We learn as the novel unfolds that she has made financial mistakes which have compromised her with her boss, who she believes is dirty. From the first chapter she is on the run as the tables are turned and the Service comes after her. Middle-aged Englishwoman Heather, nicknamed Bird, is a trained spy turned investigator of spies gone bad. Related articlesĪ Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty. In this fast-paced, highly entertaining novel, by the author of last year’s impressive The Gifts, a series of excellent twists and turns are sprung as the finale comes. As the characters prepare for a show to celebrate the famous conjuror’s life, the stakes are high.Ī lover of the theatre, Hyder expertly pulls the strings behind the scenes while keeping the reader in the loop on some things, her characters each having their own fears and secrets. He enlists the vulnerable but magically gifted 16-year-old Cecily Marsden as his assistant, and she is then taken under the wing of veteran conjuror Valentin, who has come from France to select the successor. Another magician, the dastardly Roderick Skarratt, believes he is the rightful successor to The Professor, and will stop at nothing to get the title. Before long, Eadie and George start to explore what is possible with magic and film, but first there are all kinds of skulduggery to navigate. She has a fortuitous meeting with feted magician George Perris, the heir apparent to the outgoing and ailing Professor, who has been the dominant conjuror in England for decades. In 1896 Bristol, Eadie Carleton is a photographer and the daughter of one who’s experimenting with moving pictures. As the AI model says, “The power to change the future lies in the hands of the people of the present and my role is to help them in any way I can.” This highly ambitious, tense novel makes you think hard about current world challenges and stays with you well after the final page, Mildenhall showing how humankind’s decisions affect generations. But when Maz finds a piece of a machine that JP seems excited by, she starts questioning everything and her only thought is to escape. Wanting is what destroyed the world, they are told in the run-up to “the Collapse”. They are Stewards, looking for remnants of life before, living in caves because of the heat, and led by a tough cult-like leader, JP. Perhaps most intriguing is the life of Maz and her sister Onyx in 2181, who are living in a small community on the coast. She struggles with some serious moral questions when she goes through an egg harvesting programme, which is part of WANT’s wellness package. ![]() La is an out-of-work voice artist for AI and toying with activism against her Amazon-type employer, WANT. In the near future of 2031, La (Lara) lives with her partner Cat in a deteriorating Footscray. We then jump to 2020 and elderly Hilda, once an eminent scientist, who’s locked down in her rest home during Covid, out of contact with family and worrying about losing her faculties. Mildenhall moves back and forth between each woman’s story: 19-year-old Peggy in 1933, whose employment revolves around the meatworks in Melbourne’s Footscray, which is facing technological change, and her early marriage after becoming pregnant to a violent man. Interspersed in their stories is the “Hummingbird Project”, a series of eerie and at times impossible-to-answer Q&As between a character, ErisX, and an AI chatbot, asking big questions such as what human innovations it would undo if that were possible. ![]() ![]() In each case, they are witnessing progress they are fearful of. The Hummingbird Effect is set in four periods following the lives of four women living in 1933, 2020, 20. In her new novel, the author of the near-future The Mother Fault delivers a stark warning about what might be ahead if climate change and humankind’s greed go unchecked. Photo / SuppliedĪustralian novelist Kate Mildenhall proves once again she’s highly adept at writing about the world to come. The Hummingbird Effect by Kate Mildenhall.
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