Year’s Best Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy

Bill Congreve & Michelle Marquardt (Eds)

2008


A fairly uneven (aren’t they all?) collection of shorts. The two big ‘name’ authors, Egan and Nix, deliver terrific tales, as does Adam Browne with his story, but the rest are variable – they may not have satisfied simply because they were in genres I’m not a fan of (there’s certainly variety here!). In all, a nice collection, with an Acknowledgements section featuring lots of good collection and anthology recommendations. I’d like to get my hands on the others in the series.

Story and Author

Tags/Hub Areas

Therapeutic Tags

Personal Rating

Glory by Greg Egan

First contact, alien archaeology, war conflict, the Amalgam series, seeker-spreader civilizations

Peace, eternal knowledge, transcendence

*****

An Account of an Experiment by Adam Browne

Middle Ages, monks, religion, language of God, mathematics, tyrant

Compassion, kindness, transcendence, defiance

*****

Toother by Terry Dowling

Horror, murder, teeth extraction

Resolution

***

Cracks by Trent Jamieson

New Weird, funeral, ancestral spirits, communication with the dead

Release, liberation

****

Mist and Murder by Lucy Sussex

Detective, murder, ghosts, Ceres, Victoriana, steampunk, meta fiction, Sherlock Holmesian

Solution, justice

****

Special Perceptions by Richard Harland

Horror, madness, alternate realms, poet, liminal spaces

Intuition

***

A Lady of Edestan by Cat Sparks

Fantasy, oppressive paternal society

Escape, women’s rights

**

John Wayne by Ben Peek

New weird, alternate history, New York, communists, red scare, assassination, time travel portal

Conservative politics, radical politics

***1/2

The Dark and What It Said by Rick Kennett

Horror, ghost car, Australian outback, snakes

Facing fears

**

The Jeweller of Second-Hand Roe by Anna Tambour

Second hand food, steampunk, new weird

Family, self sacrifice

***

Domine by Rjurik Davidson

Alpha Centauri, time dilation, musician, cyberpunk, crumbling, stratified future society

Family

**

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again by Garth Nix

Fantasy, evil gods, deicide, adventurers, Pinocchio, living puppet, arcane magic, duels

Friendship, heroism, duty

****1/2