Beyond the Labyrinth

by Gillian Rubinstein

A challenging, mesmerising young adult novel that brings role-playing dice games, the nuclear nightmare, a phantom graffiti artist and a curious alien anthropologist together in a remote beachside town. A Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for Older Readers, Beyond the Labyrinth is a devastating exploration of chance, fate, and love.

Life is difficult enough for Brenton. He can’t get on with his parents, his younger brother is overtaking him in every way and now twelve-year-old Victoria must come and live with them too. Together they meet a stranger on the beach, speaking an unknown language and carrying bewildering technology. This turbulent, powerful novel follows Brenton as he loses himself in his beloved role playing games where the fantasy dangerously shadows real life.

Beyond the Labyrinth won the Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year Award for Older Readers in 1989, and in 1990 it won the South Australian Festival National Children's Book Award and was shortlisted for the Alan Marshall Prize.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Australia, Childrens, Friendship

219 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1989

About the author

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_...

Also works under the pen name Lian Hearn

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Australian young adult novels I cross paths with just get weirder and weirder. It started with The Museum of Mary Child, with its hairpin-curve plot twists. Then things got even stranger when I read The Paradise Trap with its mishmash of . . . everything. At that point I thought, "Ok, these must just be the two weirdest YA books ever produced by Australian authors, and it must be just a coincidence that they are the only two YA books by Australian authors that I've ever read." But then I read Beyond the Labyrinth--which was even weirder--and now I don't know what to think. Is every YA author in Australia on acid? Is it because they're upside down all the time, living in the southern hemisphere, and all their blood has congealed in their heads? I don't know what they're doing over there, but it's working. Beyond the Labyrinth is a suspenseful tale of an alien encounter written in the style of sci-fi-realism. It's well-written and strange, and I'm looking forward to reading another Rubinstein book my fiance brought home from the library.

[Anna Hepworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What starts out as an all too tedious story of sibling rivalry and uncomfortable family dynamics into which an additional teenager is dropped becomes a gripping commentary on the paranoia of the 1980s and the nature of reality, all wrapped in a time travel and first contact narrative.

Some of the family interactions feel a little larger than life, and yet all too realistic for the way that teenagers can view the world in dramatic set pieces.

The four part structure of the story works well, particularly the final section, where the choose-your-own adventure theme that has threaded through the rest of the story becomes foregrounded, such that the ending is both definitive and unstated.

Rubinstein has managed to work the theme of alienation masterfully, with multiple characters used to explore this idea -- what does it take to be alien?

[Emkoshka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember a huge deal of controversy about this book when it was first published (1988!) because it had serious swear words in it, including the phrase "f-ing native". I was too young to read it back then and was too enamoured of Space Demons anyway, but I knew I'd get to it someday. It's striking to read it now as a 41-year-old. The depiction of Australian adolescence is raw and real and covers so many seemingly untouchable subjects in YA, including teenage sex, menstruation, suicidal ideation, racism, chauvinism. I thought the appeal to the reader to roll the dice to decide the fate of the characters was a brilliant ending, very reminiscent of the beloved Choose Your Own Adventure books of my childhood. The sophistication of the issues discussed — the threat of nuclear war, colonisation and Indigenous dispossession, identity and belonging, mental health, existentialism, animal rights — outstrips most things being written for children and teenagers today.

[Sarah Thornton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new take on colonisation, war, gender politics and domestic abuse with the sweet tang of choose your own adventure nostalgia.

I'm glad I didn't read this in the 90's but it's a powerful piece.

The phantom artist was dope.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread this fave from 1988. Yes it is dated but the central themes are timeless and I love the opportunity to roll the dice to decide the ending.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six and under, I write this. Over six, I do not write.

A good book, love how its ending is dependent on chance.

[Anne Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this after many years because I’d just got a new (new for me that is) edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and was poring over the trivia in the footnotes. This was Theodore Silverstein’s translation. In the footnotes, I discovered a curious item: in the Middle Ages, labyrinths were called Julians or Gillians.

The lightbulb at the back of the brain went on.

Now I’m always on the lookout for authors whose names have a deep resonance with the themes of their writing. It's a major aspect of my own book, God's Poetry. So when I realised Gillian Rubinstein is obsessed with labyrinths and mazes in her stories, I had to go out and find a copy of Beyond the Labyrinth to refresh my memory of the details.

This was a really interesting book in the light of one of my other interests: reading 'inside' or 'outside' the text - being a participant in the story or a viewer of it. I happen to like stories that I can get into the skin of the characters.

I never quite got fused with the narrative in this one and it wasn’t the writing, which was excellent. The point of view was always at just a slight distance so that I felt I wasn’t part of the story, just looking on.

Towards the end, it was apparent that this was exactly the reaction I was supposed to have as a reader.

At the end of the third last chapter, the narrative suddenly turns to address the reader and asks them to make a choice. Throw the dice and depending on their fall, discover what happens next. Cute and quite effective device to cover the two endings given in the following chapters.

[Kal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huh... no one's reviewed this. I should get around to it some day... but for now I'll just say that it's worth reading just for the ending, which is really different, not just plot-wise, but also structurally.

[Michelle White]

This book would be cool to read because it covers archieology. I think student's would enjoy it alot. I got it from IUS Library.

[Matthew Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read. I particularly liked the portrayal of family life which came across as very authentic.

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This was seriously great! Not at all what I was expecting, and I'm really annoyed at myself for not deciding to reading it sooner.