Nightfall (Will Elliott, HarperCollins)

Aden wakes up in a blood-filled bathtub in a strange place. He knows he has killed himself, but remembers only fragments of his life. As he explores his surroundings he is struck by a sense of familiarity, reminded of the stories his grandfather used to tell about a book he wanted to write. Gradually Aden comes to realise he is in the story, locked in the mind of his grandfather. As dementia slowly destroys the old man’s memory, and with it his imaginary world, Aden and the other creations struggle for their own existence. This book sits somewhere between Will Elliott’s first book The Pilo Family Circus and his ‘Pendulum Trilogy’. It has the feel of a fantasy, but it also has a darker, surreal element and plays out in a deliberately confined space, much like Pilo. Elliott has chosen to give some of his characters self-awareness, allowing them to know they are creations and thus inverting the traditional narrative. Elliott uses this to engage in some interesting meta-fiction before leaving the reader with an enigmatic finale. This is a book for more adventurous fantasy and spec-fiction readers, who should find it an intriguing, if somewhat strange read.

 Stefen Brazulaitis is a freelance reviewer and the owner of Stefen’s Books, a specialist genre fiction bookstore in Perth

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Category: Reviews