Shores of Night

Aiden shifted restlessly around the house, unable to settle. His wake was littered with discarded books, open CD cases and food wrappers. He checked his watch, for the third time in as many minutes and sighed. Still no sign of Brendan, he was running late; very late as a matter of fact. A tiny voice scratched at the back of Aiden's brain muttering that something was wrong. He rose and went to the phone, dialling the number that Brendan had stuck above it, on a yellow post-it note, the last time he had been home. The phone rang for a long time before someone answered. A bleary female voice spoke, “Hello?”. Aiden frowned, it took a moment to place the voice, “Jessica?” “Yeah, who is it?” The voice asked. “It's Aiden, Brendan's brother,” he told her. “Oh, he's not here.” She paused, as if her brain was waking up. “Isn't he with you? He was going home this weekend.” “No, he hasn't arrived.” “Oh,” she fell quiet again. “He probably...

Another first publication to wash up on the shores, the Home Front is a well conceived and executed book which serves as a strong introduction to the series, the Automata Wars. I would hesitate to call it a novel, in truth its a series of short stories, held together by the overwhelming concept of the setting and background. This background is well established early on in the book and is simple enough to strike true: the idea of a long, mysterious war taking place somewhere in the world against a foe, the nature of the which is left a mystery, beyond the idea that they are highly advanced machines that occupy specialised roles within their society. Cooke creates 'Skimmers' and 'Burrowers' to menace the troops and android infiltrators who aim to topple the humans from within through sabotage, treachery and the creation of fifth columns. There's a sense of gleeful menace to her writing in places, as she describes the actions of the automata; never lettin...