 1997 he began the Eddon and Vail series, which combines a science fiction world with detective thriller stories: The Dark Edge, Taken by Force and Hidden from View. Since then he has published a number of fantasy novels for younger readers, horror fiction and SF short stories, two of which won Aurealis awards. In January this year, Richard's Wolf Kingdom series won the Aurealis Award for Best Children's Illustrated Fiction.

Worldshaker
Allen and Unwin
Author: Richard Harland
ISBN: 9781741757095
Price: $17.99