Nightsiders

By Sue Isle

In a future world of extreme climate change, Perth, Western Australia’s capital city, has been abandoned. Most people were evacuated to the East by the late ’30s and organised infrastructure and services have gone.

Drawing on her local knowledge of Perth, Sue Isle reimagines the Western Australian landscape in a confronting and plausible future. Appealing to both YA and adult readers, Nightsiders is a collection of four interlinked short stories exploring issues of climate change, gender identity, multiculturalism and community. Featuring complex and diverse characters, this collection is aimed at a YA audience looking for fresh and empowering science fiction.

Table of Contents
- Introduction by Marianne de Pierres
- The Painted Girl
- Nation of the Night
- Paper Dragons
- The Schoolteacher's Tale

AWARDS
"Nation of the Night" - winner of the 2012 Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Short Story

"Paper Dragons" - Shortlisted Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Short Story

Longlisted for the Tiptree Award

Shortlisted for Best Collected Work, Aurealis and Ditmar Awards, 2012

Honourable Mention, Norma Hemming Award

REVIEWS
"In this wonderful body of work I hear echoes of two exceptional writers, Doris Lessing and Margo Lanagan.
Sue Isle has created a daunting, yet not hopeless day after tomorrow Western Australia; linked stories all set in the same moment, the moment, for various characters, when you realise that climate change has won, and civilisation is not coming back. So you stop mourning, and you move on... Made me wish there was a novel." – Gwyneth Jones

"Nation of the Night, and this is the story that is for me the lynch pin of the collection... As well as looking at the identity issues for Ash, there is also discussion of the fate of refugees in the city and the difficulties that they face like being able to provide and educate their families, as well as dangers facing those who don’t belong. To me, this felt like a political statement given the emotional reactions that people have to the refugee issue, not only in Australia, but also in other places around the world." - The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

ABOUT THE TWELVE PLANETS SERIES
Twelfth Planet Press is an independent publishing house challenging the status quo with books that interrogate, commentate, inspire.

The Twelve Planets are twelve boutique collections by some of Australia’s finest short story writers. Varied across genre and style, each collection offers four short stories and a unique glimpse into worlds fashioned by some of our favourite storytellers. Each author has taken the brief of 4 stories and up to 40 000 words in their own direction. Some are quartet suites of linked stories. Others are tasters of the range and style of the writer. Each release is a standalone and brings something unexpected.

The Twelve Planets
Book 1: Nightsiders by Sue Isle
Book 2: Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts
Book 3: Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex
Book 4: Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti
Book 5: Showtime by Narrelle M Harris
Book 6: Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren
Book 7: Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan
Book 8: Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer
Book 9: Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott
Book 10: Secret Lives of Books by Rosaleen Love
Book 11: The Female Factory by Angela Slatter and Lisa Hannet
Book 12: Cherry Crow Children by Deborah Kalin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twelfth Planet Press
• Release date: Jan 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9780987082893

Book preview

Nightsiders Cover

Nightsiders

by Sue Isle

First published in Australia in March 2011

by Twelfth Planet Press

www.twelfthplanetpress.com

Paper Dragons as © 2009 Sue Isle originally published in Shiny Issue 5

All other works © 2011 Sue Isle

Design and layout by Amanda Rainey

eBook layout by Charles A. Tan

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Isle, Sue.

Title: Nightsiders: a Twelve Planets collection / by Sue Isle, edited by Alisa Krasnostein.

ISBN: 978-0-9870828-9-3 (eBook)

Target Audience: For young adults.

Subjects: Perth (W.A.)--Fiction.

Other Authors/Contributors:

Krasnostein, Alisa.

Dewey Number: A823.3

For the Greens, who helped me to be aware of what could happen to our world. My stuff-ups and exaggerations are not their fault!

Introduction

by Marianne de Pierres

The idea behind the Twelve Planets series is dear to my heart. As a writer of science fiction, and a female, I know how difficult it can be to bring any kind of attention to your work. When I heard Twelfth Planet Press were planning to showcase women SF writers who deserve better recognition I was truly honoured and delighted to be a part of it. Even more so to be able to introduce a writer with the talent and skill of Sue Isle. In the turn of a page you will enter the world of the Nightside, a dangerous future Australia; dry, hot and disintegrating. A place running to new rules but still riffing off old morality. A place where ‘survival’ is a character itself, lurking in shadows, stealing water and food.

In this wonderful body of work I hear echoes of two exceptional writers, Doris Lessing and Margo Lanagan. Sue Isles has Lessing’s eye for compelling world building and Lanagan’s hard hitting imagery, the combination of which creates a potent blend of fiction. And like Lanagan and Lessing, she does not shrink from portraying women in a very real way.

That said, her writing is uniquely hers, direct and honest and crowned by a deft ear for dialogue. As an Australian, particularly a Western Australian, I’m fascinated to see such familiar geography woven into her imagineering in a manner that retains its accessibility to lovers of speculative fiction all over the world. The reader encounters full immersion when they commit to Sue Isles’ stories—absolutely the ONLY way to travel in fiction.

So turn the page now and be eager to read. But don’t be casual... or the Nightside will take you.

The Painted Girl

The fire chased Kyra and Nerina into the city outskirts. Kyra didn’t know quite where it was; somewhere behind them, a few hours distant, eating up the dead trees and the living as one, licking along the ground wherever there were fallen leaves or twigs or a discarded piece of clothing. The camp boss and his people were up ahead on the road with the rest of his motley crew following them.

The winds drove the fire and the dust. It didn’t matter how much they covered up, the hot sandy wind always found its way beneath head coverings and down inside their clothes where it itched and made sores. Kyra wanted to take shelter until the dust settled and then go on into the city. Nerina didn’t want to camp now and it was Nerina’s say. Kyra had learned that when she was much smaller and Nerina’s backhanded slap could send her stumbling and falling. She’d sit there and wail while Nerina walked on, ignoring her. Eventually she learned that Nerina would never stop for her.

Kyra was looking forward to seeing the city and new people. When she was in a good mood, Nerina told stories about her own childhood there which Kyra wasn’t sure she believed. Of course, the system had been falling to pieces even that long ago but Nerina had still been to a real school where a whole bunch of kids the same age sat in a room and got taught things. She’d tried to pass some of it on, at least to the extent of teaching Kyra to read but it hadn’t taken all that well and Nerina lost patience with her too fast. ‘You can read the road signs, you know how to find tucker and take care of yourself,’ she’d say. ‘That’s the kind of school you need these days.’

The fire turned in another direction and the smoke haze lessened, meaning they were clear of it. Nerina had said that they were headed for the coast. These last few years they’d stayed inland, passing through the camps in the towns where you could stay three days no questions asked, but on the fourth day you were, as Nerina said, about as welcome as a dried dog turd. The camps blurred into a sameness of wary and hungry people, stinking of weariness and fear. The names rolled into one, Toodyay, Collie, Northam, York, Mandurah—though that was outlying city ruins and Nerina had only taken them around the outer fringe—towns deserted of livelihoods and visitors.

‘Why did the people go away?’ she had asked Nerina once and the woman had shrugged.

‘There wasn’t any rain and it got too dry.’

‘So where did they go?’

‘The planes and buses took them East.’

‘Does it rain there?’

‘That’s enough stupid questions!’

Which was the way most such conversations ended.

The ground tipped downwards in front of Kyra’s bare feet, into a dark maw. Nerina was apparently unconcerned. She pointed to a spear driven into the soil to the right of the cavern. A ragged white cloth hung from it like a spiritless flag. ‘See that? That says this is safe ground. We can walk here, like we walked through the houses-land, so long as we don’t stay. If we made a staying camp, took their food, then the people here would kill us.’

‘They can kill us anyway if they want, can’t they?’

‘Can. Won’t so long as we follow their law.’

‘I don’t want to go in there!’

‘Too bad.’ Nerina shrugged and walked into the dark entrance. Hungry, thirsty, tired, sick, scared. Didn’t matter. She’d walk on and if Kyra wanted, she could stay behind and see how she liked aloneness. Too bad. The smell was the worst part. It told you there were alive things in there, watching you. Kyra pushed closer to Nerina until Nerina shoved her off. ‘There’s a light,’ she said.

‘I see it!’

It was a matchstick light, a tiny fire torch. As Kyra stared, an outline formed in the darkness. A person, sitting there below the light, back against the rocky wall, staring back at her and Nerina. Kyra couldn’t hear anything beyond the light-circle, where an ambush party would wait. The person seemed truly alone. ‘Are you okay?’ Her voice came out shaky. Without meaning to, she’d halted, letting Nerina get a ways ahead of her. The person looked up. A girl her own age, at least Kyra thought so. Pale as a cave-fish that never saw the light but unlike such a fish, she did have eyes and seemed to be able to see. Kyra couldn’t tell if she was wearing any clothes, but her body was covered in a tracery of brightcoloured muds; white and ochre and yellows.

‘Keep walking.’ Her voice was husky as though she’d worn it out screaming. ‘I’m in enough trouble.’

‘You—you’re being punished?’

‘What, you never heard of trouble before?’

Nerina came back, several furious steps and grabbed Kyra’s hand to tug her onwards. ‘Don’t you listen? I said we keep walking!’

The figure against the wall laughed. ‘You’re in safe, woman. There’s only me. Your blood and bits can stay where they are. What’s your name?’

Against Nerina’s, ‘No!’ Kyra said it.

The painted girl coughed. It had a dry sound, as though no liquids had passed down her throat in quite some time. ‘I’m Alicia.’

‘You want to come with us?’ Kyra fought the painful hold on her hand. ‘You could come into the city.’

‘No I couldn’t. They don’t let me.’

‘She’s a Drainer, you stupid child.’ This time Nerina succeeded in tugging her on. ‘Their punishments, their rewards, you leave alone!’

Alicia’s husky laughter followed them but only for a little while.

They trekked out of the cavern of the Broken Line, which broke the city, Nerina told Kyra. Trains, which she’d seen only as wreckage, had run under the streets with a huge rumble like buried dragons. Kyra shivered at the thought of all those people. Since they had joined the flight from the fire, she’d seen more people than she could remember in the towns and on the bush tracks of her life. Afternoon was well advanced, nearly to sunset but the heat was thick as mud.

Nerina snapped, ‘Hurry up!’ but Kyra didn’t move, except to turn her head slowly and take in the place laid out before her.

The day’s heat might beat the people down but the buildings here stood taller than any she had seen. A semicircle of big steps laid out in stone was before them. The steps were faded black and reddish pink under the sun’s onslaught. The brick paving beneath her feet was the same red stones, faded to pink. The stone-heat didn’t bother Kyra’s feet, which had never known coverings. She looked up past the steps to the buildings there. A couple of people stood in the doorway, staying in the shade but still able to look out at the shabby, bent-over woman and the skinny girl standing perhaps five, six metres away from them.

More rubble of bricks and rock and tiles and glass was heaped in hills behind Kyra and Nerina, too carefully to be natural. It allowed a path broad enough for two or three people to approach the paved area and the semicircle of steps side by side. Kyra wondered what treasures could be hidden within it. She saw a gleam of blue sparkling glass and stared, wanting.

Nerina turned—not easy when balancing packs—and took two steps back towards Kyra. ‘You gone simple? Move your goddamned feet.’ She swiped at Kyra’s head but was too far away. Kyra just skipped sideways a pace and then onwards as she’d been bid. She saw someone in the shadow of a broken building wall; a big dark-skinned guy, watching them but not wanting to come into the sun.

‘You can’t camp there,’ he called to Nerina. ‘This is public ground, we keep it clear.’

Nerina readjusted her load and moved onwards. Kyra hesitated, not sure whether she was obeying or ignoring. ‘So where can we go?’ she called back, mortified when her voice squeaked.

‘Anywhere nobody moves you,’ the guy said. He kept watching. Kyra caught up with Nerina, tugging her sleeve until the older woman turned about. ‘Uh, guy there says we can’t camp here. Says it’s public ground. We can camp further out…’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Camp laws varied wherever you went. Nerina walked until they ran out of paved ground and dry grass crunched underfoot. In the shadow of another big building of red crumbling stone, they made camp.

Kyra slept somehow, waking to a foot nudged impatiently into her side.

Reviews for Nightsiders

[tsana_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nightsiders is set in Western Australia, in and around Perth. I want to say it's post-apocalyptic, but that's not quite true. It seems part local apocalypse, part generalised catastrophic climate change. The Australian climate has changed so that the west coast is no longer particularly habitable, with hints at the start that things are better in the east. The former city of Perth is now generally referred to as Nightside, because the people living there have turned nocturnal, seeking shelter during the heat of the day and going about their business in the marginally cooler nights.A few words on each of the stories:The Painted Girl13 year old girl has been with walking with an older woman (who isn't her mother) as long as she remembers. One day, her life abruptly changes and she learns there's more to it than she'd realised.The Nation of the NightAsh, 17 year old a trans boy, goes east for an operation. The story is mostly about the stark differences between the parched west and the drowning east. He quickly learns that life is far from perfect in Melbourne, even if they still have hospitals and infrastructure. In Nightside (aka Perth), everyone helps their neighbours, in Melbourne, the infrastructure is overcrowded and they're trying to keep out as many surplus people as they can manage.Paper DragonsSome of the kids in Nightside put on a play based on some old TV scripts they found in an abandoned home. Turns out it's a soap about the trivialities of teenage life as in our time. Nightside's entire population of old folk (who remember life before the bombings and the evacuation) turn out to watch.The Schoolteacher's TaleThis was my favourite story. Mostly, I think, because it filled in some of the gaps left by the other stories with teenage protagonists who didn't know life before Nightside. The titular schoolteacher is a 70 year old woman who had been mentioned as a key figure in the lives of the characters in the previous two stories. We are exposed to some of her reminiscences of how much the world has changed and, through the story, we learn a bit of where Nightside is headed in the future.~It sort of feels strange that I can summarise each of the stories in a few sentences but barely even touch on what the stories are really about. Partly this is avoiding spoilers, and partly because there are some themes and ideas that run through all four stories which are hard to pin down to just one of them.An idea that runs through all the stories (though features the most in the first one) is that of the Drainers. They are a group of people with a genetic mutation that gives them a tolerance for the harsh sun and helps them go a bit longer between sips of water. They come out during the day when everyone else is sleeping, and hide in caves and drains (hence the name, I suppose) at night. There are stories of them eating people or draining their blood and, because they move about when everyone else is sleeping, they're regarded almost as reverse vampires, a notion which appealed to me.All the children protagonists have adapted better to life in Nightside than the adults. They have good night vision (and poor day vision) and, of course, they are used to the only life they have ever known. One theme that ran heavily through the first three stories is that of abandonment. In the two middle stories, the children were abandoned by parents who went east during the evacuation. There's a heavy implication that this happened to almost all of the children of Nightside, with some of the remaining adults acting as foster parents to many of them. It sort of felt a bit much. Of course, the children that weren't abandoned when their parents went east wouldn't have still been around. But really, children are pretty much top of the list of things parents take with them when leaving a war zone. Where are the parents that stayed behind with children? Where are the children whose parents were killed rather than left? I appreciate that the theme of abandonment fits in with the greater theme of Nightside being abandoned by its former inhabitants and the rest of the country, but it felt a little bit lopsided by the time I got to the end.On a happier note, this was a collection full of strong and well drawn female characters. With the exception of Ash (trans) in the second story, all the protagonists were female. There was also a good balance of male and female secondary/background characters, which is always nice to see.To a small degree, the setting put me in mind of Daughters of Moab by Kim Westwood, but the writing style was very different and thematically the setting and the idea of adaptation to a hostile environment were the only things the two have in common.Overall, I found Nightsiders an interesting read.Rating 4 / 5 stars