AustLit

'Paulie hated not being able to understand things. He knew they'd had to drive kilometres off the main route—bumping along a rough road with the caravan behind—but why hadn't the tank been properly filled with petrol? He knew Mr Spyriadakos was something to do with the Greek branch of Dad's company in Australia, but why did he have to travel with them all the way to Athens? He knew Dad and Mr Spyriadakos had been unable to work the single pump at the dilapidated, tin-shed petrol station outside the village, but why was there nobody there to serve them?' (Introduction) 

'Sent from bustling Sydney to boring country NSW during World War I, life is undeniably dull for Sally. Until she meets Ryder.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

A continuation of the story told in Song of the Slums, but with an adult focus. Verrol, now an adult and a successful musician, falls in with a young girl who is tied to his criminal past, and who exerts a dangerous fascination for him.

'A chilling story of love and pride and the price one pays for choices.'

'The narrator as a child suffered so dreadfully from nightmares that his parents took him for treatment to Dr Kessel for his experimental treatment. Kessel was confident that his mechanism would draw off Anthony’s “bad thoughts.” In the night, the boy explores the facility.'

Source: Locus Magazine (www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2011/08/lois-tilton-reviews-short-fiction-late-august-2/). (Sighted: 30/11/2016)

Richard Harland reflects on writing Worldshaker, a 'very long story' based on ideas that came from 'a couple of dreams' (2). He describes three phases of writing the novel in terms of 'world building', 'growing of characters' and 'thematics' (2) and says one of its aims is to convey how 'childhood is far more precarious that we like to remember' (3). In this sense, Harland attempts to present 'growing up out of childhood [as] a time of strangeness, half facts and uncertainties' (3) through the genre of fantasy, which he says, has a tendency to 'bypass adult censorship and unlock forgotten memories' (3).