Tasmanian Gothic by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky

SPSFC 2022 SPSFC 2023

A modern gothic thriller set in a decaying urban environment and lush mutant wilderness. Solari wasn’t alive when the ozone layer split above Tasmania and spilled radiation over the edge of the stratosphere, but she’s living with the consequences—the mutations, the gangland war, and the border wall that divides the affluent North from the contaminated South. Orphaned and alone in the southern reaches, Solari survives the chaos the only way she knows how: cooking the wildly addictive snowrock for local crime lord, Worcsulakz, and avoiding the mutants that skulk in the lush, untamed wilderness of the Fringes. But, when her junkie ex-boyfriend puts Solari more firmly in Worcsulakz’s debt, she runs—escaping the promise of violent retribution with a stolen van and a pair of giant wings cleaved from a mutant moth. Grafting the wings to her body disguises Solari as one of Tasmania’s most reviled and hunted, but grants her refuge in the one place Worcsulakz won’t look for her—a mutant enclave. There, Solari will form an unlikely alliance and commence the dangerous journey through gangland strongholds and carnival towns to get to the Border Wall in the north. Hunted by Worcsulakz, the hidden terrors of the Fringes, the secrets in her family’s past, and the deception at the core of her fragile alliance, Solari will need to confront them all or stay condemned to a life of loneliness and brutality. -- This dark biopunk adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world of danger and decay is perfect for readers of dystopian, gothic, and new weird science fiction, and fans of China Mieville, Jeff VanderMeer, Kameron Hurley, and Tamsyn Muir.

Adult • Science Fiction/Cyberpunk and Biopunk • Science Fiction/Dystopian • Science Fiction/Post-Apocalyptic • Science Fiction/Romance • Science Fiction/Slipstream

lamichi author

Insanely dark book but it was such a compelling & original read that I devoured it. For readers that want strong women starring stories inspired by Breaking Bad meet X-men, this book is a keeper.