Judge Rosa Somberly was officially launched in Canberra last Wednesday before a crowd of friends, supporters and book-reading humans to hear Laura Nuttall’s response to this mad eco-fantasy, and then me answering her pertinent questions in quite the hilarious conversation.
As a launcher Laura ticked many boxes – she is the only Gen Z member of the Australian Capital Territory Assembly, an environmentalist (she’s a Greens Party politician) and she was formerly employed by Libraries ACT. Laura kindly took time out of her busy schedule to rock down to The Book Cow Bookshop in Kingston and formally launch the book.
Luckily Laura liked Judge Rosa Somberly (phew!) and kindly allowed me to quote bits of her launch speech.
“Judge Rosa Somberly is a bit of a departure from the style of your first two novels– The Capricorn Sky and The Kyoto Bell, which are speculative thrillers that extrapolate climate change 100 years into the future and check in on how humanity’s managed to fare. ….. I think a lot of us are craving those novels with a gentle thread of hope when it comes to climate change.
“And that’s one of the things that ties into Colly’s new book– Judge Rosa Somberly— so nicely, this idea of keeping hope that we can cherish and protect our natural environment. This time though, we take ourselves back to the present day and the world we know, with an underlayer of almost fairytale science that lends credibility to the marvels that our main crew encounter.
“I really liked (Rosa’s) urbex crew, because they felt really true to the kind of found family that loves each other despite driving each other up the wall. ……… It felt very true to how us late teens/ early twenties operate in a friendship group we’ve known for a long time.
“As one of those ‘greenies’ the lumberjacks will warn you about, I also really loved the environmental commentary underpinning the story. A lot of cases brought forward to the Court of Last Resort come from the voices of the environment that you wouldn’t see in a classic court case.
“… if themes like deforestation and overdrawing of natural resources resonate with you, I think you’ll get quite the kick out of some of these cases. Nature is given a lot of love and respect in this book, and it’s really nice to read something that honours the almost mythological miracle that is the natural world.
“ … the vibe of the book … is fantastic … ‘Judge Rosa Somberly’ is also delightfully grounded in the modern and the mundane, but it feels like it brings in the kind of fable elements of childhood stories with all the context and complexity that comes with adulthood.
“There are times in the text where you really get the kinetic sense of clicks and clatters as you read, and I haven’t read that many books that give you that real sharp sense of sound.
“In a lot of ways Rosa is quite precocious, quite the prodigy and has to become very wise. But it’s also clear that she’s still a kid and processes a lot of things the way any 10-year-old would … that balance between kid and judge.”
And for good measure:
“So there’ this really cool passage that runs from the point of view of a bat, and quite frankly it’s the best rendering of echolocation I’ve ever read.”
So great that you liked it, Laura, and I hope everyone will love it too when, on a warm summer night, they break in through an attic door into The Hall of Justice and enter the world of Judge Rosa.