Black Glass

a novel
Meg Mundell

“I loved Black Glass. Tally—garrulous, resourceful and scared—is a wonderfully convincing child character whose voice I have missed since finishing the book. Meg Mundell skilfully exposes the manipulation and paranoia beneath the city of the future's gloss, and the marginalised existences of those excluded from the brave new world.”

Catherine O'Flynn

“Black Glass is a superb debut novel. Meg Mundell has invented a compelling futuristic version of our urban world that is not only original but—like all great speculative fiction—frighteningly recognisable. In addition, she has populated it with a cast of charismatic characters, notably the resourceful sisters Tally and Grace—truly an endearing and heroic pair.”

Chris Womersley

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“It is a Melbourne that keeps us absorbed all the way to the novel's denouement. As in much speculative fiction, Mundell's aim is to warn us against destructive trends in contemporary society. What, she asks in this lively debut novel, are we becoming?”

Rjurik Davidson, The Age

“Mundell's debut novel Black Glass is wrought from a minimally tweaked reality in the all-too-near future…the novel also deals meatily with social engineering, economic segregation and the decay of news media…[it] is the arrival of a brave new voice to tweak Australia's literary scene.”

Hamish McDougall, The Australian

“A strong debut.”

Herald Sun

“Mundell's Melbourne is always intriguing, as the real and the imagined coalesce.”

Colin Steele, The Canberra Times

“Black Glass presents a dark urban dystopian future of mass surveillance and government control, filled with corruption and morality gone wrong … Black Glass contains a mix of writing styles, adding to the big brother style of the book …The tension builds right until the end.”

Andrew Wrathall, Bookseller & Publisher

“Meg Mundell creates an eerie vision of an Australian city (it sounds a lot like what once was Melbourne) in her chilling debut novel, where we follow the lives of the two itinerant sisters.”

Julia Ross, Courier Mail

“In her brilliant debut novel, Mundell envisages a dark, sinister city of the not-too-distant future where massive surveillance and controls are used to crush citizens into submission.”

Carlene Ellwood, The Mercury

“Black Glass is a convincing piece of probable dystopia, ingeniously designed to save some of its best blows for the end. And the survival skills and no-nonsense voice of Tally are a pleasure to follow.”

Nicholas Reid, Sunday Star Times

“[An] impressive debut…It's a bleak, recognisable vision of a possible tomorrow and Mundell colours it with imagination and intelligence … Black Glass is made of stimulating, satisfying stuff.”

Gerard Elson, Readings Monthly

“It’s the unsettling combination of the known and the unknown that gives Mundell’s work a real edge…Black Glass is thoughtful, intelligent fiction.”

Sophie Cunningham, Readings Monthly

“Brooding, surreal and unsettlingly vulnerable, Black Glass marks the arrival of a striking new voice. A brilliant debut.”

James Bradley

Tally and Grace are teenage sisters living on the outskirts of society, dragged from one no-hope town to the next by their fugitive father. When an explosion rips their lives apart, they flee separately to the city.

The girls had always imagined that beyond the remote regions lay another, brighter world: glamorous, promising, full of luck. But as each soon discovers, if you arrive there broke, homeless, and alone, the city is a dangerous place — a place where commerce and surveillance rule, and undocumented people like themselves are confined to life’s shady margins. Now Tally and Grace must struggle to find each other — or just to survive.

Narrated by a cast of unforgettable characters, Black Glass is the work of an exceptional new talent.

Catherine O'Flynn

Chris Womersley

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Rjurik Davidson, The Age

Hamish McDougall, The Australian

“A strong debut.”

Herald Sun

“Mundell's Melbourne is always intriguing, as the real and the imagined coalesce.”

Colin Steele, The Canberra Times

Andrew Wrathall, Bookseller & Publisher

“Meg Mundell creates an eerie vision of an Australian city (it sounds a lot like what once was Melbourne) in her chilling debut novel, where we follow the lives of the two itinerant sisters.”

Julia Ross, Courier Mail

“In her brilliant debut novel, Mundell envisages a dark, sinister city of the not-too-distant future where massive surveillance and controls are used to crush citizens into submission.”

Carlene Ellwood, The Mercury

Nicholas Reid, Sunday Star Times

Gerard Elson, Readings Monthly

“It’s the unsettling combination of the known and the unknown that gives Mundell’s work a real edge…Black Glass is thoughtful, intelligent fiction.”

Sophie Cunningham, Readings Monthly

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 9.21in × 6.02in

Extent:288pp

ISBN (13):9781921640933

RRP:$16.95

Pub date:27 Feb 2011

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AWARDS

2012 Barbara Jefferis Award - Commended 2012 Norma K. Hemming Award - Short-listed 2011 Aurealis Awards , in the Science Fiction Novel and YA Novel categories - Short-listed 2010 CAL/Scribe Fiction Prize - Short-listed

CATEGORIES / tags

AUTHOR

Meg Mundell

Born in New Zealand and based in Melbourne, Meg Mundell has been published widely in Australian newspapers, journals and magazines. Her debut novel, Black Glass, was highly commended in the 2012 Barbara Jefferis Award and the 2012 Norma K. Hemming Award; and was shortlisted for the 2011 Aurealis Awards (in two categories) and the 2012 Chronos Awards. Meg has worked as a journalist, university lecturer, magazine editor, researcher and government advisor.