McAlpine, Rachel
Entry updated 4 May 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1940- ) New Zealand author, poet and playwright, active as a poet since 1974 with a first collection appearing in the following year. She began to publish prose of genre interest with her first novel The Limits of Green (1985), a Near Future tale tinged with Magic Realism, whose two Ecology-minded protagonists work against the industrial complex whose Nuclear-Energy power stations are perceived as dangerous sources of radioactive Pollution and are ultimately deactivated by "mind power". A second Utopian novel, Running Away from Home (1987), returns to the future setting of the first and was regarded as more successful in terms of pace and narrative energy. McAlpine's genre poem "Satellites" (in Selected Poems coll 1988) was showcased in Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand (coll 2009) edited by Tim Jones and Mark Pirie. [DRL]
Rachel Phyllis McAlpine [née Taylor]
born Fairlie, New Zealand: 24 February 1940
works (highly selected)
- The Limits of Green (Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin, 1985) [pb/]
- Running Away from Home (Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin, 1987) [pb/]
collections
- Selected Poems (Wellington, New Zealand: Mallinson Rendel Publishers, 1988) [poetry: coll: pb/]
links
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