In conversation

Salvage | Jennifer Mills

Two estranged sisters reconnect in the aftermath of ecological and social collapse, in this work of suspenseful, deeply human literary speculative fiction.

They drift in their sleep, waiting for something. The end of the world, or another escape. But the world is still here. There’s no escaping it.

Jude’s life has been about survival. She works on rebuilding – fixes roofs, trucks supplies, transports refugees. Tries to stay free from attachments and obligations.

But Jude won’t talk about her past. Or her sister Celeste, lost in the tragic failure of a space station that was supposed to save her, and the other ultra-rich, from the wreckage of a dying world.

When an escape pod falls from the sky, its passenger near death, Jude knows her anonymous existence can’t continue. As the fragile peace of her community is put at risk, Jude must re-examine the terms of her survival – and her exile.

Salvage is a gripping novel of literary speculative fiction that asks: what does it mean to care for each other, after the end of the world?

Jennifer Mills is the author of the novels The Airways, Dyschronia, Gone, and The Diamond Anchor, and a collection of short stories, The Rest is Weight. In 2019 Dyschronia was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, and the Aurealis Awards for science fiction.

Mills’ fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been widely published, as well as being broadcast, recorded and performed from Adelaide to Berlin. From 2012-2018 she was the fiction editor at Overland.

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