To read the first chapter free, the PDF is available here.
In a world divided into fliers and non-fliers, how far would you go to be able to fly? How much would you sacrifice - perhaps your own child? A beautifully written and compellingly original novel of sacrifice, betrayal and love.
The dream of being able to fly is now physical reality but only the rich and powerful can afford the surgery, drugs, and gene manipulation to become fliers. Peri, a poor girl from the regions, will sacrifice anything to get her wings and join this elite but the price is higher than she could have imagined. So why then does she throw it all away?
Feel the exhilaration and terror of flight - over vertiginous skyscrapers, into wild storms and across hypnotic wilderness - in this beautiful and daringly imaginative novel that explores the limits of self-transformation.
Highly visual and sensual, this book is political, philosophical and thought-provoking about the powers we now have to direct our own evolution and design our perfect selves.
Shortlisted for the 2012 Barbara Jefferis Award
Shortlisted for Best First Fiction 2012 Ned Kelly Awards
'When We Have Wings is hence densely layered. It's smart and political, raising the kind of questions the best science fiction should raise (about ethics, about progress, about how future generations will make meaning), but it's also just damn entertaining.' — Angela Meyer, LiteraryMinded, April 2012
'This unmissable book from a strong new talent should be put at the top of your to-read list….Claire Corbett catches the exhilaration, the thrill and the dangers perfectly. I was totally immersed in this book, and the world that was created. When We Have Wings works as crime fiction, speculative fiction and literary fiction.' — Mark Harding, Shearer's Books, Jan 2012
...written in language so assured and masterly that it's easy to suspend disbelief and be taken on the journey into the clouds with the flyers, experiencing terror and exhilaration with equal force... compelling in every way... an outstanding debut. Five stars – Maryanne Hyde, Good Reading, Sept 2011
... takes the reader on an exhilarating ride. Corbett's prose has the clarity, luminosity and beauty of a well-cut diamond.... this flight of fancy deserves to soar. — Thuy On, The Weekend Australian, 30 July 2011
The flying sequences ... have a vivid, dreamlike intensity. Corbett skilfully depicts a bleak future.... The plight of her characters is gripping and often moving. — Jay Daniel Thompson, Australian Book Review, July-August 2011
a beautiful story, written with such poetic rhythm and elegance that is was almost like reading a sonnet or poem. Brilliant piece of writing. Scott Wilson — The Fringe Magazine, July 1st
Not one of the moral quandaries in this book is improbable ....This is what makes When We have Wings unsettling--the realisation that this is a metaphor for today's world….
The pages of her solo flight are truly memorable, exhilarating and terrifying.... But as with all thoughtful fiction, everything is not what it seems. Humanity is still the force that matters and endures. And it is this which gives strength and depth to this book.
— Mary Philip — The Daily Telegraph, 25 June 2011