Singing the Dogstar Blues is a 1998 young-adult science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel by Alison Goodman

Alison Goodman

Alison Goodman is an Australian writer based in Melbourne.Goodman came to attention with her debut novel Singing the Dogstar Blues...

. It follows the story of Joss who is a student of time travel and has been given the task of being the study partner of the alien student Mavkel.

Background

Singing the Dogstar Blues was first published in Australia on 28 August 1998 by HarperCollins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

 in trade paperback format. In 1999 it was released as an audiobook by Louis Braille Books and has been released in the United States and United Kingdom in 2003 and 2004 respectively. Singing the Dogstar Blues was released in Germany under the title of Galaxy Blues in 2003 and in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 as Blues voor Sirius in 2008. Singing the Dogstar Blues won the 1999 Aurealis Award for best young-adult novel and was a short-list nominee for Aurealis Award for best science fiction novel

Aurealis Award for best science fiction novel

The Aurealis Awards are presented annually by the Australia-based Chimaera Publications and SpecFaction NSW to published works in order to "recognise the achievements of Australian science fiction, fantasy, horror writers"...

of the same year.

Synopsis

Joss gets partnered with an alien, Mavkel, who has somehow survived the usually fatal loss of his linked partner Kelmav. She gradually realises that she is expected to link with him, as she is the most open of all the students. They travel back in time to find out why and discover it was because the time-travelling Mavkel accidentally contaminated her as a pre-implantation embryo.