Subject: ALIEN SHORES edited by Peter McNamara and Margaret Winch

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper)
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 22:51:47 GMT

ALIEN SHORES edited by Peter McNamara and Margaret Winch
       Aphelion, ISBN 1-875346-09-0, 1994, 603pp, A$19.95/US$15
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Five years ago, I asked, "What country has as many English
speakers as Canada, has hosted two World Science Fiction Conventions,
has produced one of the definitive reference works on science fiction,
and *still* gets forgotten when people talk about science fiction
authors?" The answer?  Australia.  (Except now it's *two* of the
definitive reference works.)

     ALIEN SHORES is the tenth book from Aphelion Press, which is (as
far as I can tell) the leading Australian publisher of science fiction.
This anthology of twenty-nine stories, twenty-two of them original to
this volume, is an overview of Australian science fiction today, and a
varied and fascinating field it is.

     I will not attempt to review every story, but will comment on the
ones I found most memorable.  "First contact" is a popular theme,
perhaps because of all the English-speaking countries, Australia has
gone through its own "first contact" period the most recently.  George
Turner, certainly one of the major lights of the Southern hemisphere,
has a new variation on the theme in "Flowering Mandrake," and "The
Miocene Arrow" by Sean McMullen is another variation, albeit less
obviously so, and several other stories deal either with first contact,
or other alien contact.  (I was going to say "interracial" contact, but
that term has been hijacked.  For that matter, even talking about
aliens is not always clear.)

     Australia may be far away from the United Kingsom and the United
States, but it's not isolated.  "The Soap Bubble" by Sean Williams
tells me that "Star Trek" has reached Australia and influenced at least
one writer.  "Crash Jordan in the Art World of Drongo" by Jeff Harris
likewise testifies to the presence of Flash Gordon stories.  Leanne
Frahm's "Land's End" seems to follow in the tradition of disaster
stories such as those written by J. G. Ballard and then George Turner,
having the indescribably Australian feel of the latter.  Sue Isle's
"Kill Me Once" also follows a long tradition, then one going back to a
certain Irish author.

     Bill Dodds's "Mnemonic Plague" is a science fiction murder mystery
of the sort one would have found in ANALOG in the 1950s--or even today.
Simon Brown's "Rain from the New God" is another story that echoes the
1950s, but more stories of alien contact than of the future as here;
"The Magi" by Damien Broderick is another religiously-themed story that
does involve alien contact.

     For alternate histories fans (like me), Lucy Sussex's "Kay & Phil"
is a real treat: an alternate history within an alternate history about
alternate histories.  Sound complicated?  Just read it.

     "The Caress" by Greg Egan deals with the lengths some people will
go to in their appreciation of art, and shows why Egan is one of the
rising stars on today's science fiction scene.  Stephen Dedman also
looks at the demands of art (along with first contact) in "The Desired
Dragons."  And "The Last Lion in Africa" by Geoffrey Maloney looks at
the whole idea of "sense of wonder" from the other side.

     While I'm not going to nominate any of the stories for Hugos, it's
primarily because most of the ones I rated very highly are in the
subset that have appeared previously.  There are certainly several
stories that I would not be distressed to see on the ballot, though
given the relative unavailability of ALIEN SHORES to the general reader
in the United States (and one suspects in the United Kingdom as well)I
would be surprised.  Nevertheless, for once the back blurb on a book is
accurate: "A Landmark Collection of Australian Science Fiction."  I
highly recommend it.

     (In the United States, ALIEN SHORES and other Aphelion books can
be ordered from Mark V. Zeising, P. O. Box 76, Singletown CA 96088.
Add US$3.50 for shipping.)

%E      McNamara, Peter 
%E      Winch, Margaret 
%B      Alien Shores
%I      Aphelion
%C      North Adelaide, South Australia, AU
%D      1994
%G      ISBN 1-875346-09-0
%P      603pp
%O      trade paperback, AUD19.95/USD15

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"No one is ever fanatically devoted to something they have complete
confidence in.  No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to
rise tomorrow.  They *know* it is.  Whenever someone is fanatically
devoted to a set of beliefs or dogmas or goals, it is only because
those beliefs or goals are in doubt."  --Robert M. Pirsig