The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection (ed by Rob Gerrand, Black Inc, $39.95 pb, ISBN 1863953019, December) ****

Black Inc’s ‘Best Australian’ series—short stories, essays, sports writing and now poetry—have become an annual staple. This massive anthology is a rather different beast—a 50-year survey of a genre in which Australian authors are still very well represented, but arguably not as well known as they should be: science fiction. Short stories and novellas have been the proving ground of sci-fi authors since the earliest days. This collection brings together 30 stories from a range of authors: names long forgotten by all but fans and researchers (Norma Hemming, Wynne N Whiteford); early efforts from now-established authors (Paul Collins, Greg Egan, Lucy Sussex); and a surprise in the form of a 1979 story by one Peter Carey. While there are spaceships, strange machines, time travel and aliens aplenty, what I found particularly entertaining was the way that many of these stories draw on such a variety of other genres: detective fiction, soap opera, vampire tales, even Aboriginal mythology. In his introduction, editor Rob Gerrand expresses the hope that the collection ‘should appeal even to those who say they don’t like science fiction.’ I believe it will, but it may need to be placed in their hands first.

Tim Coronel is AB&P’s assistant editor

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2004, Thorpe-Bowker