Exile by Peter M Ball

Apocalypse Ink Productions

Exile is the first novella in what is (I believe) a trilogy, The Flotsam Series. Broadly defined, it’s urban fantasy. But I like to think of it as a whole new subgenre: Gold Coast Demon Noir.

The story follows the return of Keith to the Gold Coast (in Queensland, Australia) from sixteen years of self-imposed exile. It was self-impose exile or die in circumstances that are slowly revealed through the plot. But returning is utter lunacy and Keith knows it. The trouble is, he and his partner, Roark, really messed things up with a cult in Adelaide and returning to the Gold Coast is about the least deadly option left open.

Ball has done a great job of creating a grimy Gold Coast noir setting here and it was great to read something so thoroughly Australian, yet retaining all the great tropes of noir as we know it. Then add in the supernatural elements and it’s a heady brew of worldbuilding. Ball’s description of the Gloom and the creatures from it who inhabit people and live just beneath the fabric of society is expertly handled. The development of the plot and characters shows a writer at the top of his game. He’s also used the novella length really well for structure.

However, it’s not all rainbows – after all, what is? As far as the writing is concerned, the only real complaint I have is that it’s a novella. I know that seems strange after my comment above, but Ball writes really tightly and with great economy of language, which suits the novella well, but this story is left hanging wide open and there are all sorts of things follow up on. It’s not like the next one will be a sequel – rather a continuation. So I wonder why all three weren’t put together as a novel rather than three novellas. But let’s be honest, that’s a pretty weak complaint.

My other concern is with the publisher. The edition I read via the Kindle Store was absolutely riddled with typos, missing words and so on. This is no fault of the author, as the publisher’s job is to find and fix that stuff. So that was rather disappointing. But it’s no reason to avoid this story.

Dark, gritty, funny in places, horrible in others, this is Gold Coast Demon Noir done perfectly. Highly recommended. I’m looking forward to the next one.

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Edited by Ellen Datlow

Chizine Publications

ISBN 978-1-77148-193-9

Ellen Datlow has long been established as one of the premier editors in the horror genre. Her work and awards really speak for themselves. So when she decided to Kickstart an unthemed horror anthology with the backing of Chizine Publications, it’s no surprise that it exceeded its target in short order. The result is one of the best horror anthologies I’ve ever read.

The Table of Contents is a Who’s Who of top notch writers in the genre working today. Twenty short stories are featured and the quality is incredibly high. There’s great variety too, with some stories being all out dark horror and others a more creeping dread or twisted dark fantasy. As with any anthology, not every story will resonate with everyone. For myself, there were two yarns in particular that really didn’t hit the mark, but my taste will differ from others’, so it’s to be expected. The authors in question are very well known and lauded, so not appealing to me is no issue and I’m sure others will love their work.

I won’t review story by story, but I’ll mention the few real stand outs for me. “The Atlas of Hell” by Nathan Ballingrud, an author whose work astounds me every time I read him, was a powerfully visceral story. And it felt like the start of something much bigger. “Mount Chary Galore” by Jeffrey Ford is an amazing twist on the modern fairy tale and incredibly well realised. “Suffer Little Children” by Robert Shearman is a story of almost perfect crafting, with an incredible sense of place. “Bridge of Sighs” by Kaaron Warren is one of the creepiest stories I’ve read in years, with a really horrible cast of characters and a very macabre idea at its heart.”The Worms Crawl In,” by Laird Barron is a story that escalates beyond all expectation very quickly and further cements Barron as a teller of mythic yarns of great proportions. And finally a mention of “Shay Corsham Worsted” by Garth Nix, which was an amazing slice of something much bigger and I’d really love to know more about the monster in that story.

The book is worth the purchase price for those stories alone, in my opinion, but of course that’s not to undermine the general excellence of all the others. I really hope Datlow continues to produce more unthemed anthologies, as she has an eye for curating a dark collection that it utterly compelling. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

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Edited by Geoff Brown and A J Spedding

Cohesion Press

The publisher approached me prior to the publication of this volume and asked if I’d consider writing the Foreword for it. I said, sure, send it over and I’ll have a look. After reading the book, I was more than happy to write the Foreword. Here, as a review, I’m reprinting that Foreword.

War is hell.

Nothing puts people closer to their base state than a threat to their life. Nothing reveals their animal nature more than the desire for survival at any cost. People trained for war have to deal with these extremes time after time, surviving for a greater purpose. Or at least, one hopes so. Because survival in a personal fight can be selfish, but survival in war might mean the fate of nations, or even species. And pretty much every permutation of that kind of fight for survival is explored in the stories you’re about to read.

Don’t be fooled into thinking an anthology of military horror is just a book full of Platoon or Aliens knock-offs. In these pages, the variety of story you’ll find is staggering.

Historical and imagined, science-fictional and contemporary. Mythos, the Wild West and Special Forces. Great wars, small wars and the American Civil War. Shapeshifters and ghosts and extraterrestrial parasites. Japanese demons and supernatural special agents. Monsters large and small. Battles fought with raging gunfire and earth-shattering explosions and battles fought cold, with paper trails and subterfuge. Battles won and lost in moments and battles that stretch across aeons.

There’s great variety in story style and length too. From very short stories to novella length yarns with lots of meat ready to be stripped off their bones. This book is a fine achievement and a great example of a theme superbly explored.

You’ll enjoy all the approaches here and the great writing from both established names and emerging talents. But no matter the variety, one thing that doesn’t change from tale to tale is the underlying truth evident in every one. Lives are at risk, great stakes are being played but throughout every page we’re never allowed to forget that regardless of the nature of the enemy, the real horror is war itself.

Alan Baxter, NSW Australia, 2014

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by Simon Kurt Unsworth

PS Publishing 2014

Hardcover ,148 pages

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

The third collection by Simon Kurt Unsworth is actually his second, appearing in print later than his most recent work (the remarkable collection Quiet Houses). Thus the present book assembles eleven earlier stories penned by this talented British author who, in a few years, has managed to gain respect and acclaim in the dark fiction area.

Having greatly admired his more recent body of work, I confess I was slightly disappointed by some of the material featured in Strange Gateways. A strange mix of horror and pulp fiction, the present collection cannot be considered as a real setback, but is not certainly up to my expectations.

Again, what we have here is a bunch of old tales which, evidently, are particularly dear to the author, maybe more because of the circumstances under which they have been written (as described in the interesting Afterword) than for their intrinsic value.

Don’t get me wrong: Unsworth is always worth reading (pun intended) and the book includes three outstanding pieces that I’d like to mention.

“The Knitting Child” is a delicate, insightful tale very effectively portraying a young bride saddened by her inability to get pregnant; “Implementing the Least Desirable Solution” is a quite horrific, scaring and breathtaking tale about a murderous, impossibly strong monster getting rid of the inept scientists devoted to investigate its nature; “Mami Wata” is another powerful , memorable piece of supernatural horror, set in a mine in Zambia where a terrible secret is lurking.

Those three stories alone amply deserve the purchase of the book.

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Perfections

by Kirstyn McDermott

Published by Twelfth Planet Press

Two sisters. One wish. Unimaginable consequences.

Not all fairy tales are for children.

Perfections is the second novel from Australian writer, Kirstyn McDermott. Originally published electronic-only, it won the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel in 2013. Now reissued in print and ebook, it’s entirely worth your time to read it in whatever format you prefer.

It primarily tells the story of a family – two sisters, Antoinette and Jacqueline, and their cold, hard-hearted mother, Sally. It tells a lot more story than this, of course, but it’s one of those books that’s really hard to review without any spoilers. It’s best if every delicious morsel reveals itself as the author intended. Suffice to say that Antoinette discovers a magical ability within herself that greatly complicates everything around her, especially life for her art gallery assistant sister and distant mother.

This book is fantastic in the truest sense of the word, with the darkness of the fantasy beautifully drawn out by McDermott’s lyrical prose. She’s an excellent writer and I think she’s found a voice here far more developed than any of her other work. And the book is dark. It’s a slow and subtle horror, that reveals itself in layers. The first real bombshell hits around the halfway mark after a strong and engaging build-up and the hits keep coming after that. The characters are all beautifully realised, all the moreso for the things we learn about them as the book progresses.

If I have one complaint, it’s that McDermott shies away ever so slightly from the brutality of the end of the story. Events progress to an inevitable climax – at least, one of several potentially inevitable climaxes – yet we see it from a remove and in a kind of shorthand that hadn’t been in effect for the rest of the book, at least not for such key events. Regardless, this is an outstanding book that I can’t recommend highly enough.

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BEST NOVEL

“Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead” by Robert Hood (Wildside Press)

BEST NOVELLA OR NOVELETTE

“The Home for Broken Dolls” by Kirstyn McDermott (Caution: Contains Small Parts, Twelfth Planet Press)

BEST SHORT STORY

“Scarp” by Cat Sparks (The Bride Price, Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST COLLECTED WORK

“The Bride Price” by Cat Sparks (Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST ARTWORK

“Rules of Summer” by Shaun Tan (Hachette Australia)

BEST FAN WRITER

Sean Wallace, for body of work, including reviews in Adventures of a Bookonaut

BEST FAN ARTIST

Kathleen Jennings, for body of work.

BEST FAN PUBLICATION IN ANY MEDIUM

Galactic Chat Podcast, Sean Wright, Alex Pierce, Helen Stubbs, David McDonald and Mark Webb

BEST NEW TALENT

Zena Shapter

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

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For Edited Publication:

MIDNIGHT ECHO 9, BY GEOFF BROWN
A KILLER AMONG DEMONS, BY CRAIG BEZANT
BABY TEETH – BITE SIZED TALES OF TERROR, BY DAN RABARTS AND LEE MURRAY
STAR QUAKE 1, BY SOPHIE YORKSTON

For Collected Works:

This year, there is no shortlist. In 7 days, the winner will be announced.
(No, this makes no sense to us, either.)

For Short Fiction:

NIP, TUCK, ZIP, PLUCK, BY JOHN PAUL FITCH
FENCE LINES, BY JOANNE ANDERTON
THE NEST, BY C.S. MCMULLEN
CATERPILLARS, BY DEBBIE COWENS
THE DEAD WAY, BY JC HART

For the PAUL HAINES SHADOWS AWARD for LONG FICTION:

SOUL KILLER, BY ROBERT HOOD
THE HOME FOR BROKEN DOLLS, BY KIRSTYN MCDERMOTT
THE UNWANTED WOMEN OF SURREY, BY KAARON WARREN

For Novel:

UNDEAD KELLY, BY TIMOTHY BOWDEN
TOPSIDERS, BY SCOTT TYSON
809 JACOB STREET, BY MARTY YOUNG

Congratulations to all the nominees. The winners will be announced in 7 days.

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by Kirstyn McDermott

ISBN 978-1-922101-05-1

This book is a collection of four short stories by award-winning author, Kirstyn McDermott. There are themes here of gender and sexuality, damage and rehabilitation, but those themes never overpower the stories. It’s an excellent collection and well worth its recent Aurealis Award nomination.

McDermott is a powerful writer, evoking a great sense of place with all her work and her characters are well-drawn and fully realised. I found the writing in this collection to be a little less poetic than some of her other work, like the novel, Madigan Mine, for example, but no less impactful for that difference. And she retains her masterful use of language, the occasional phrasing that’s just so electrically right.

The four stories here are all bordering on horror and reality, skating that thin line between the real and the fantastic.

What Amanda Wants follows the trials of a counselor who has fluffed her way through actual qualifications because she has a supernatural ability to see to the very heart of people’s issues and actually, physically relieve them of those burdens. Until she is presented with Amanda, a troubled young woman whose walls are so solid, the powerful counselor can’t see anything through them.

In Horn, we have an unusual narrative broken into parts – regular storytelling, interviews, excerpts from academic papers – all slowly building the picture of a writer who hit the big time with a big fat fantasy series about warring unicorns and the problems that’s brought him. Very interesting asides into fantasy gender tropes in this story, but the format didn’t quite work for me as well as I might have hoped.

The title story, Caution: Contains Small Parts, is a poignant and disturbing horror story about a man haunted by a toy dog. He tries to get rid of it and can’t, it keeps coming back and will clearly continue to do so until he stops and works out what it wants. This is a very sad story, and powerfully written.

The final story is a long one, novelette length, I think, called The Home For Broken Dolls. This is a truly disturbing story about those realistic sex dolls that many people collect and truly obsess over. It’s told form the point of view of Jane, a woman horribly disfigured and traumatised in a moment of domestic violence, who has found peace in refurbishing damaged dolls. This story received a nomination for Best Horror Short Story in the Aurealis Awards as well as the collection as a whole getting a nod in the Best Collection category. You can see why. This is by far my favourite story in the book. McDermott does a great job in normalising the fetishes of these people, as of course, their fetish is entirely normal to them. It’s also very much on the border between literary/fantastic fiction and horror. It’s not a horror story like you’d expect, the darkness subtle and almost hidden behind the fantastic and the allegorical. But it is a truly excellent tale. And quite disturbing.

This is a great collection and a testament to McDermott’s skill. Highly recommended.

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“We are proud to present a particularly notable slate of nominees this year, showing the horror genre is strong and popular,” Rocky Wood, the HWA’s President, said.

The nominees are:

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Joe Hill – NOS4A2 (William Morrow)
Stephen King – Doctor Sleep (Scribner)
Lisa Morton – Malediction (Evil Jester Press)
Sarah Pinborough and F. Paul Wilson – A Necessary End (Thunderstorm/Maelstrom Press)
Christopher Rice – The Heavens Rise (Gallery Books)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Kate Jonez – Candy House (Evil Jester Press)
John Mantooth – The Year of the Storm (Berkley Trade)
Rena Mason – The Evolutionist (Nightscape Press)
Jonathan Moore – Redheads (Samhain Publishing)
Royce Prouty – Stoker’s Manuscript (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Patrick Freivald – Special Dead (JournalStone)
Kami Garcia – Unbreakable (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Geoffrey Girard – Project Cain (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Joe McKinney – Dog Days (JournalStone)
Cat Winters – In the Shadow of Blackbirds (Harry N. Abrams)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Ed Brubaker – Fatale Book Three: West of Hell (Image Comics)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – Alabaster: Wolves (Dark Horse Comics)
Brandon Seifert – Witch Doctor, Vol. 2: Mal Practice (Image Comics)
Cameron Stewart – Sin Titulo (Dark Horse Comics)
Paul Tobin – Colder (Dark Horse Comics)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Dale Bailey – “The Bluehole” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2013)
Gary Braunbeck – “The Great Pity” (Chiral Mad 2, Written Backwards)
Benjamin K. Ethridge – “The Slaughter Man” (Limbus, Inc., JournalStone)
Gregory Frost – “No Others Are Genuine” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct./Nov. 2013)
Greg F. Gifune – House of Rain (DarkFuse)
Rena Mason – East End Girls (JournalStone)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Michael Bailey – “Primal Tongue” (Zippered Flesh 2, Smart Rhino Publications)
Patrick Freivald – “Snapshot” (Blood & Roses, Scarlett River Press)
David Gerrold – “Night Train to Paris” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan./Feb. 2013)
Lisa Mannetti – “The Hunger Artist” (Zippered Flesh 2, Smart Rhino Publications)
John Palisano – “The Geminis” (Chiral Mad 2, Written Backwards)
Michael Reaves – “Code 666” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2013)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Fabien Adda and Fabrice Gobert – The Returned: “The Horde” (Ramaco Media I, Castelao Pictures)
Brad Falchuk – American Horror Story: Asylum: “Spilt Milk” (Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, Ryan Murphy Productions)
Bryan Fuller – Hannibal: “Apéritif” (Dino De Laurentiis Company, Living Dead Guy Productions, AXN: Original X Production, Gaumont International Television)
Daniel Knauf – Dracula: “A Whiff of Sulfur” (Flame Ventures, Playground, Universal Television, Carnival Films)
Glen Mazzara – The Walking Dead: “Welcome to the Tombs” (AMC TV)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

R.J. Cavender and Boyd E. Harris (ed.) – Horror Library: Volume 5 (Cutting Block Press)
Eric J. Guignard (ed.) – After Death… (Dark Moon Books)
Michael Knost and Nancy Eden Siegel (ed.) – Barbers & Beauties (Hummingbird House Press)
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (ed.) – The Grimscribe’s Puppets (Miskatonic River Press)
Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson (ed.) – Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror, Volume One (Grey Matter Press)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Nathan Ballingrud – North American Lake Monsters: Stories (Small Beer Press)
Laird Barron – The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and Other Stories (Night Shade Books)
James Dorr – The Tears of Isis (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories (Subterranean)
Gene O’Neill – Dance of the Blue Lady (Bad Moon Books)
S. P. Somtow – Bible Stories for Secular Humanists (Diplodocus Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan (ed.) – Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic (Fairleigh Dickinson)
Gary William Crawford (ed.) – Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror (Scarecrow Press)
William F. Nolan – Nolan on Bradbury: Sixty Years of Writing about the Master of Science Fiction (Hippocampus Press)
Jarkko Toikkanen – The Intermedial Experience of Horror: Suspended Failures (Palgrave Macmillan)
Robert H. Waugh (ed.) – Lovecraft and Influence: His Predecessors and Successors (Scarecrow Press)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Bruce Boston – Dark Roads: Selected Long Poems 1971-2012 (Dark Renaissance Books)
Helen Marshall – The Sex Lives of Monsters (Kelp Queen Press)
Marge Simon and Sandy DeLuca – Dangerous Dreams (Elektrik Milk Bath Press)
Marge Simon, Rain Graves, Charlee Jacob, and Linda Addison – Four Elements (Bad Moon Books/Evil Jester Press)
Stephanie M. Wytovich – Hysteria: A Collection of Madness (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

HWA’s voting members will now vote on this Final Ballot, with voting closing on March 31 (only Active and Lifetime Members are eligible to vote).

The Bram Stoker Awards® will be presented at the 27th annual Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet held during the World Horror Convention 2014 in Portland, Oregon, on May 10th. Purchase of tickets to both the convention and the banquet are open to the public. The awards will also be live-streamed online for those who cannot attend in person.

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The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards. The ceremony will take place April 5, 2014 in Canberra. The venue is the Great Hall, University House, Australian National University.

Doors open 7pm for drinks, ceremony begins at 8pm. Details here: http://www.aurealisawards.com/

Congratulations to all the very worthy nominees!

The 2013 Aurealis Awards Finalists are:

BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK OR GRAPHIC NOVEL

Savage Bitch by Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr (Scar Studios)

Mr Unpronounceable Adventures by Tim Molloy (Milk Shadow Books)

Burger Force by Jackie Ryan (self-­‐published)

Peaceful Tomorrows Volume Two by Shane W Smith (Zetabella Publishing)

The Deep Vol. 2: The Vanishing Island by Tom Taylor and James Brouwer (Gestalt Publishing)

BEST CHILDREN’S BOOK

Kingdom of the Lost, book 2: Cloud Road by Isobelle Carmody (Penguin Group Australia)

Refuge by Jackie French (Harper Collins)

Song for a scarlet runner by Julie Hunt (Allen & Unwin)

The four seasons of Lucy McKenzie by Kirsty Murray (Allen & Unwin)

Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan (Hachette Australia)

Ice Breaker: The Hidden 1 by Lian Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

BEST YOUNG ADULT SHORTFICTION

“Mah Song” by Joanne Anderton (The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, FableCroft Publishing)

“By Bone-­‐light” by Juliet Marillier (Prickle Moon, Ticonderoga Publications)

“Morning Star” by D.K. Mok (One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries, FableCroft Publishing)

“The Year of Ancient Ghosts” by Kim Wilkins (The Year of Ancient Ghosts, Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

The Big Dry by Tony Davies (Harper Collins)

Hunting by Andrea Host (self-­‐published)

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)

Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near (Random House Australia)

The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn (University of Queensland Press)

BEST HORROR SHORT FICTION

“Fencelines” by Joanne Anderton (The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, FableCroft Publishing)

“The Sleepover” by Terry Dowling (Exotic Gothic 5, PS Publishing)

“The Home for Broken Dolls” by Kirstyn McDermott (Caution: Contains Small Parts, Twelfth Planet Press)

“The Human Moth” by Kaaron Warren (The Grimscribe’s Puppets, Miskatonic Press)

“The Year of Ancient Ghosts” by Kim Wilkins (The Year of Ancient Ghosts, Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST HORROR NOVEL

The Marching Dead by Lee Battersby (Angry Robot Books)

The First Bird by Greig Beck (Momentum)

Path of Night by Dirk Flinthart (FableCroft Publishing)

Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near (Random House Australia)

BEST FANTASY SHORT FICTION

“The Last Stormdancer” by Jay Kristoff (Thomas Dunne Books)

“The Touch of the Taniwha” by Tracie McBride (Fish, Dagan Books)

“Cold, Cold War” by Ian McHugh (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Scott H Andrews)

“ShortCircuit” by Kirstie Olley (Oomph: a little super goes a long way, Crossed Genres)

“The Year of Ancient Ghosts” by Kim Wilkins (The Year of Ancient Ghosts, Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL

Lexicon by Max Barry (Hachette Australia)

A Crucible of Souls by Mitchell Hogan (self-­‐published)

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)

Newt’s Emerald by Garth Nix (Jill Grinberg Literary Management)

Ink Black Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts (FableCroft Publishing)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION SHORT FICTION

“The Last Tiger” by Joanne Anderton (Daily Science Fiction)

“Mah Song” by Joanne Anderton (The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, FableCroft Publishing)

“Seven Days in Paris” by Thoraiya Dyer (Asymmetry, Twelfth Planet Press)

“Version 4.3.0.1” by Lucy Stone (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #57)

“Air, Water and the Grove” by Kaaron Warren (The Lowest Heaven, Pandemonium Press)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Lexicon by Max Barry (Hachette)

Trucksong by Andrew Macrae (Twelfth Planet Press)

A Wrong Turn At The Office Of Unmade Lists by Jane Rawson (Transit Lounge)

True Path by Graham Storrs (Momentum)

Rupetta by Nike Sulway (Tartarus Press)

BEST ANTHOLOGY

The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2012 by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene (Eds), (Ticonderoga Publications)

One Small Step, An Anthology Of Discoveries by Tehani Wessely (Ed) (FableCroft Publishing)

Dreaming Of Djinn by Liz Grzyb (Ed) (Ticonderoga Publications)

The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year: Volume Seven by Jonathan Strahan (Ed) (NightShade Books)

Focus 2012: Highlights Of Australian Short Fiction by Tehani Wessely (Ed) (FableCroft Publishing)

BEST COLLECTION

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton (FableCroft Publishing)

Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer (Twelfth Planet Press)

Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott (Twelfth Planet Press)

The Bride Price by Cat Sparks (Ticonderoga Publications)

The Year of Ancient Ghosts by Kim Wilkins (Ticonderoga Publications)

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