Obernewtyn: The Obernewtyn Chronicles 1

In the '80s, American music experienced an Australian invasion, and the '90s brought a literary Australian invasion, with prominent Down-Under SF/fantasy writers like Stephen Dedman, Greg Egan, Sean McMullen, Lucy Sussex, and the late George Turner receiving new or greatly increased American exposure. Award-winning author Isobelle Carmody, whose Obernewtyn (Book One of the Obernewtyn Chronicles) is finally available in the U.S, belongs in these ranks as well.

Appropriate for adult and young-adult readers, Obernewtyn is a fine post-apocalyptic novel in the tradition of Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, Leigh Brackett's classic The Long Tomorrow, and the post-disaster novels of John Wyndham (especially Re-Birth) and John Christopher.

After the nuclear holocaust of the Great White, the surviving humans condemn all Misfits (mutants) to either death by fire or exile to Obernewtyn, a remote mountain institution where mysterious experiments are performed on some exiles. Elspeth Gordie is a Misfit, struggling to hide her mutant mental abilities and earn a Normalcy Certificate. But when her secret is betrayed, she is sent to Obernewtyn, from which no one has ever escaped. At Obernewtyn she finds not only dreadful experiments, but ambitious overlords who seek to use the Misfits' paranormal powers to recover the devastating secrets of nuclear war. --Cynthia Ward