Pip Adam, author of Audition, a book described as part science-fiction, part social commentary. Photo / Rebecca McMillan Photography
Pip Adam, author of Audition, a book described as part science-fiction, part social commentary. Photo / Rebecca McMillan Photography
To celebrate the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival, we’ve teamed up with some New Zealand publishers to showcase some of the authors who will be on stage over the festival weekend.
This extract is from Audition by Pip Adam, a book described as part science-fiction, part social commentary.
Adam will appearin two events, Space: Nature Writing’s New Frontier? on Friday, May 16 at 5.30pm, and Mariana Enriquez on Saturday, May 17 at 1pm.
In The Space Craft
“I’m in the basketball court,” Alba says. “Wedged between the floor and the ceiling.”
“I feel like there used to be more room,” says Stanley. “Like before this. I feel like I want to say, This is a beautiful ship.”
“I want to say,” Alba says. “They have done a really nice job of building this … I want to say, spacecraft.”
“I want to say Audition,” Drew says. “I feel like I want to say, They have done a good job of building this beautiful spacecraft called Audition and we are all lucky to be inside her.”
“And we only need to whisper to say it,” Alba whispers. “Whisper it into the walls because Audition hears us and turns our noise into speed and steering…”
“… and air and gravity.”
“You can hear me and I’m only whispering,” Stanley whispers.
“We all are,” Drew whispers.
“We all are,” whispers Alba. “And it is perfect. They did a good job of building the beautiful spacecraft Audition.”
“I think we all think we are going to die,” Stanley says.
“But really,” Alba says. “What would we know?”
“It would be better if we took a moment to be really grateful for this beautiful spacecraft which used to be so perfect for us. Which was built especially for us. When we got too big for Earth.”
“We were big on Earth,” Drew says.
“Too big,” Alba says.
“And now we’re too big for the spacecraft Audition,” Stanley says.
Audition by Pip Adam
“I think we’re just not looking at it right,” Drew says. “I think really, we’re stupid and probably, there’s nothing wrong with the ship and the circumstances we find ourselves in.”
“Bent over.”
“Painfully trapped.”
“A bird in an egg,” Stanley says.
“A foetus in a uterus,” Alba says.
“Waiting for something magnificent,” Stanley says.
“Also,” Alba says. “We might still be growing.”
“Also,” Drew says. “Gravity keeps humans small.”
“Not us. Not all of us in this ship. Earth’s gravity did nothing for us.”
“We were inhumanly tall on Earth,” Stanley says. “The classroom was outside – the roof was the sky. We towered over the teachers.”
“But,” Drew says, “Earth’s gravity, that seemed to have abandoned us so completely, cared infinitely more deeply than the spacecraft Audition’s fake gravity powered by the sounds of us living.”
“Why do we have a basketball court?” Stanley says.
“To play basketball?” Alba says.
“There are eighteen of us on the ship,” Stanley says. “And five in a basketball team. Is the basketball court even for playing basketball?”
“Plus reserves,” Drew says.
“But still,” Stanley says. “Even a child could see this would happen.”
“The growing again?” Alba says.
“The fast growing again,” Stanley says.
“You can feel the extent of the ship if you feel for it,” Drew says. “There are eighteen of us on a ship the size of a small city. There’s room for 10,000 normal-sized humans, 20,000 at a pinch. We were big. But not 1000 times bigger than a normal-sized human.”
“Even a child could see it would happen if we stopped talking,” Stanley says. “That if the gravity of a planet could only barely keep us at bay, in the engineered gravity of a spacecraft powered by sound if we stopped talking we would grow again – fast. But what would I know.”
“The people who built the ship did an amazing job.”
“Fuck.”
“Are you all right?” Stanley asks.
“I tried to sigh,” Alba says. “But that banged my head into the roof.”
Pip Adam, author of Audition, a book described as part science-fiction, part social commentary. Photo / Rebecca McMillan Photography
“We really do, now, have the strength to destroy the whole beautiful ship and now we have it we don’t want it,” Stanley says. “And then where would we be? If we put an end to the spacecraft Audition?”
“Maybe better,” Alba says. “Maybe better to die in space than to grow and grow until your body explodes the ship anyway and you die in space anyway.”
“But maybe the ship will hold and our lungs will be crushed as our bodies run out of room finally. Us and the others.”
“Maybe, somewhere else in the ship, one of us is already out of control – having made a decision – on the verge of pushing the walls of the ship out into the darkness of space.”
“Shh,” Drew says. “Listen.”
“Sound travels differently now we’re all stilled and jammed up into corners and walls. It seems to be enough to keep the ship going but it’s also muted.”
“Our bodies are so much bigger, they’re dampening all the metallic that the ship used to make. All the high-pitch and ting of our huge boots when we walked down the corridors – the swish of the doors has stopped too.”
“How long has it been?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It started slowly,” Alba says. “Like, these things always do – aided by a healthy hope that it isn’t happening at all, a hope that kept everything at bay, made orderly decisions possible and then – it happened very quickly.
“All of us seeing all at once that all of us were growing again, very fast and before all of our eyes.”
“Like the steady roll of a train coming into a station getting clearer as it gets closer, as it gets bigger – so apparent in its inability to stop.”
“And we all dropped everything we were holding or doing or controlling and ran, in all directions towards wider, more open spaces. Some of us pushing others of us out of the way.”
“We were giant on Earth and it was terrifying – for everyone,” Alba says, “But not like this.”
“We could see each other growing. In front of us,” Drew says. “The beautiful ship Audition was built big to accommodate us but not now. Now we are twice as big as we were when we arrived.”
“Three times.”
“Six cubits and a span, on Earth,” Drew says. “At least eighteen feet tall now.”
“I had room in the basketball court to start with,” Alba says. “So much room I thought maybe, we’d all overreacted. But now, I’m bent over from the part of my back that is just below my shoulders. My knees are sitting on either side of my head. I’m pretty sure, maybe, that something inside me is broken, or disconnected, or at the very least cut off from circulation so it will need to be amputated, if I ever get medical help. But what would I know?”
Extract from Audition by Pip Adam. Published by Te Herenga Waka University Press, out now. Pip Adam will be appearing at the Auckland Writers Festival, which runs from May 13-18. For more information and tickets, visit writersfestival.co.nz.
