Heffernan, John
Entry updated 23 February 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1949- ) Australian farmer and prolific author of children's books who began to publish work of sf interest with the Young Adult novel CBD (2000), in which the received history of the titular twenty-third-century City built among the ruins of Sydney in Post-Holocaust Australia is at odds with actual diaries that have survived from the mid-twenty-first century; the girl protagonist becomes determined to escape the city and learn the truth (see Conceptual Breakthrough). This tale opened the Mythos series whose second book is GBH (2003). Heffernan has also contributed to the Fantasy Shared World of the Quentaris Chronicles (see Paul Collins) with The Mind Master (2004), and published the standalone Sykie (2006), in which the eponymous heroine's great powers of imagination open the door to a fantasy world where companions and a quest await.
The fifteen-book Battle Boy sequence of short Young Adult novels as by Charlie Carter makes use of repeated Time Travel to plunge its young hero into War-related action on famous historical battlefields, beginning with the 1587 naval Battle of Cadiz in Open Fire (2009 chap): "Mission objective: collect [Sir Francis] Drake's DNA for the Warrior Gene Bank". Time travel is also central to the two-volume Omega Squad sequence comprising Time Thieves (2012) and History Hackers (2012), again as by Charlie Carter. "Carter" delivers slickly reliable sf entertainment to his teenage audience; genre works published as Heffernan are more thoughtful. [DRL]
John Heffernan
born Sydney, New South Wales: 15 June 1949
works (highly selected)
series
Mythos
- CBD (Hunters Hill, New South Wales: Scholastic Australia / Margaret Hamilton Books, 2000) [Mythos: pb/Matt Cosgrove]
- GBH (Gosford, New South Wales: Scholastic Australia / Margaret Hamilton Books, 2003) [Mythos: pb/Matt Cosgrove]
Battle Boy
- Open Fire (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2009) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Red Devil Down (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2009) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Destroy Troy (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2009) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Bloodaxe (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2009) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Aztec Attack (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2010) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Battle Bust-Up (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2010) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Vampire Virus (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2010) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Chariot Charge (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2010) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- White War (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2010) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Caveman Bash (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2010) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Super Soldier (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2011) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Sky Wars (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2011) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Samurai Secrets (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2011) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Black Prince (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2011) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
- Underwater War (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2011) as by Charlie Carter [chap: Battle Boy: pb/]
Omega Squad
- Time Thieves (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2012) as by Charlie Carter [Omega Squad: pb/]
- History Hackers (Sydney, New South Wales: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2012) as by Charlie Carter [Omega Squad: pb/]
individual titles
- The Mind Master (Melbourne, Victoria: Lothian Publishing Co, 2004) [Quentaris Chronicles: pb/Mark McBride and Grant Gittus]
- Sykie (Sydney, New South Wales: Hachette Livre Australia/Lothian Books, 2006) [pb/Jeremy Reston]
links
previous versions of this entry