A recent acquisition from the Amazon.com Vine program, to read and review.

Reviewing a collection of short stories is always a challenge. Each story is self-contained and unrelated to the others, except for the theme of the collection, which in this case is that all the authors are from Australia. Which in turn means that it is difficult to rate the collection as a whole. Having said that, this is a good book. All of the stories in this collection are good and some of them are excellent. While these stories are all described on the cover as "speculative fiction", that umbrella covers a "LOT" of ground, as evidenced by the diversity of thse stories. There are stories here that clearly qualify as "hard" science-fiction (including a previously unpublished story by the late A. Bertram Chandler, one of the masters of the "Golden Age" of science fiction), while others blur the lines between fantasy, science fiction and horror. Many of these stories use Australian settings to good effect (such as "The Lanes of Camberwell" and "Undead Camels Ate Their Flesh"), while others tell stories that are rooted in Australian history ("The Jacaranda Wife" comes to mind). All the stories are interesting, providing glimpses into a variety of worlds, many of which I wouldn't want to visit any other way. With thirty-five stories in the collection, there's sure to be something in this book for almost anyone who enjoys "speculative fiction".

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I noticed one of my supervisors checking this book out before I finished it, so I've passed it on to him to read.

My supervisor enjoyed this on his long train rides to and from the office. He gave it back to me today, and now it's ready to pass on to someone else.

ResQgeek gave this to me and KateKintail at the Random House Book Fair at Carroll County College in Westminster, MD, today. Kate and I talked it over and decided I was more likely to read it first, so I'll pass it along to her when I'm finished.

A surprisingly consistent collection of quality fantasy stories by Australian authors. I haven't read much Australian lit - and indeed had only heard of one of the authors (Garth Nix) - but this was marvelous. Only a couple of the stories were boring and/or needlessly unpleasant to read. (I don't object to unpleasant reading as a general rule, but when it's unpleasant for no reason I feel manipulated.) The range is broad, from angels to zombies, humor to tragedy, modern Australia to the Garden of Eden. All in all a great sampler.

Saving this for KateKintail.

This book looks fantastic. I love short story collections and I love Australian stories and am interested to see where these go.

Thank you for giving me the change to read this!