Published on: 4 August 2014

Hal ColebatchHal Colebatch (1962) has had a swag of variegated books published in the past few months – quite possibly an Australian record. 
Australia’s Secret War: How Unions Sabotaged Our Troops in World War II (Quadrant Books, Sydney, publishers), a history of wartime strikes and sabotage on Australia’s wharves and coalfields, has sold many thousands of copies and gone into its fifth edition in a few months; Fragile Flame (Acashic publishers, Perth), is a history of the uniqueness and vulnerability of Western technological civilization, an examination of how it alone rose above animal power, slave labour and sails, and the threats to it;
 
Time Machine Troopers (Acashic, publishers, Perth) is a sequel to HG Wells’s science fiction classic, The Time Machine, and has been described as “better than Wells”.
 
Counterstrike (Acashic publishers, Perth) is a sailing-romance-political adventure set off a fictionalised WA coast in the near future;
 
Treasure Planet (Baen Books publisher, USA) is a retelling of Treasure Island in space in the 24th Century.
 
The Modest Member (Bert Kelly Research Centre, South Australia) is a biography of politician and anti-tariff campaigner ‘Bert’ Kelly; The Age of Revolution (Wagtail books, Victoria) is a chapbook of poetry.
 
In addition, Hal’s collection of poetry, The Light River (Connor Court, NSW) won the WA Premier’s poetry prize.