Latest Reviews

History

Queensland Reviewers Collective (QRC) is the new name for an initiative that began eighteen years ago. Up until November 2016 it was known as M/C Reviews. In December 2015, the M/C Reviews website had a major security breach that took it down, and the editor of the book reviews section and some of the reviewers responded by starting a blog as a temporary site for book reviews until the website could be repaired. Unfortunately, it eventually became apparent that the website was not able to be restored, thus ending its long and illustrious presence as a place for the lively engagement with books and film through reviewing.

Once again, the editor and a small group of book reviewers decided they valued M/C Reviews enough to enable its rebirth as the Queensland Reviewers Collective. It no longer has an association with the Queensland University of Technology.

The website that M/C Reviews was initially a part of was M/C – Media and Culture, founded in 1998 as, according to the History section, ‘a place of public intellectualism, analysing and critiquing the meeting of media and culture’. It was meant as a place where the popular and the academic could meet, and ‘debates may have some resonance with wider political and cultural interests’.

The website was initiated and developed at the University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia; since 2004, it has been hosted by the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology in Kelvin Grove. The first publication was the M/C Journal, still thriving today, followed by M/C Reviews, and then M/Cyclopedia of New Media.

Acknowledgement of Country

In the spirit of reconciliation Queensland Reviewers Collective acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

Other Reviews

General Fiction

Ruins by Amy Taylor

Reviewed by Ian Lipke I’m sure that a reviewer somewhere has applied the phrase “a Greek tragedy” to this beautifully written book. It is not so much the story which sweeps us away as it is the writing itself. The feeling of great competence as the writer manipulates her words and images to best tell

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Children

The Emperor’s Egg by Rae Tan

Reviewed by Wendy Lipke As the name of the book and author might suggest the illustrations in this hard covered children’s picture book have an Asian focus. The story it contains is a reimagining of an ancient Chinese folk tale about integrity, courage and patience. To choose his heir the ageing emperor, who has no

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Crime/Mystery

The Neighbours by Emma Babbington

Reviewed by Ian Lipke Richard Wellington is a doctor well loved by a wide selection of television and radio listeners. If he happens to cause the female heart to beat a little faster and should he step across boundaries and spend a little too much time in a bedroom that is not his own, well

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ALS Gold Medal 2025

The Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) has announced Fiona McFarlane as the winner of the 2025 Australian Literature Society (ALS) Gold Medal for Highway 13 (A&U). In the announcement, the organisation said, ‘Highway 13 is an inventive and dazzling short story cycle that yields the cohesiveness of a novel even while preserving the integrity of its individual

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Children

The Enchantment of Golden Eagle by Margaret Wild

Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This hard covered children’s picture book is presented by two celebrated picture book creators. Margaret Wild is a recipient of the Nan Chauncy Award and Lady Cutler Award for her contribution to Australian literature. For this book she is ably assisted by internationally renowned award-winning author and illustrator, Stephen Michael King.

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Children

SHMOOF by Heidi McKinnon

Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This early children’s book by author and illustrator, Heidi McKinnon, is a hardcovered ten-and-a-half-inch book with a large orange dog face on the cover. The reader is first introduced to SHMOOF and all his antics. Then they meet FLOOF who is a grey cat. As most people know some cats and

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Children

Who Might You Be? by R. Henderson

Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This hard covered children’s book is a tale in Tangrams. For those who are unaware of the term, an explanation is provided at the beginning of the book where it says, ‘the pictures in this book are all made from the same seven shapes, which form a puzzle called a tangram.’

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Young Adult

We Saw What You Started by Carla Salmon

Reviewed by Rod McLary It is not often that I review books from the YA genre; but this one – We Saw What You Started – caught my attention.  It was well worth the read and here we are with my review. Teenage detectives are not uncommon in YA novels – think Nancy Drew or

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Historical Fiction

Sins of the Fathers by John Byrnes

Reviewed by Ian Lipke This novel opens in 1898 with a quick sketch of a father who is about to be sentenced for a long term in prison. The story then switches to the lives of two boys, Billy and Tommy Smith, forced to grow up amid the harsh environment of the streets of Sydney’s

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If you would like to contact the coordinator of the Queensland Reviewers Collective, either to enquire about becoming a reviewer, to offer a book to review, or to make a comment on the blog generally, please use the form.

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