Nightpeople, by Anthony Eaton

I’ve come a long way to get you. You’re special. More than you realise. A lot of people have been suffering for a long time so you might have a chance to live. Some have even died for it.

Saria has grown up in the secluded valley, Ma Lee her only companion and the old Dreamer Gaardi the only visitor. But that changes when Dariand arrives to take her away. Only now does Saria start to understand how special she is – the last of her kind and the final child of the Darklands. In a dying world, she is the last hope for her people. But how can she fulfil this hope when nobody understands just what it is she must do?

Nightpeople is an outstanding beginning to a new fantasy trilogy from award-winning West Australian author Anthony Eaton. Set in a sparse desert, quarantined because it has been contaminated many years ago by the mysterious Nightpeople, the story explores a future, which although it is fantasy, is frighteningly believable. The landscape, too, will be eerily familiar to many Australian readers.

This is fantasy at its best – a well-woven, absorbing tale with characters that are likeable yet flawed enough to make the story real.

Nightpeople, by Anthony Eaton
UQP, 2005