Author(s): Pip Adam

Science Fiction, Dystopian & Fantasy | Staff Favourites | Top 50 bestsellers of 2023

Audition is hurtling through space towards the event horizon. Squashed immobile into its rooms are three giants: Alba, Stanley and Drew. If they talk, the spaceship keeps moving; if they are silent, they resume growing.Talk they must, and as they do, Alba, Stanley and Drew recover their shared memory of what has been done to their incarcerated former selves. Or are they constructing those selves from memory-scripts that have been implanted in them?Part science fiction, part social realism, Audition asks what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much room - and about how we live with each other's violences - and imagines a new kind of justice.

STAFF REVIEW by Lucinda

Looking for something weird? This sci-fi social commentary will make you think.

Alba, Stanley and Drew are three giants travelling on the spaceship Audition. they have continued to grow on the journey and are now tightly cramped into the corners of the ship. To power the ship and prevent themselves from growing faster they must continue speaking, and as they do they relearn the events that have led them here. 

This is a beautifully written book with a lot to say – although the central message may not be clear until the end.

Truly original and creative, sweetly sad but hopeful.