Set in a near-future Aotearoa, Milk Island imagines a New Zealand where dairy, nationalism, media spectacle and biotechnology have fused into something grotesque.

Rhydian Thomas builds a satirical dystopia around the country's most iconic industry, following characters caught inside a culture where journalism has become performance, politics bleeds into entertainment, and corporate mythology shapes national identity as much as history ever did. The novel is steeped in specifically New Zealand references, but its concerns—manufactured consent, ecological collapse and the commodification of identity—travel well beyond them.

Thomas writes with a deliberately heightened style, shifting between absurd humour, horror and political satire without settling comfortably into any one register. The result recalls the speculative social criticism of writers like Will Self or early J.G. Ballard while remaining distinctly local in its voice and landscape. An unusual and ambitious debut for readers interested in contemporary dystopian fiction that interrogates media, environmental crisis and the stories nations tell about themselves.

First edition paperback published by Lawrence & Gibson, Wellington, 2023. Light shelf wear to covers with a clean, unmarked interior.