The Waterboys

Conway inhabits an apocalyptic future in a continent caught up in a violent struggle for control of water. He is a whitefulla whose heart and spiritual connections are black.

On the run from the Water Board flunkies who hate him but need his water divining skills to survive, Conway dreams his way back to the arrival of Europeans in Western Australia when Captain Charles Fremantle chooses to throw off the mantle of Empire and join the Nyoongar people.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

‘This is a fine example of speculative fiction. Similar to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four it takes a contemporary theme and creates a world both familiar and different to our own. This is a finely written book enjoyable to read. Four stars.’ Books+Publishing

‘This is a gripping episodic and well-defined novel from a writer who has an evident love of his land. Four stars.’ Good Reading Magazine

‘Docker triumphs in The Waterboys with his audacious reordering of history.’ Overland

‘Part revisionist history part dystopian thriller The Waterboys moves along at a swift clip thanks to Docker’s imaginative plotting and deft use of language.’ West Australian

‘… a wild strange adventure a vital fictional engagement with indigenous culture and a cheeky foray into the politics of Western Australian secession.’ The Age

‘… the story quickly becomes filled with action as Conway fights the insidious Water Board.’ Sun Herald

‘Docker isn’t the first writer to imagine our founding fathers might have spilled a lot less blood and wreaked a lot more good but the scenes he conjures up on the banks of the Swan are a tantalising vision of what might have been.’ Sydney Morning Herald

’The Waterboys is a fist-clenching and nail-biting re-imagining of Australian history; what is what could have been or what really was.’ Howard Pedersen author of Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance