Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror (2006)

Editors Angela Challis & Shane Jiraiya Cummings
Publisher Brimstone Press
Length 240 pages
Genre Anthology
Blurb The Dark Age is Here
Country

Talk us through it

The first of Brimstone Press's semi regular looks at the state of dark fiction in Australia kicks off with a solid anthology highlighting what went down in 2005. Besides an excellent introduction to the state of play in 2005 by our rampaging Editors you get twelve original stories by Australian and Kiwi Authors. There was at least one kiwi in there right? But that's not all, for no extra charge you also receive four non-fiction articles covering various then, and quite possibly now, topical issues. And in case that's not enough short Contributor biographies round out festivities.

About the only thing missing, besides a set of steak knives and a block of flats in Tassie, are rundowns on the various awards for dark literature in this part of the World. I'm not complaining over here you understand, and sure as hell we should be adding that sort of thing to ScaryMinds so who am I to point the bone. But I must admit to missing that section of Brimstone's excellent yearly jaunt into deeper darker waters.

Let's crack into it and see what delights Angela and Shane have in store for us.

Review

"Did he find his beloved husband knifed to the bone?" - Marla

A quick glance at the contents page should have most readers satisfied that they are in for a good time with this collection. Lyn Battersby, Kaaron Warren, Paul Haines, Chuck McKenzie, Martin Livings, Robert Hood, and James Doig immediately leaped off the page at me. Talk about a line up, it's like discovering a whole new experience on a Sunday morning, whatever the hell that means. Apologises to the other Authors in the collection, I'm pretty limited by being out of the genre, at least when it comes to writers, for the past seven or so years. There's a whole bunch of new kids on the dark genre block, and another reason for shouting Brimstone a beer for helping to get me up to speed with their anthologies of mass consumption. For anyone wanting a crash course in horror lit down under, hit the Brimstone site and order yourself up the three volumes thus far published in the Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror series.

The collection kicks off with an in depth look at the horror writing scene Down Under in 2005. Various magazines with a vent toward horror receive mention, Anthologies published in the year are given space, and Author short story collections are listed with special mention of volumes by Kaaron Warren, Stephen Dedman, Lucy Sussex, and Chuck McKenzie. What amounts to an essay finishes with comments on markets outside Australia that have published our Authors during 2005. I believe it's the Editors eye to detail in covering the local scene that makes the Brimstone anthologies must have books for both dark genre readers and writers. I also noted a few books Scary Minds hasn't managed to add to the review queue as yet, clearly I'm going to have to remedy that situation before we get much older. A Dedman collection, hell yeah I'm all over that one.

The stand out stories for mine in Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror (2006) were, in chronological order, The Memory of Breathing by Lyn Battersby that takes a unique view to the zombie story, Fresh Young Widow Kaaron Warren's award winning tale that constructs a fully featured alternative society, Lee Battersby knocks one out of the ball park with his shaggy dog tale Pater Familias, Eight-Beat Bar is a classic Chuck McKenzie yarn full of humour but spouting dark edges, and Martin Livings rounds out the fiction with a solid effort in Hooked that slips into the murky waters of crime.

The Brimstone Editors seem to have their horrordars on when it comes to picking some seriously good content for the collection.

Added sauce to the collection are five non-fiction pieces that are on the whole informative and well worth the time reading. Robert Hood's excellent essay on the zombie sub genre The State of the Zombie Film is a well received inclusion, as is James Doig's informative Horror Literature and Censorship in Australia that gives a historic perspective to a pretty divisive subject. That's the sort of thing Scary Minds should be working on, but alas we lack the time to do anything approaching detailed research. Worth mentioning also is David Levell's look at the sorry state of Australian horror cinema The Outback Bites Back. Australians as a whole seem predisposed to view Hollywood movies rather than our own home grown ones when it comes to the dark genre

The collection closes its pages with short Biographies of the various Writers included. I'm totally up for this section as it's an easy way to check out various Authors who have impressed and most importantly includes web urls to Author sites. So if you really like a certain Writer you can easily track down more of their work without having to trouble yourself with a search engine. It's like Angela and Shane are letting their fingers do the walking and we simply get to be more lazy than normal. Actually it's all very time saving, a vital point in our modern fast paced environment.

Overall Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror (2006) is a well rounded introduction to the dark genre as practiced in this part of the world and maintains the high standard Brimstone Press have set themselves. I found the actual book to be pretty tactile and easy to read on public transport, a major plus for me as I seem to spend half the day travelling on various trains between Newcastle and Sydney. The print is easy to read and the book can be digested in bite sized chunks for those with limited reading windows.

Luis Royo supplied the intriguing cover artwork that rounded out a stylish edition to my bookshelf. A few people have asked what we do with our review copies of books; I tend to slot them into a bookcase with a view to taking them down sometime in the future to read at leisure and not having to worry about a review.

I had a pretty happy time reading the collection and actually re-read a few pieces here or there that I had already been exposed to in other collections. There are a number of outstanding stories that really nail this book for me, and I was more than happy to have some of the non-fiction included for current and future reference. I was already a fan of Brimstone's yearly round up via the third book in the series but am now in the pre-order and damned the torpedos frame of mind. Thankfully I've got the second volume in my review stack so hopefully that'll get me through to the fourth book's release. Don't be holding out on us Brimstone!

Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror (2006) is available from Brimstone Press and a number of other websites that stock quality Australian dark fiction. Currently the team at Brimstone are offering a deal on the first two volumes in the series so I would get an order happening sooner rather than later. Actually I'll be hitting the Brimstone site myself in the coming weeks as there's a few books I'm yet to sign on board with.

ScaryMinds Rates this read as ...

Excellent stuff, this is must have material for horror fans.