This sci-fi tale of avengers hunting polluters in a scorched Australian dystopia serves as an essential call to arms over global heating

Tim Winton self-deprecatingly describes his latest book as “a novel about a bloke in a hole telling stories while he still can”. Of course, this epic dystopian tale is far more than that. A stunning addition to the growing cli-fi genre, Juice took Winton seven years to complete. It follows The Shepherd’s Hut (2018), a coming-of-age story set in the saltlands of Western Australia.

A prolific author, Winton has won the Miles Franklin award four times. I discovered his work in 1999 when I was blown away by a five-hour stage adaptation of his 1991 novel Cloudstreet, about two families sharing a house in a Perth suburb, at Riverside Studios in London. His Booker-shortlisted 2001 novel Dirt Music, rooted in a fishing community in WA, was adapted into a film directed by Gregor Jordan in 2019.