Join our Tea Tree Plaza team as they travel through the pages of great literature in this week’s Spotlight on QBD!
Saga by Brian K Vaughan & Fiona Staples:
Saga is a captivating and impressive comic that chronicles the journey of two former soldiers from warring planets as they try to escape capture and find safety for themselves and their newborn daughter.
This graphic novel series has soared in popularity, and it’s not hard to tell why. Their story has been compared to Harry Potter meets Game of Thrones, a magical sci-fi comic for adults. Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples weave a rich and complicated narrative that never drops off, and will have you rushing to read the next volume the second you finish. – Kirsty
Porcelain by Moby:
A week ago I was kicking myself for forgetting to bring a book with me on my flight to Sydney. A last minute decision to purchase Moby’s autobiography Porcelain was the best one I’ve made in a while. A provokingly raw and honest account of his rise to fame from the poverty of Connecticut, the squalor of the meat packing district of New York and ending abruptly right before the pinnacle record of his career Play.
Even without the account of what is ultimately his most celebrated work Moby take’s you for a ride through the coming of age of a genre cemented firmly at the forefront of the 90’s till now.
Porcelain is about making it, losing it, loving it and hating it. It’s about finding your people, and your place, thinking you’ve lost them both, and then, finally, somehow, creating something sublime. – Melanie
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:
A tale of grim reflection on vanity, and how a man’s indulgence leads to his ultimately tulmultuous existence.
Wilde weaves dialogue seamlessly into high suspense prose, dangling us over the slow and corrupt demise of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde is no less a craftsman of Victorian Gothic horror writing, with very similar themes to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. However by no means is this a story of a beastly transformation. This book puts a mirror up to the horrors of human nature and reveals the monster within. – Kat
The Dry by Jane Harper:
Fantastically written crime fiction that you will not be able to put down!
This book has so many twists throughout that you will be kept guessing until the very end as to who committed the awful crime in this rural country town.
Federal police investigator Aaron Falk struggles to investigate his childhood friend murder suicide as the townsfolk try to drive him out. Are they merely distrustful, or are they hiding secrets of their own? The longer Falk spends in this town, the deeper the mystery runs. The more he uncovers, the more he needs to watch his back. – Julie
The Vagrant by Peter Newman:
The Vagrant can be a difficult read at first, its unusual writing style giving the prose a distant, dreamlike quality that evokes ancient legends passed down through generations. Once accustomed, though, the prose only strengthens the narrative, as the silent protagonist struggles across a demon-infested wasteland, with his precious cargo in tow.
A deeply compelling, powerful narrative, The Vagrant boasts both a rich, complex world, and a stunning cast of well-realised characters. – Emma
Dune by Frank Herbert:
Frank Herbert’s Sci-Fi classic Dune is set 21,000 years in the future amidst an interstellar empire where planetary dominions are controlled by noble houses that are in-turn controlled by the imperial House Corrino. The book revolves around a power struggle between two Great Houses, House Atreides and House Harkonnen.
Due to current political unrest, House Atriedes is awarded a lucrative contract to harvest “The spice”. Found only deep beneath the sands of the barren desert planet Arrakis, the spice or “Melange”as it is called is an extremely rare naturally occurring material and is considered most valuable commodity in the known universe due to it’s effects on commerce and technological development. Melange is used in intergalactic travel and upon consumption can enhance a persons physical and mental capabilities granting the user a longer life. Despite its bleak nature Arrakis is inhabited both with colonists who mine the spice and it’s indigenous population, a desert nomad-like people, the Freemen who are fundamentally against the mining of Melange on their planet.
The story follows a young prophet Paul Atriedes as he looks to unite the Freeman tribes with a common goal of defeating their enemies (House Harkonnen) in order to improve the ecological viability of their planet. The story also covers Paul’s early life, his adaptation to Dune’s harsh environment and how he looks to fulfil the prophecy surrounding him.
The book Dune is constantly cited as the pinnacle of Sci-Fi fantasy, and with it’s rich world building and character development its easy to understand why. I would highly recommend this book to lovers of the Sci-Fi genre or readers who enjoy escapism from every day life into rich fictional worlds.
The spice must flow!!!! – Daniel
