A dark bio-punk thriller set in a decaying urban environment and lush mutant wilderness.
Solari wasnât alive when the ozone layer split above Tasmania and spilled radiation over the edge of the stratosphere, but sheâs living with the consequencesâthe mutations, the gangland war, and the border wall that divides the affluent North from the contaminated South. 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 skulking in the cityâs shadows.
But, when her junkie ex-boyfriend puts Solari further in Worcsulakzâs debt, she runs â escaping 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 Tasmaniaâs most reviled, but grants her refuge in the one place Worcsulakz wonât look for herâa mutant enclave.
There, Solari will form an unlikely alliance with another mutant, discover the truth about her motherâs death, and commence the dangerous journey through gangland strongholds to get to the Border Wall in the north.
A dark bio-punk thriller set in a decaying urban environment and lush mutant wilderness.
Solari wasnât alive when the ozone layer split above Tasmania and spilled radiation over the edge of the stratosphere, but sheâs living with the consequencesâthe mutations, the gangland war, and the border wall that divides the affluent North from the contaminated South. 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 skulking in the cityâs shadows.
But, when her junkie ex-boyfriend puts Solari further in Worcsulakzâs debt, she runs â escaping 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 Tasmaniaâs most reviled, but grants her refuge in the one place Worcsulakz wonât look for herâa mutant enclave.
There, Solari will form an unlikely alliance with another mutant, discover the truth about her motherâs death, and commence the dangerous journey through gangland strongholds to get to the Border Wall in the north.
The small apartment was a hothouse and Solari was firmly cocooned within it. Sweat ran a silent river down her forehead, itching along the scar that split her face like a trench. Distracted, she dragged her sleeve across it, swearing as droplets of residual worm mucus mixed with the salty perspiration in a rush of bright, hot pain. Her fingers twitched, desperate to rip off the heavy respirator mask, but she ignored the temptation. Only idiots opened their mouths to breathe underwater when their lungs screamed for oxygen.
Grimacing, she topped up the small vial gripped in her gloved hand, keeping in check the tremors that always affected her at this part of the cook. At the last minute, she turned her head and averted her eyes, emptying the blue liquid into a large glass beaker dominating the kitchen bench. The rush of fizzing sounded like her brain melting.
Heat continued to build in her too-small studio, the stained plaster walls seeming to press in from all sides and suffocate her. Black plastic covered the only two windows and every vent was either patched closed or clogged with the gum of previous cooks. In the corner of her apartment, a pedestal fan regarded her without sympathy, its silent blades illuminated by a battery-powered torch hung from the ceiling. Worth a monthâs takings, the chunk of metal was useless without electricity, and there had been no electricity in the city for days.
Only after the fizzing stopped and the harsh, astringent smell faded did Solari turn back to the counter. The beaker, its glass scratched and discoloured, cradled five large crystals of tetrahydron. Enough to make fifty kilograms of snowrock. Enough to make local crime lord, Yevgeny Worcsulakz, happy.
Fifty million dollars would make me happy as well.
There had been a time when she had considered going rogue and creating her own stash of snowrockânot enough to attract attention, just enough to set herself up after her contract ended; enough to protect her from stumbling back into Worcuslakzâs clutches. A âget a better lifeâ fund, not just a âget out of troubleâ fund. But making the highly potent, hallucinogenic drug was the easy part. Moving it in Tasmaniaâs Southern Reaches? That was a death wish.
Her fingers ripped off the mask and she gulped in lungfuls of stale air. She glanced past the fan to the small vent in the far wall; hidden inside was her nest egg, a multi-coloured assortment of notes she had scraped together over seven years of cooking tetrahydron. It wasnât muchâjust over five hundred dollarsâbut, it would be enough to get her out of the next messed-up situation when it arrived on her doorstep. Always a matter of when, never a matter of if.
Some nights, the sound of its impending arrival was louder than others, echoing with the crack of gunfire in the war-ravaged streets of Hobart. Tonight, it was deafening, merging with the screams of the wounded and the ululations of the ascendant, a hideous symphony that reverberated violently off her apartment walls.
Sighing, Solari pulled off her gloves and threw them into the sink. As contaminated as they were, she should have discarded them; but she had better things to do with her money. Water shuddered from the tap, tainted yellow and smelling funky. Somewhere in Hobartâs industrial sector, the cityâs water treatment plants were sitting idle like her fan.
It was possible the brownout was merely symptomatic of Southern Tasmaniaâs dysfunction, something born of neglected infrastructure or labour strikes. More likely, it was rival crime lord Pierre DuPlessis sending alpha teams into the heart of Worcsulakzâs territory to create chaos; the cityâs major substation just another casualty of the decades-long war between two monsters who would burn the decrepit world around them to the ground in order to gain more power.
The sound of gunfire grew nearer, transformed from distant popping to explosions of sound that rattled the windows. Solari glanced around the apartment, spying her hooded flak-jacket lying on the stained, tattered carpet near the door. Flecks of mutant grass seed dotted the bulky fabric, smuggled remnants of her last foray into the Fringes. It had been days since she had travelled across the city into the wild organic mess of mutated life that stretched for thousands of hectares to the west coast of the island. She would need to return soon to gather more ingredients for her tetrahydron, but walking through a hot conflict zone was the kind of disincentive that kept her at home and scraping the barrel of her existing inventory.
On tired legs, she walked slowly towards the jacket, sweat itching between her shoulder blades in protest against any consideration of putting it on. The gunfire was louder now, only streets away, but even it couldnât mask the heavy banging that erupted into her studio.
âSlaari!â Andersâ voice, thick with alcohol and insolence, slurred its way through the apartment door in-between rounds of banging. Her ex had always been an unpredictable drunk. âSollllaaari.â Sing-song. Provocative. The calm before the storm. âCome on, baby doll. Open up. Open up, baby doll. Anders needs a fix.â
She stared at the door, heart thundering in her chest, silently willing Anders to give up and go away. Sometimes he didâsometimes he got bored, or came to the conclusion she wasnât at home or didnât have any snowrock to steal; sometimes he turned paranoid at the thought of someone else turning up, or found an easier way to feed his addiction.
The banging erupted again. Each crash of his fist against the flimsy wooden door set Solariâs heart racing faster. Subconsciously, she rubbed at the raised white line of scar tissue on her wristâa permanent reminder of Anders and his temper.
âSolari!â He was angry now. The melody gone from his voice. âOpen up, you bitch. Open this fucking door.â The banging was insistent, shattering. The door shuddered on its hinges. âI know youâre in there. I can smell your fucking sweaty stench from here.â
She bent down slowly and picked up her flak jacket. It wouldnât be beyond Anders to fire a round into the apartment just to release some rage. The heat was already a thick blanket around her, but she shrugged into the long black sleeves regardless. Pulling up the zipper to her chin, she cringed at the rustling of fabric and clicking of interlocking teeth.
Loud thuds shook the door. Anders had replaced his fists with his shoulder, or his foot. It was the circuit-breaker she needed; no longer caring if he could hear her, she ran to her phone. Fingers poised above the screen, she paused, grimacing before she punched in the only number that could help her.
Two rings in and an unfamiliar male voice answered. âDetails.â
âSolari Peterov. ID 161115. Precursor Manufacturing.â Her voice was shaking.
Another thud. The door would not hold forever.
âSomeoneâs trying to break into my home lab. I have five tetrahydron crystals ready for collection.â
âPriority dispatch is on its way. Secure the rocks and await advice.â
The line went dead. Solari grabbed the beaker and ran for the bathroom. The small room was crowded with vats of chemicalsâher poor attempt to keep the precursors cool during the power brownout. She pushed the large plastic tubs aside to make some room. The smell was caustic; every breath burned her nostrils and left her gasping for air.
 She looked back frantically at the mask lying on the kitchen countertop. Another thud and the door groaned loudlyâa begging for mercy, a forewarning of imminent submission.
There was no time left. Solari took a deep breath and locked herself in the bathroom.
The inevitable coughing and spluttering split her skull, the chemical fumes making her light-headed and nauseous. Solari gripped her phone, tempted to patch another call to Worcsulakzâs protection racket even though it would do no good.
A final thud and then a loud crash. Anders was yelling, his vitriol no longer muffled by the thicker external walls. âYouâre going to pay for this, you fucking bitch!â
The sound of glass shattering and wood splintering punctuated his grunting. He was tearing her place apart, looking for the crystals that shimmered in a glass beaker on the broken tiles of her bathroom.
She gagged, bile rising up her throat. Chemical residues alighted on her skin, causing her to itch, and her breathing fell shallow and ragged. Her eyes could no longer focus, her vision fracturing the space into triplicates that shivered and stuttered. Andersâ voice shifted to a high-pitched whining, the buzz of a thousand drones.
A cool touch unexpectedly caressed her cheek. Through a fog of incoherent thoughts came the realisation she had slumped to the floor.
Like a bad recording loop, the sound of the banging returned.
âSolari.â Andersâ voice was muffled. A thousand broken drones, with shattered wings and spluttering power devices.
There was a time when she had enjoyed the sound of her name from his lips. Back when he was a courier, before he went from merely transporting shards to sampling them.
The cracked floor tiles turned sticky, her meagre breakfast of soybeans and rice ejected from her compromised body, its sickly-sweet smell a quiet accent against the harsher vapours.
She stared at her wrist. Through an explosion of colours and black spots she could make out the scar that Andersâ knife had carved just over a year agoâwhen he had been aiming for her throat. The damaged skin moved feebly, her pulse erratic and slow, a whispered stutter.
Her vision blurred, the scar losing definition and disappearing from focus. Gratefully, the smell of chemicals and her vomit also faded. Her brainâwhich only moments before had felt as though it was embedded with a thousand spikesânow felt like a soft, mushy blob.
And silence. Finally there was silence. No more thudding, no more screaming, no more AndersâŚ
Until it shattered. The silence and the bathroom door, together.
***
Solari woke up wet and stinking of vomit.
Pieces of plastic debris from the broken bathroom door lay scattered around her. The glass beaker and its blue crystals were gone.
The effort of sitting up exploded grenades of pain in her head.
âTake it easy, Solari.â She knew the deep voice that addressed her, pictured the bulky frame attached to it. âYouâve been whacked with a decent chemical cocktail.â
Jerath. Her usual courier.
âAnders?â She croaked, pushing past the pain to prop herself against the bathtub.
âThe piece of shit with the gun?â
Despite the pounding in her head, details began to coalesce; Jerath stood in the empty doorframe picking his nails, a large leather satchel slung casually over his shoulder, the scuffed glass of her beaker poking out the top.
âI gave him a bit of a touch up,â Jerath continued, smiling as though recounting a funny story. âSent him on his way with a warning.â
He looked down at her, his face turned serious. âNot sure heâs the type to listen to reason, though. How does he know you?â
The question came laced with a more subtle menace; a hidden threat.
Solari and Jerath got on well enough. Jerath was less pushy than the other couriers, less smug. And Solari didnât give him the grief that other manufacturers didâno lip, no begging for extensions, no tasting the merchandise. They did their transactions, swapped a bit of banter, and moved on to the next job. Simple. Just the way they liked it.
She stared at his hands, the way his thick fingers flicked quickly about each other. He would have no hesitation strangling the last breath out of her if it was necessary. If Worcsulakz ordered it. Or merely suggested it with the cock of an eyebrow.
âHow does he know you?â Jerath wasnât making small talk. He wanted to know why a drug freak was belting down her door. How he knew about Solari, knew that she manufactured. It reinforced her earlier conclusionâgoing rogue would be a death wish.
âHeâs an ex. Used to be a courier, before he started skimming.â
Jerath nodded and looked around the apartment. âHe did a number on your place. What were you doing cooking here, anyway?â
Another question. Maybe calling in protection was a bad idea. With only a year left on her contract, she just needed to stay quiet and play it safe. Staying under the radar was the only way to survive the gangland war and it seemed to her that she had stuck her head out a little too far. Far enough to have it hacked off.
âI know itâs against protocol, but with the power out, I canât access the coolroom in the lab.â
Jerath offered no indication of whether he was satisfied. Solari held her breath, her stomach still queasy from the chemical sauna and jacked up on adrenalin.
In the end, he shrugged. âThe brownouts are pissing off Worcsulakz as well. Heâs hearing rumours DuPlessisâ thugs are running raids on the power grid.â
It seemed Worcsulakzâs arch-rival was getting bolder.
âYou got the crystals?â she asked, changing the subject, drawing his attention back to what she could offer, what she was best atâwhy some breaches in protocol should be forgiven.
âYeah, Iâll deliver them tonight.â He stared at her, his body still. âYou know, we can arrange a more permanent solution to this ex problem of yours.â
Images of Andersâ head spiked on a borough marker flitted pleasantly through her shattered mind. But negotiating another deal with Worcsulakz would only tighten the noose he had fitted around her neck.
âThanks, Jerath, but Iâll manage.â
âYour call.â He pushed off the bathroomâs door frame and exited through the hole in the far wall where her front door used to be.
Wincing, Solari pushed herself up on unsteady legs. Jerath had understated the level of damage Andersâ rampage had exacted. Her life lay broken and scattered on the floorâa microcosm of the outside world, a diorama of gangland decimation.
Broken glass crunched underfoot, blood blooming against a shattered picture frame to paint a red filter over the photograph below. She bent slowly, ignoring the rush of vertigo, and picked it up. Dragging gentle fingers over the broken glass left red smears behind, but afforded her a better view of the picture. Her favourite.
A young Solariâmaybe ten years old?âstood leaning against a taller boy. His shock of black hair fell thick around his face, hiding his eyes and giving him a roguish look. Denavim, her brother. He looked so young, so vibrant in that photo. Robust. Invincible. Untouched by the cancer that would take his life less than five years later.
She pulled the photo from its confinement and let the frame slip from her fingers. Cradling the picture in one hand, she pulled her flak jacket tighter in the other, and found a place where the destruction was not as severe. A patch of carpet, littered only with discarded books and broken vinyls.
Slowly she crouched down, the burning in her legs flaring brighter than the pain in her head. With a trembling hand, she swept away the relics of her pastâtreasures she had collected, remnants of a life before violence; beautiful, inconsequential things she had spent too much money on. Things that would never die and leave her like her family had.
Collapsing on to the carpetâs worn threads, she pulled her knees up and hugged them tight against her chest. And screamed until her hoarse throat gave out.
Â
This fast-paced and absorbing piece of speculative fiction owes a lot of its success to the imaginative world-build that serves as its backdrop. I found the introductory chapters a little breathless, but Ms. Kopievskyâs rendering of an untypical landscape kept me attentive. Â
The authorâs version of Tasmanian wild-lands is as a radiation-blighted crucible, which brings about her main characterâs almost literal metamorphosis. Solari is smart and resourceful, and the reader is pulled into her development as she hones her survival instincts.
We meet Solari when she is at a very low ebb. A victim of heart-breaking family circumstances, she has a disaster of a boyfriend and, courtesy of her highly-developed skills,  a low-level position in the drug trade. These combine to set up her initial dilemma. Her initially reactive temperament then propels her through other crises as she escapes South Tasmania, seeking improved circumstances in the North.
During her odyssey, the notion of what she would do to survive changes dramatically. Like much of the population, Solari had found comfort in looking down on the mutated life-forms commonplace in this landscape. The alliances she makes and revelations from her past cause these feelings to evolve.Â
The narrative voice is confident, and Ms. Kopievsky adeptly breaks complex scientific principles down and handles the technical content, mainly biochemistry, smoothly. The author might have subject matter expertise or may have researched extensively. Either way, I found the terminology used to differentiate the various mutant species particularly evocative. The authorâs descriptions of these extraordinary characters are also vivid, visual, and not easy to forget. Â
As the story unfolds, often violently, Ms. Kopievsky presents subtle changes in the main characterâs affect and morality. These differences are delivered subtly and provide a satisfying elevation to Solariâs motivations and the storyline.Â
Issues of climate change, discrimination, violence against women, and sex trafficking are all brought to the fore in this novel. The many social issues are handled with a light enough touch that the storytelling doesnât slow down, nor does the writing feel expository.Â
From the opening chapters, a relentless pace is set, and it is worth powering through the dramatic introduction to Solari's world. The plot, backdrop, and character development are engaging, and I will be looking out for more of Ms. Kopievskyâs writing.