Justine Larbalestier

Team Human

The whole thing was an accident. Sarah Rees Brennan and I were idly wondering what it would be like if your best friend was dating a vampire and somehow found ourselves writing a whole novel from the point of view of Mel Duan, whose best friend, Cathy, falls in love with a vampire. Team Human will be published in early July 2012 by Allen & Unwin in Australia and by Harper Collins in the USA.

"Laugh-out-loud funny, heart-wrenchingly sad and fist-pump-in-the-air triumphant, this sparkling gem proves that vampires, zombies and even teenagers . . . at heart, we're all on Team Human."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

• Collaboration
• Excerpt
• FAQ
• Reviews

Zombies vs. Unicorns

It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths--for good and evil--of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. Contributors include many bestselling teen authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

"Without a clunker in the bunch, this anthology more than lives up to the potential its concept suggests. Zombies or unicorns? There's no clear winner, unless it's readers."

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• Introduction
• Contributors
• Reviews
• Extras

Liar

Liar is a psychological thriller set in New York City told from the point of view of a compulsive liar. Liar is published in Australia by Allen & Unwin and in the USA by Bloomsbury. There are also non-English language editions.

"Readers will get chills paging through Larbalestier's suspenseful novel . . . with a masterfully constructed unreliable narrator [they] will be guessing and theorizing long after they've finished this gripping story."

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• Editions
• Excerpt
• Influences
• Reviews & Awards
• FAQ

How to Ditch Your Fairy

Welcome to New Avalon, where everyone has a personal fairy. Charlie's is a parking fairy. Problem is she's fourteen, can't drive, and doesn't want to. She hates her fairy. How to Ditch Your Fairy is the tale of her quest to ditch it and get a better one such as her best friend's clothes-shopping fairy or her worst enemy's all-boys-will-like-you fairy.

Justine Larbalestier has a super-cool writing fairy, and I am vastly jealous! Thoroughly entertaining, totally enchanting, wickedly funny, and 110% doos, How To Ditch Your Fairy had me grinning from page one (when I wasn’t laughing out loud). And as soon as I can figure out how to do it I’m going to ask to swap fairies with Justine.

—Libba Bray, New York Times bestselling author of A Great and Terrible Beauty

• Editions
• Excerpt
• Extras
• Fairies
• Glossary
• Reviews
• FAQ

Magic or Madness Trilogy

Magic or Madness, Magic Lessons, Magic’s Child

• Editions
• Excerpts
• Extras
• Glossary
• Making Magic
• Reviews
• FAQ

Reason's lived all her life in the outback with her mother, Sarafina, on the run from her evil grandmother, Esmeralda. Esmeralda believes in magic and practices horrifying dark rituals. But when Sarafina suffers a mental breakdown, Reason is sent to the one place she fears most—Esmeralda's house in Sydney.

Nothing about the house or Esmeralda is what Reason expected. For the first time she finds herself questioning her mother's teachings. Then when she walks through Esmeralda's back door in Sydney and finds herself on a New York City street, Reason is forced to face the truth. Magic is real. And Reason is magic.

Daughters of Earth

Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century

Winner of the Susan Koppelman Award and the William Atheling Jr Award shortlisted for a British Science Fiction Award

A collection of 11 key stories and set them alongside 11 new essays, written by top scholars and critics, that explore the stories’ contexts, meanings, and theoretical implications. The resulting dialogue is one of significance to critical scholarship in science fiction, and to understanding the role of feminism in its development. Organized chronologically, this anthology creates a new canon of feminist science fiction and examines the theory that addresses it.

• Contributors
• Reviews
• Stories & Essays
• Excerpts

The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction

Battle of the Sexes was shortlisted for the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award, the William J. Atheling Award and the Hugo for Best Related Book

My first book, The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction was originally my PhD thesis. It's a look at science fiction's engagement with sex, gender and sexuality from 1926 until the early 1970s. As we all as an examination of the early days of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.

• Cover
• Excerpt
• Letters
• Research
• Reviews

Bibliography

Short stories, scripts, non-fiction...