What is this book?

May 20, 2012 8:35 PM

BookFilter: This book had some futuristic name for Australia. What's the name of the book?

Asking for a friend of mine. She once read a book that had some futuristic name for Australia. It's a sci-fi book by a (male?) Australian author. From what she's told me: They discover time is speeding up, so they send someone back. 'Frequency' may or may not be part of the title, and it may be a one-word title. It was set at least partly in Australia.

What's the name of the book and author -- and what did they call Australia in this book?!

Hivemind, do your best! The more she tells me about it, the more I want to know what it is so I can read it.

posted by Heretical to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 answers total)

Man, it's ringing some Greg Egan bells, but I can't pin it down. Are you certain it was a novel? Might it have been a short story?
posted by restless_nomad at 8:47 PM on May 20, 2012

This reminds me a little bit of Greg Egan's Quarantine. I read it over ten years ago, so my memory is blurry, but I seem to remember that the Chinese had built a Gibsonesque city called New Hong Kong in Australia's Northern Territory. Also, people could buy neural mods that allowed them to download skills as software, and one of the mods may have allowed some sort of quantum mechanics weirdness comparable with time travel. Maybe?
posted by hot soup girl at 8:50 PM on May 20, 2012

I read this a while back, and it's previewable on Amazon. No renaming of Australia proper, but Arnhem Land became an independent aboriginal state, and offered refugees from a crackdown in Hong Kong the opportunity to create a New Hong Kong.

Also, Earth and a good part of the Solar System are enclosed in something called the Bubble, created by aliens. I don't think that's exactly a spoiler, either.
posted by dhartung at 1:56 AM on May 21, 2012

Yep, that sounds like Quarantine, although Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons also has some alternative names for Australia.
posted by flutable at 5:42 AM on May 21, 2012

The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett is another possibility.
posted by Bruce H. at 11:11 AM on May 21, 2012

Maybe On The Beach by Nevil Shute?
posted by jabes at 1:25 PM on May 21, 2012

No time travel or new names for Australia in 'On the Beach'.
posted by andraste at 5:49 PM on May 21, 2012