In the far future desert world of Lotus Blue, 17-year-old Star must contend with crazed A.I. war machines, killer sand storms, mysterious strangers from hidden cities, and secrets from her own past that lead her on an unexpected journey. Her story is part Mad Max, part Blade Runner, and exactly what you’ve been looking for since you fell for Imperator Furiosa.

Star doesn’t remember life before her seventh year, but it doesn’t matter all that much in this post-apocalyptic landscape. She does know she’s always had her sister, Nene, by her side. The two of them live as part of a Van, a nomadic community of caravaners thirteen wagons long. Always moving, they’ve made a sort of home for themselves, and Nene has always looked out for Star.

The Van is only safe while traveling the Sand Road, and even then, only if everyone sticks together and keeps moving. Relics of the past—war machines with artificial intelligence—are roving the desert, half-mad and completely deadly. Sentinels placed throughout the desert provide the living with shelter from the wildly erratic sandstorms. And Templars, ancient warriors akin to the androids of Terminator or Blade Runner, sit in silence as the world moves on around them.

When a relic Angel satellite crashes to the ground and a Sentinel fails to protect the caravan from its wrath, Star feels that her life is about to change—especially when she uncovers secrets about her past—secrets Nene has been keeping from her, secrets that threaten their relationship just as the relics that fall from the sky begin to disrupt the tenuous laws of a society of survivors that’s barely holding on in the harsh environment as it is.

This all plays out in a fashion both richly atmospheric and incredibly engaging. Cat Sparks shows us this ravaged world from multiple points of view—through the cold eyes of artificially intelligent beings as well as those of people from all strata of life—preserving the life in the tropes of the post-apocalyptic desert landscape. As the secrets surrounding Star’s origin begin to unravel, it becomes more than just an action novel; there are mysteries to unpack and full-blooded characters who will keep you turning pages.

I love how the threads woven throughout each disparate point-of-view come together to make a tapestry of emotion and intrigue as Star travels from one strange landscape into another, seeking answers, and her destiny. After glimpsing the multitude of possible stories this world contains, I certainly hope we have a chance to travel these roads again in the future.

Cat Sparks is a well-known figure in the Australian speculative fiction scene, both for her work as a prolific short story writer and editor. Lotus Blue is her much-anticipated debut novel.

Lotus Blue is set in a post-apocalyptic Australia, a land that has been ruined by both war and climate change. In this almost barren land, dominated by desert - the Dead Red Heart - people eke out a meagre existence in amidst the remnants of the technologies that were used to fight the wars that devastated the country.

There are many points of view in this novel - so many, sometimes, that I did find myself skimming over one or the other to get to the characters who interested me the most. Star, a seventeen-year-old who we meet travelling on a caravan with her healer sister, Nene, was the most compelling for me, along with Quarrel, a Templar - a warrior left over from the war, his body part organic and part machine. Star's journey is what ultimately shapes the main plot of the book, and it is what she discovers about herself along the way that kept me most enthralled as a reader.

This is a rich and complex world, and coming to the end of the book, it feels very much as though only the surface of the worldbuilding has been revealed. There is an almost cinematic realness to the pieces of this devastated Australia that we see - the ships that "sail" the Dead Red Heart, the warlord-controlled cities where people eke out their lives, and the technologies left over from the war - the bunker cities, the Tankers which roam the deserts and are hunted by the brave, the titular Lotus Blue.

There are going to be inevitable parallels drawn between Lotus Blue and other franchises - Sparks acknowledges that Dune was an influence, and anything set in a post-apocalyptic Australia is inevitably going to be compared to the Mad Max franchise. Neither of these comparisons really reveals the depth of Sparks' worldbuilding, or the strength of the characters which populate the book. All of them are human and flawed and heroic and as fascinating as the world.

I had high expectations for a debut novel from Cat Sparks, and Lotus Blue met them. There are some rough edges here and there, but nothing that detracts overmuch from the sheer wonder of the world that Sparks drops the reader into. If you're a fan of Sparks' short fiction, Lotus Blue is highly recommended. If you've not read anything by her before, this is a great place to start.

I tried to engage in the book, but the backstory failed to capture my interest.

Lotus Blue reminds me of what Mad Max could have been if they lacked resources. Back to the ideas of camels and slow-moving caravans, we have a sand-based adventure that has echoes of Tatooine and various Glenda Larke or Sean Williams worlds - yet this of course is utterly Sparks' own - and just another mark of how the endless plains of Australian emptiness have made their mark on our writers.

We're quickly thrown into a handful of characters, each vivid and although many to keep track of, they seem instantly like characters we've known for longer than half a chapter. Although there are many characters to choose from, the main protagonists are Star and her sister Nene who are the medics in the caravan, though Star dreams of things far greater - like somehow making their fortune enough to stay put somewhere, and opening a clinic in some back alley they can call home. Despite her child-like self-centredness we're still endeared to her simply for her drive and outlook on life, and how she faces her regrets head on, and has such a will to save not only herself, but her sister.

The plot is lively and action non-stop, making this book fly by and seem shorter than it really is. What really works about this novel is the history that makes the world-building sing, as we hear how their world is now, thanks to errors and calamity of old. Sparks is a genius of climate change and it shows in this book.

Overall, this novel has so much going for it, and it's brilliantly delivered.

Let me start by saying that I know Cat Sparks, and have been looking forward to reading a novel by her for quite some time. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy of Lotus Blue, which has this stark desert picture for a cover. This immediately spoke to me, and I must say that I was not disappointed when I dived into this book.

Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the story is all that you would expect from a world like this: violent and nasty, with sandstorms to temper the world. It is everything that you would want in a setting like this.

I am not going into the plot of this novel any more than I have to, as I found with reading it all melds together and the littlest clue could set off a chain reaction of ‘ahh’ moments that would ruin the impact of the story that Ms Sparks is telling.

I will say that the characters are incredibly believable, as is the setting. I did enjoy the mix of old and young characters that show (again) the older people do fit into stories. The technology they use in this futuristic world (which is only really alluded to) works well.

This is a story to be read, enjoyed, re read and remembered. I do hope there is a sequel in this, as I would love to travel back to see what happens to the young and the old. I would like to know the secrets of Axa. Next time, I read this I hope it is the paperback version.

This is a great book, and one worth picking up. A good, solid 4.5 stars from me.