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'The Island Will Sink is set decades from now - a not-too-distant future which is not so different. The energy crisis has come and gone. Cities have been rethought and redesigned, and EcoLaw is enforced by insidious cartoon Pandas and their armies of viral-marketing children. Max Galleon is a filmmaker of immersive cinema, a father to two children distressed by the world around, a distant husband, a brother to a comatose mystery man, and falling rapidly in love with a doctor who is not what she seems.'
'The Island Will Sink is a terrific postmodern science fiction novel in the vein of Michel Houellebecq and Phillip K. Dick, and marks the official breakthrough of a compelling literary talent.' (Source: Booktopia website)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Apocalyptic Climate Fiction in the Third Media Revolution : Briohny Doyle’s The Island Will Sink
2022
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 30 September vol. 37 no. 2 2022;'This essay explores Briohny Doyle’s dystopian climate fiction novel The Island Will Sink (2016), which dramatises the failure of responding ethically to climate change, as protagonists create a sensationalist aesthetic spectacle out of environmental disaster. The ubiquitous narrative of awaiting the ‘final apocalypse’ takes centre stage, as the Pacific island of Pitcairn is in the process of sinking with sea-level rise, an event that is anxiously anticipated in various media. Although awaiting the apocalypse has become a magnetic trope of the climate fiction genre, and is often satirised, this novel merits critical attention because it highlights an important dimension of climate change: the fact that it is always mediated. Because climate change can only be experienced partially, we rely on mediation for understanding the phenomenon as a whole. The Island Will Sink, however, depicts the aesthetic exploitation of climate catastrophe in various media; through the ‘emotional overwhelm’ of immersive cinema, the producers aim to capitalise on apocalyptic experience and premediate trauma. The essay argues that The Island Will Sink exposes the dangers of individual and collective memory that is divorced from the environment, as it favours simulacra over an engagement with lived experience in a particular ecosystem – in this case Pitcairn. In this way, the novel stages the perils of an over-abundance of dystopian affects and narratives: while they may hold the potential to warn and shock, they can also paralyse individuals’ responses to climate change. Though the novel presents what I call a ‘negative cosmology’ with no way out, this essay draws attention to the recent ecocritical turn towards formerly neglected affects and genres, such as pleasure, humour and survival.' (Introduction)
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y
At Home with Briohny Doyle
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23448440
2021
single work
podcast
interview
'Briohny Doyle is the author of The Island Will Sink, Echolalia and Adult Fantasy. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, The Griffith Review, The Good Weekend, The Guardian, and the Sunday Times. She is a lecturer in writing and literature at Deakin University and a 2020 Fulbright Scholar.' (Production introduction)
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Explainer : 'Solarpunk', or How to Be an Optimistic Radical
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 20 July 2017;'Punks (of the 70s and 80s kind) were not known for their optimism. Quite the opposite in fact. Raging against the establishment in various ways, there was “no future” because, according to the Sex Pistols, punks are “the poison / In your human machine / We’re the future / Your future”. To be punk, was, by definition, to resist the future.
'In contrast, the most basic definition of solarpunk — offered by musician and photographer Jay Springett — is that it is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism' (Introduction)
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The Island Will Sink Review : Briohny Doyle's Debut Novel Tackles an Ecodisaster
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Brisbane Times , 2 September 2016;
— Review of The Island Will Sink 2016 single work novel -
Question of Identity as a Disaster Looms
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 3-4 September 2016; (p. 19) The Saturday Age , 3-4 September 2016; (p. 19)
— Review of The Island Will Sink 2016 single work novel
-
Emotional Tide Surges through Postmodern Tale
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 30-31 July 2016; (p. 23)
— Review of The Island Will Sink 2016 single work novel -
Briohny Doyle, The Island Will Sink
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 6 August 2016;
— Review of The Island Will Sink 2016 single work novel -
Dystopia Scenario Takes Filmic Cues
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 21 August 2016; (p. 5)
— Review of The Island Will Sink 2016 single work novel -
Immersed in the Apocalypse
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 22 August 2016; (p. 15)
— Review of The Island Will Sink 2016 single work novel -
Briohny Doyle : The Island Will Sink.
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , August 2016;
— Review of The Island Will Sink 2016 single work novel -
Explainer : 'Solarpunk', or How to Be an Optimistic Radical
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 20 July 2017;'Punks (of the 70s and 80s kind) were not known for their optimism. Quite the opposite in fact. Raging against the establishment in various ways, there was “no future” because, according to the Sex Pistols, punks are “the poison / In your human machine / We’re the future / Your future”. To be punk, was, by definition, to resist the future.
'In contrast, the most basic definition of solarpunk — offered by musician and photographer Jay Springett — is that it is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism' (Introduction)
-
y
At Home with Briohny Doyle
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23448440
2021
single work
podcast
interview
'Briohny Doyle is the author of The Island Will Sink, Echolalia and Adult Fantasy. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, The Griffith Review, The Good Weekend, The Guardian, and the Sunday Times. She is a lecturer in writing and literature at Deakin University and a 2020 Fulbright Scholar.' (Production introduction)
-
Apocalyptic Climate Fiction in the Third Media Revolution : Briohny Doyle’s The Island Will Sink
2022
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 30 September vol. 37 no. 2 2022;'This essay explores Briohny Doyle’s dystopian climate fiction novel The Island Will Sink (2016), which dramatises the failure of responding ethically to climate change, as protagonists create a sensationalist aesthetic spectacle out of environmental disaster. The ubiquitous narrative of awaiting the ‘final apocalypse’ takes centre stage, as the Pacific island of Pitcairn is in the process of sinking with sea-level rise, an event that is anxiously anticipated in various media. Although awaiting the apocalypse has become a magnetic trope of the climate fiction genre, and is often satirised, this novel merits critical attention because it highlights an important dimension of climate change: the fact that it is always mediated. Because climate change can only be experienced partially, we rely on mediation for understanding the phenomenon as a whole. The Island Will Sink, however, depicts the aesthetic exploitation of climate catastrophe in various media; through the ‘emotional overwhelm’ of immersive cinema, the producers aim to capitalise on apocalyptic experience and premediate trauma. The essay argues that The Island Will Sink exposes the dangers of individual and collective memory that is divorced from the environment, as it favours simulacra over an engagement with lived experience in a particular ecosystem – in this case Pitcairn. In this way, the novel stages the perils of an over-abundance of dystopian affects and narratives: while they may hold the potential to warn and shock, they can also paralyse individuals’ responses to climate change. Though the novel presents what I call a ‘negative cosmology’ with no way out, this essay draws attention to the recent ecocritical turn towards formerly neglected affects and genres, such as pleasure, humour and survival.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2017 shortlisted Most Underrated Book Award
- 2017 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year
- 2017 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — The Matt Richell Award for New Writer