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The Change #2
The Buried Ark
Callie is deep in the Zone - exposed, broken and alone. Without her little sister Gracie. Without Matt, the boy she loves.
But when she stumbles upon a secret - hidden deep within herself - she realises that she holds the key to defeating the Change.
But the Change know this too and they will stop at nothing to capture her.
Fleeing from the officers of Quarantine, and the pervasive Change, Callie finds refuge in the unlikeliest of places.
Only to find that she is in more danger than ever before.
But when she stumbles upon a secret - hidden deep within herself - she realises that she holds the key to defeating the Change.
But the Change know this too and they will stop at nothing to capture her.
Fleeing from the officers of Quarantine, and the pervasive Change, Callie finds refuge in the unlikeliest of places.
Only to find that she is in more danger than ever before.
258 pages, Paperback
First published May 29, 2018
8 people are currently reading
113 people want to read
About the author
James Bradley
35 books248 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
James is the author of five novels: the critically acclaimed climate change narratives, Ghost Species (Hamish Hamilton 2020) and Clade (Hamish Hamilton 2015); The Resurrectionist (Picador 2006), which explores the murky world of underground anatomists in Victorian England and was featured as one of Richard and Judy's Summer Reads in 2008; The Deep Field (Sceptre 1999), which is set in the near future and tells the story of a love affair between a photographer and a blind palaeontologist; and Wrack (Vintage 1997) about the search for a semi-mythical Portuguese wreck. He has also written The Change Trilogy for young adults. a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, and edited two anthologies, The Penguin Book of the Ocean and Blur, a collection of stories by young Australian writers. His first book of non-fiction, Deep Water: the World in the Ocean will be published in 2024.
Twice one of The Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists, his books have won The Age Fiction Book of the Year Award, the Fellowship of Australian Writers Literature Award and the Kathleen Mitchell Award, and have been shortlisted for awards such as the Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the NSW Premier's Christina Stead Award for Fiction, the Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction and the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and have been widely translated. His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines and collections, including Best Australian Stories, Best Australian Fantasy and Horror and The Penguin Century of Australian Stories, and has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards for Best Science Fiction Short Story and Best Horror Short Story.
As well as writing fiction and poetry, James writes and reviews for a wide range of Australian and international newspapers and magazines. In 2012 he won the Pascall Prize for Australia's Critic of the year.
James is the author of five novels: the critically acclaimed climate change narratives, Ghost Species (Hamish Hamilton 2020) and Clade (Hamish Hamilton 2015); The Resurrectionist (Picador 2006), which explores the murky world of underground anatomists in Victorian England and was featured as one of Richard and Judy's Summer Reads in 2008; The Deep Field (Sceptre 1999), which is set in the near future and tells the story of a love affair between a photographer and a blind palaeontologist; and Wrack (Vintage 1997) about the search for a semi-mythical Portuguese wreck. He has also written The Change Trilogy for young adults. a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus, and edited two anthologies, The Penguin Book of the Ocean and Blur, a collection of stories by young Australian writers. His first book of non-fiction, Deep Water: the World in the Ocean will be published in 2024.
Twice one of The Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists, his books have won The Age Fiction Book of the Year Award, the Fellowship of Australian Writers Literature Award and the Kathleen Mitchell Award, and have been shortlisted for awards such as the Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the NSW Premier's Christina Stead Award for Fiction, the Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction and the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and have been widely translated. His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines and collections, including Best Australian Stories, Best Australian Fantasy and Horror and The Penguin Century of Australian Stories, and has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards for Best Science Fiction Short Story and Best Horror Short Story.
As well as writing fiction and poetry, James writes and reviews for a wide range of Australian and international newspapers and magazines. In 2012 he won the Pascall Prize for Australia's Critic of the year.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 26, 2018
Firstly, if you have not read the Silent Invasion I recommend you go do that as The Buried Ark picks up right where that leaves off.
The Buried Ark is the second instalment in The Change Trilogy, James Bradleys YA Dystopian offering, set in Australia, following an alien invasion that leaves people changed.
The story follows Callie's journey as she discovers her relationship to the Change and how she might be able to affect it. Again it's a fast-paced book that doesn't waste time with flowery descriptions - just providing enough to let the readers imagination do the work. Instead, it focuses on moving the story along and gets right into the guts of the tale. It moves along at a much more cracking pace than The Silent Invasion.
Having read some of Bradley's other work, he is adept at weaving a message into his stories and while it becomes obvious that this has parallels to what we are doing to our planet ourselves - no aliens required - it is much less in your face than something like Clade. This makes it a little more palatable in many ways, as few readers like to be "preached" to.
Again Bradley has left it on an explosive cliffhanger and we will just have to wait to see the fate of Callie and indeed the rest of the planet.
The Buried Ark is the second instalment in The Change Trilogy, James Bradleys YA Dystopian offering, set in Australia, following an alien invasion that leaves people changed.
The story follows Callie's journey as she discovers her relationship to the Change and how she might be able to affect it. Again it's a fast-paced book that doesn't waste time with flowery descriptions - just providing enough to let the readers imagination do the work. Instead, it focuses on moving the story along and gets right into the guts of the tale. It moves along at a much more cracking pace than The Silent Invasion.
Having read some of Bradley's other work, he is adept at weaving a message into his stories and while it becomes obvious that this has parallels to what we are doing to our planet ourselves - no aliens required - it is much less in your face than something like Clade. This makes it a little more palatable in many ways, as few readers like to be "preached" to.
Again Bradley has left it on an explosive cliffhanger and we will just have to wait to see the fate of Callie and indeed the rest of the planet.
July 7, 2018
If you've read book 1, you know how it ended and I'm sure you were just as frustrated as I was that we had to wait a full year to know what happens next. Thankfully, this book picked up immediately after that ending and what a touching scene it was....
Of course, nothing is ever as it seems! Callie, heartbroken & missing Matt & Gracie, had to figure out how she was going to survive in a place where she stood out as foreign; she is the 'alien', the one who does not belong. Strangely, despite her frequent contact with the changes, she remains herself. Is there a way to save the world from being changed?
I must confess to being rather sad as I missed the dynamics of Callie, Matt, & Gracie. In this second instalment of the trilogy, Without giving away too much, I did like a few of secondary characters introduced as her 'sidekicks'. They were an interesting bunch but I just didn't feel as connected to them as I did with Matt & Gracie though this could be that these new characters were not there with Callie throughout the whole book like Matt & Gracie did in The Silent Invasion.
The Buried Ark did not disappoint. It is a thrilling read and each time you'd think things are just getting better, they fell apart even more disastrously. James Bradley had aimed for an even bigger explosion to end book 2 and my world, didn't he just blow the world apart?!
Thanks to Pan MacMillan Australia for copy of book in exchange of honest review.
Of course, nothing is ever as it seems! Callie, heartbroken & missing Matt & Gracie, had to figure out how she was going to survive in a place where she stood out as foreign; she is the 'alien', the one who does not belong. Strangely, despite her frequent contact with the changes, she remains herself. Is there a way to save the world from being changed?
I must confess to being rather sad as I missed the dynamics of Callie, Matt, & Gracie. In this second instalment of the trilogy, Without giving away too much, I did like a few of secondary characters introduced as her 'sidekicks'. They were an interesting bunch but I just didn't feel as connected to them as I did with Matt & Gracie though this could be that these new characters were not there with Callie throughout the whole book like Matt & Gracie did in The Silent Invasion.
The Buried Ark did not disappoint. It is a thrilling read and each time you'd think things are just getting better, they fell apart even more disastrously. James Bradley had aimed for an even bigger explosion to end book 2 and my world, didn't he just blow the world apart?!
Thanks to Pan MacMillan Australia for copy of book in exchange of honest review.
August 16, 2018
‘Buried Ark’ is just as thrilling as the first in the trilogy ‘The Silent Invasion’. This one took up where the first one left off. Looking forward to the last in this trilogy.
June 19, 2018
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Pan Macmillan Australia, at no cost. It's out now.
This is the sequel to The Silent Invasion, which I've previously reviewed. It was excellent, which is why I was excited about getting this to review, and it lived up to expectations - in terms of suspense and character, anyway. I had no idea, and no expectations, about where the plot would go; as it turned out, I wouldn't have been able to predict it even if I'd tried.
If you haven't read The Silent Invasion, you should go off and do that. All you need to know is that it's set in a very familiar Australia, except that spores from Somewhere Else have been infecting and affecting regions of the globe - starting in the tropics and moving to the temperate zones. Flora and fauna are being Changed, and so are humans. In response, in Australia, there are no-go zones and suspicions of people who might be affected. The central character, Callie, is trying to look after her little sister Gracie, who has somehow been infected. The book ends on an epic cliffhanger, hence my excitement about getting this book to resolve it. You really don't want to read this without reading the first book; but it's only around 250 pages, and it's YA so it's super fast-paced, and it's definitely worthwhile.
Spoilers for those who've read The Silent Invasion
So, that cliffhanger! I'd forgotten exactly what had happened, at the end, so I re-read the last chapter before starting this sequel - which was an excellent idea because the first page is basically the next second after the last page of the first. Which I quite like, except it does make me curious about why they are separate books. I guess 500 pages are harder to sell to a YA market? Anyway: briefly things seem like they might be okay for Callie, even though she's lost Gracie and Matt, but - as I'm sure you kinda expect - things do not eventuate into a happy garden of joy. Whatasurprise. Callie ends up heading back out of the Zone, which then becomes a 'from frying pan into fire' scenario. And then... well, it's a little spoiler, but it's a frying pan to fire to slowly boiling pot of water scenario: you know, where you don't realise initially that things aren't great until the water starts really heating up around you? Yeh. That. Callie meets new people, learns of new ways of trying to deal with the Change, briefly feels like life may actually go ok. Poor Callie.
There are more women in this novel than I remember from the first, but that may just be my memory; certainly Callie was moving relatively quickly, so she met a lot of people but they haven't all stuck in my mind. She doesn't meet that many of her own age, but that makes sense in the context of where she is. There's one person that really sticks with me, because of his name: Dr Omelas. If you know Ursula Le Guin's work, that may give you a slight idea about the sort of thing he's involved with... if you have no idea what I'm referring to, don't worry, it won't affect your enjoyment of the story!
If you enjoyed The Silent Invasion, you definitely want to keep reading the trilogy. Go grab this! Support Australian authors!
This is the sequel to The Silent Invasion, which I've previously reviewed. It was excellent, which is why I was excited about getting this to review, and it lived up to expectations - in terms of suspense and character, anyway. I had no idea, and no expectations, about where the plot would go; as it turned out, I wouldn't have been able to predict it even if I'd tried.
If you haven't read The Silent Invasion, you should go off and do that. All you need to know is that it's set in a very familiar Australia, except that spores from Somewhere Else have been infecting and affecting regions of the globe - starting in the tropics and moving to the temperate zones. Flora and fauna are being Changed, and so are humans. In response, in Australia, there are no-go zones and suspicions of people who might be affected. The central character, Callie, is trying to look after her little sister Gracie, who has somehow been infected. The book ends on an epic cliffhanger, hence my excitement about getting this book to resolve it. You really don't want to read this without reading the first book; but it's only around 250 pages, and it's YA so it's super fast-paced, and it's definitely worthwhile.
Spoilers for those who've read The Silent Invasion
So, that cliffhanger! I'd forgotten exactly what had happened, at the end, so I re-read the last chapter before starting this sequel - which was an excellent idea because the first page is basically the next second after the last page of the first. Which I quite like, except it does make me curious about why they are separate books. I guess 500 pages are harder to sell to a YA market? Anyway: briefly things seem like they might be okay for Callie, even though she's lost Gracie and Matt, but - as I'm sure you kinda expect - things do not eventuate into a happy garden of joy. Whatasurprise. Callie ends up heading back out of the Zone, which then becomes a 'from frying pan into fire' scenario. And then... well, it's a little spoiler, but it's a frying pan to fire to slowly boiling pot of water scenario: you know, where you don't realise initially that things aren't great until the water starts really heating up around you? Yeh. That. Callie meets new people, learns of new ways of trying to deal with the Change, briefly feels like life may actually go ok. Poor Callie.
There are more women in this novel than I remember from the first, but that may just be my memory; certainly Callie was moving relatively quickly, so she met a lot of people but they haven't all stuck in my mind. She doesn't meet that many of her own age, but that makes sense in the context of where she is. There's one person that really sticks with me, because of his name: Dr Omelas. If you know Ursula Le Guin's work, that may give you a slight idea about the sort of thing he's involved with... if you have no idea what I'm referring to, don't worry, it won't affect your enjoyment of the story!
If you enjoyed The Silent Invasion, you definitely want to keep reading the trilogy. Go grab this! Support Australian authors!
May 26, 2018
The first Book of the Change, The Silent Invasion, channelled classic YA speculative fiction like the Tripods and Tomorrow series and ended with one hell of a cliffhanger. See my earlier review on Goodreads.
The Buried Ark picks up the action immediately after the end of Book 1. Callie is in the Zone and penetrates deeper into the nightmarish landscape with her less than trustworthy companion. The people that exist there are terribly altered. Author James Bradley is clearly riffing on The Invasion of The Bodysnatchers but manages to turn it into something darker, which is no mean feat.
Of course the deeper horror of the Books of the Change is that the Zone is a corollary for the climate change we see accelerating around us, and which is turning our ecosystem into something just as inhospitable. It's a truth the young readers of these books will have to confront in the too-near future. Speculative fiction often deals with what is happening in the real world today, and Callie is the perfect avatar for the upcoming generation who - we hope - will be able to solve the problems left them by so-called adults.
Within this uncomfortable framework, the action in The Buried Ark is relentless as Callie finds unwelcome truths about the Zone's denizens and herself before becoming embroiled in a plan to halt the Change with deadly consequences for everyone on the planet.
The ending of Book 2 is one of the most gutsy pieces of writing I've seen in a long time, doubling down on Book 1's cliffhanger and then some. Where Book 3 will take us, I have no idea, but I'm buckled in and ready for the ride.
The Buried Ark picks up the action immediately after the end of Book 1. Callie is in the Zone and penetrates deeper into the nightmarish landscape with her less than trustworthy companion. The people that exist there are terribly altered. Author James Bradley is clearly riffing on The Invasion of The Bodysnatchers but manages to turn it into something darker, which is no mean feat.
Of course the deeper horror of the Books of the Change is that the Zone is a corollary for the climate change we see accelerating around us, and which is turning our ecosystem into something just as inhospitable. It's a truth the young readers of these books will have to confront in the too-near future. Speculative fiction often deals with what is happening in the real world today, and Callie is the perfect avatar for the upcoming generation who - we hope - will be able to solve the problems left them by so-called adults.
Within this uncomfortable framework, the action in The Buried Ark is relentless as Callie finds unwelcome truths about the Zone's denizens and herself before becoming embroiled in a plan to halt the Change with deadly consequences for everyone on the planet.
The ending of Book 2 is one of the most gutsy pieces of writing I've seen in a long time, doubling down on Book 1's cliffhanger and then some. Where Book 3 will take us, I have no idea, but I'm buckled in and ready for the ride.
August 13, 2023
Callie is frightened and haunted. The man standing in front of her looks and sounds like her father, but he died. She is being chased, wanted, and her ‘father’ offers to save her. Her sister and brother, Gracie and Matt, are gone caught by The Change. She’s all alone and decides to go with her father.
He took her to the university where he worked and invented a vaccine to stop the worse parts of The Change. Callie becomes increasingly suspicious and realises that something has happened to her father. The thing in front of her is a copy of her father, not the real thing.
She runs and is chased and chased—danger around every corner. Finally captured, she wakes in an underground community, saving the world. What does it mean ‘save the world?’ What happened to Callie?
I enjoyed the exploration of evil. Humans doing bad things and the just-as-evil response to it.
Recommended for readers aged ten years or more.
He took her to the university where he worked and invented a vaccine to stop the worse parts of The Change. Callie becomes increasingly suspicious and realises that something has happened to her father. The thing in front of her is a copy of her father, not the real thing.
She runs and is chased and chased—danger around every corner. Finally captured, she wakes in an underground community, saving the world. What does it mean ‘save the world?’ What happened to Callie?
I enjoyed the exploration of evil. Humans doing bad things and the just-as-evil response to it.
Recommended for readers aged ten years or more.
December 2, 2019
This is the second book in The Changed trilogy, and picks up right where The Silent Invasion finished. Callie discovers that before he was Changed, her father had made scientific advances that may have a huge impact on the future. This is another action packed, YA, dystopian novel, with a subtle environmental message, and a thrilling cliff-hanger ending. No word on book three yet, so hold off if you need instant closure.
December 6, 2018
Oh please let there be a book 3! It can't end like this!
January 3, 2019
A gripping continuation of the series. I look forward to the next instalment and am loving the Australian dystopian stuff coming through!
January 27, 2019
This book was meh. The first third was SO good but then it got very boring
April 27, 2025
Fantastic second book of the series. a few twists and a cliffhanger at the end to set up book three nicely. Can't wait to get stuck into that one.
December 10, 2020
Where's book 3!!??
Read
July 26, 2018Callie is deep in the Zone - exposed, broken and alone. Without her little sister Gracie. Without Matt, the boy she loves.
But when she stumbles upon a secret - hidden deep within herself - she realises that she holds the key to defeating the Change. But the Change know this too and they will stop at nothing to capture her.
Fleeing from the officers of Quarantine, and the pervasive Change, Callie finds refuge in the unlikeliest of places. Only to find that she is in more danger than ever before.
But when she stumbles upon a secret - hidden deep within herself - she realises that she holds the key to defeating the Change. But the Change know this too and they will stop at nothing to capture her.
Fleeing from the officers of Quarantine, and the pervasive Change, Callie finds refuge in the unlikeliest of places. Only to find that she is in more danger than ever before.
Read
February 4, 2019This book is an entry in the 2018 Aurealis Awards, for which I am a judge. Any review will be withheld until the results of the awards are announced.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews