“As the novel progresses, it becomes unputdownable. Surveillance systems go into hyperdrive when the status quo is threatened and the suppression of dissidents reminds us of Orwell and Huxley. Written long before COVID_19 was on the horizon, Rise and Shine is a reminder to beware of autocratic saviours whose mantra is the common good….”
Lisa Hill, ANZ Litlovers
“This isn’t a book about the evolution of human biology—it’s an astonishingly imaginative work of speculative fiction that swings between optimism and a darker look at the human psyche, using the loss of a universal physical act to explore the intangible things that connect us to one another, and probe deeper, more uncomfortable questions..”
Elizabeth Flux in Kill Your Darlings
“This bold premise of war footage as food – a disquieting metaphor in the era of addictive social media feeds – could easily be an episode of Charlie Brooker’s Netflix series Black Mirror. … Rise & Shine does not shy away from the complex moral terrain of political agency. Carefully, subtly, Allington lets the tension between multiple propositions build: that law and order form a part of collective survival; that service of the people can easily slip into control of the people; that people want a leader; that effective leadership requires multiple perspectives; that people can change; that some people don’t. Allington sustains the tension until the final pages, where he offers a thought-provoking ending worthy of his imaginative take on dystopia.”
Naama Grey-Smith, Australian Book Review
“There is a definite Kafkaesque air to Allington’s writing, as well as echoes of 1984 and Brave New World… The dialogue is one of the great strengths of Rise & Shine: buoyantly paced, drolly comic and easily absorbing … Rise & Shine is apt reading for our current atmosphere of environmental, societal and economic precarity. It is an undeniably imaginative and engrossing fable.”
Jack Callil, The Age
“In his first novel since the Miles Franklin-nominated Figurehead in 2009, Adelaide writer Patrick Allington again vividly paints a dystopian future that pushes the reader to explore the human condition … This is a Day of the Triffids for our times.”
Kylie Maslen, The Adelaide Review