Dreaming Again: Thirty-five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction [Paperback]

Jack Dann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2008

Following the World Fantasy Award-winning Dreaming Down-Under, acclaimed editor Jack Dann gathers thirty-five of the best and brightest in a golden age of Australian fiction to pen fantastic new tales to shock, astound, and delight. The outstanding bestselling authors include Garth Nix, Terry Dowling, Sean McMullen, Kim Wilkins, Sara Douglass, A. Bertram Chandler, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Stephen Dedman, Trudi Canavan, John Birmingham, Margo Lanagan, Janeen Webb, Isobelle Carmody, and many others.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jack Dann is a multiple award winning author who has written or edited over 60 books, including the groundbreaking novels Junction, Starhiker, The Man Who Melted, The Memory Cathedral -- which is an international bestseller, the Civil War novel The Silent, and Bad Medicine, which has been compared to the works of Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson and called "the best road novel since the Easy Rider days."

Dann's work has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Castaneda, J. G. Ballard, Mark Twain, and Philip K. Dick. Philip K. Dick, author of the stories from which the films Blade Runner and Total Recall were made, wrote that "Junction is where Ursula Le Guin's Lathe of Heaven and Tony Boucher's 'The Quest for Saint Aquin' meet...and yet it's an entirely new novel.... I may very well be basing some of my future work on Junction." Best-selling author Marion Zimmer Bradley called Starhiker "a superb book... it will not give up all its delights, all its perfections, on one reading."

Library Journal has called Dann "...a true poet who can create pictures with a few perfect words." Roger Zelazny thought he was a reality magician and Best Sellers has said that "Jack Dann is a mind-warlock whose magicks will confound, disorient, shock, and delight." The Washington Post Book World compared his novel The Man Who Melted with Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal.

His short stories have appeared in Omni and Playboy and other major magazines and anthologies. He is the editor of the anthology Wandering Stars, one of the most acclaimed American anthologies of the 1970's, and several other well-known anthologies such as More Wandering Stars. Wandering Stars and More Wandering Stars have just been reprinted in the U.S. Dann also edits the multi-volume Magic Tales series with Gardner Dozois and is a consulting editor TOR Books.

He is a recipient of the Nebula Award, the Australian Aurealis Award (twice), the Ditmar Award (three times), the World Fantasy Award, and the Premios GilgamÉs de Narrativa Fantastica award. Dann has also been honoured by the Mark Twain Society (Esteemed Knight).

High Steel, a novel co-authored with Jack C. Haldeman II, was published in 1993. Critic John Clute called it "a predator...a cat with blazing eyes gorging on the good meat of genre. It is most highly recommended." A sequel entitled Ghost Dance is in progress.

Dann's major historical novel about Leonardo da Vinci -- entitled The Memory Cathedral -- was first published in December 1995 to rave reviews. It has been published in 10 languages to date. It won the Australian Aurealis Award in 1997, was #1 on The Age bestseller list, and a story based on the novel was awarded the Nebula Award. The Memory Cathedral was also shortlisted for the Audio Book of the Year, which was part of the 1998 Braille & Talking Book Library Awards.

Morgan Llwelyn called The Memory Cathedral "a book to cherish, a validation of the novelist's art and fully worthy of its extraordinary subject." The San Francisco Chronicle called it "a grand accomplishment," Kirkus Reviews thought it was "An impressive accomplishment," and True Review said, "Read this important novel, be challenged by it; you literally haven't seen anything like it."

Dann's next novel The Silent was chosen by Library Journal as one of their 'Hot Picks.' Library Journal wrote: "This is narrative storytelling at its best -- so highly charged emotionally as to constitute a kind of poetry from hell. Most emphatically recommended." Auhor Peter Straub said, "This tale of America's greatest trauma is full of mystery, wonder, and the kind of narrative inventiveness that makes other novelists want to hide under the bed." And The Australian called it "an extraordinary achievement."

His contemporary road novel Bad Medicine (titled Counting Coup in the U.S.) has been called "a vivid and compelling vision-quest through the dark back roads and blue highways of the American soul."

Dann is also the co-editor (with Janeen Webb) of the groundbreaking Australian anthology Dreaming Down-Under, which Peter Goldsworthy has called "the biggest, boldest, most controversial collection of original fiction ever published in Australia." It has won Australia's Ditmar Award and is the first Australian book ever to win the prestigious World Fantasy Award.

Dann is also the author of the retrospective short story collection Jubilee: the Essential Jack Dann. The West Australian said it was "Sometimes frightening, sometimes funny, erudite, inventive, beautifully written and always intriguing. Jubilee is a celebration of the talent of a remarkable storyteller."

As part of its Bibliographies of Modern Authors Series, The Borgo Press has published an annotated bibliography and guide entitled The Work of Jack Dann. An updated second edition is in progress. Dann is also listed in Contemporary Authors and the Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series; The International Authors and Writers Who's Who; Personalities of America; Men of Achievement; Who's Who in Writers, Editors, and Poets, United States and Canada; Dictionary of International Biography; the Directory of Distinguished Americans; Outstanding Writers of the 20th Century; and Who's Who in the World.

Dann commutes between Melbourne and a farm overlooking the sea. He also 'commutes' back and forth to Los Angeles and New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager; 1 edition (September 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061364088
• ISBN-13: 978-0061364082
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,001,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous speculative fiction stories, October 20, 2008

By 

Liviania - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dreaming Again: Thirty-five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction (Paperback)

I love anthologies. Short stories allow authors to show off, to show their technique and style in a concise manner. I knew several names that contributed to this work, but I'd only previously read Garth Nix, Terry Dowling, and Stephen Dedman. You can bet I'm buying some more of the contributors' backlists now.

Of course, while anthologies are an excellent source of new authors to explore, there are always those stories that you feel bring the quality of the anthology down. Sometimes you wish you could pick and choose which stories you could buy if enough of them are duds. So far, with a mere ten stories to go, none of them have disappointed me. There have certainly been some I enjoyed more than others, but no bad stories whatsoever. I wish all anthologies were so well chosen.

The stories cover a variety of subjects, moods, and themes. Some are extremely unsettling, others funny, others mysterious. It's hard to pick favorites. The end of "This is My Blood" by Ben Francisco (the only American in the book) and Chris Lynch was the first thing to truly terrify me. They left the details of the end to my imagination, which is apparently a sick, sick place. This one is followed by the unnerving "Nightship" by Kim Westwood. I wanted more elaboration on how gender worked in the society (for instance, the ship's captain appeared to me to be a member of an Iron Family and female), but this one really caught my attention and made me think. The final one that's truly freaked me out is "In From the Snow" by Lee Battersby, the story of a pack living outside of human civilization. This wasn't truly a horror story, but my mind seized ahold of the darkness and continued thinking of it after I finished.

"The Constant Past" by Sean McMullen features a librarian and a time traveler. What more can one ask for, really? (The answer is found in "Undead Camels Ate Their Flesh" by Jason Fischer. To quote the TV Tropes wiki, it's Exactly What It Says On The Tin.)

The viral mystery "Lure" by Paul Collins had a nice twist at the end, even though I did expect it. I enjoyed his style, exploration of cyber-cheating, and assertion that PCs are better than Macs. "Empire" by Simon Brown is an amusing look at WAR OF THE WORLDS and Gilbert & Sullivan. Shortly after finishing, I learned the Mikado would be playing in my area soon (swoon-worthy) and that bubbles and squeak is a real dish in England (bemusing). "Smoking, Waiting for the Dawn" by Jason Nahrung is a vampire story that stands out from the current pack I've been reading. (Added bonus: zombies.)

I feel bad for not mentioning more of the stories I've read, because each had something special. These are just my personal highlights.

Excerpted from In Bed With Books

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Down Under Dreaming, November 14, 2008

By 

S. Fishburn (Fort Collins, Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dreaming Again: Thirty-five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction (Paperback)

(What's this?)

I have been a reader and lover of science fiction and fantasy since my first chapter books. It was a dream to get this nice thick anthology bursting with almost three dozen exciting - and challenging - stories by authors with whom I am totally unfamiliar.
I really appreciated the editor's introductory note on each of the authors appearing at the beginning of the stories to give an inkling of roads the author previously traveled. When those notes appear at the end of the entire volume, as is common in anthologies, one has to flip back to remember who wrote what, so this was a nice change. The short afterword
wasn't always necessary - sometimes I like to just savor a story as it ends, but providing such food for thought let's me know the editor actually considered the stories beyond a single perusal!
I could be reading more into this than is merited, but many of these stories had a timeless, physically expansive, less insular feel than the sci-fi and fantasy I'm used to reading, even those 'Dreaming Again' tales which claim urban settings. My favorite is a perfect example, The Lost Property Room, which though huge, is still somehow so emblematic of claustrophobia I found myself (literally) hyperventilating as I read it. Likewise another I particularly liked, The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross.
I enjoyed this collection enough that I will read some of the stories aloud to friends and family. I think it would make an excellent book club choice.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful collection that introduced me to new writers, July 23, 2009

By 

Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dreaming Again: Thirty-five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Short science fiction/fantasy has never really been a favorite thing of mine-especially in anthology form. But this collection was really, really well put together and totally changed me mind. With just enough authors I knew and respected already that I wanted to read it and lots of new people I'd never heard of but now look forward to spending some time with in the future this is an excellent little dive in the down under fantasy scene.