Readers: Books and Conversation with David Dyer

David Dyer is an Australian author whose two works of fiction have taken real life historical events and imagined other perspectives or outcomes. His first The Midnight Watch, is a novel about the ship that witnessed the Titanic’s distress rockets but failed to respond. 

He then turned his attention to space and his latest novel is This Kingdom of Dust. It reimagines the Apollo 11 mission to the moon but with a darker twist - what if Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins had been able to get to the moon but couldn't get back to Earth. It is hugely impressive, intelligent, and illuminates the social upheaval of America in the 1960s.

He had the audience at the PBC monthly book night riveted with his knowledge of the space missions, his discussion of the responsibility he feels when he's writing fiction based on real people (especially astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who is 95 this year!), and how he blends his views on atheism, America, sexism and the role of journalists through his fiction.