Dreaming Down-Under [Hardcover]

Jack Dann (Editor), Janeen Webb (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2001

Despite not having been published outside of Australia, Dreaming Down-Under won the 1999 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, and stories from its pages have appeared in many Year's Best anthologies. Now we in this hemisphere can enjoy this excellent anthology without a round-the-globe trip.

Internationally acclaimed author Harlan Ellison recently declared that this is the Golden Age of Australian Science Fiction. Dreaming Down-Under showcases this Golden Age with thirty-one exciting original stories by both acknowledged masters and hot new writers from--where else?--Down-Under.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The World Fantasy Award winning-anthology Dreaming Down-Under manages the impressive feat of being both a definitive Golden Age compilation and a new wave groundbreaker. This is because Australian speculative fiction has entered a golden age at the turn of the millennium, and because the editors of Dreaming Down-Under, Jack Dann and Janeen Webb, asked contemporary authors born or living in Australia to contribute the best speculative fiction they could create. The 30 contributors have lived up to the challenge, producing stories that are uniformly literary, frequently ambitious, and sometimes disturbing. The stories range all across imaginative literature, from revisionist myth to hardboiled cyberpunk, from paranoid horror to imaginary-world fantasy. Dreaming Down-Under may reshape the future of speculative fiction not only in Australia, but around the world.

In addition to its generous 200,000-plus words of original fiction, the anthology contains 20,000 words of interesting and informative nonfiction. The editors introduce Dreaming Down-Under with a discussion of the current antipodean ferment and a short history of Australian science fiction; they also provide each story with an individual introduction. Each author provides an afterword for his or her story. Fittingly, Dreaming Down-Under also has a passionate preface by Harlan Ellison, who edited the legendary Dangerous Visions anthology series (1969-1973) that changed SF forever. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Evoking the Golden Age breakthrough in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction during the 1940s, Harlan Ellison in his preface declares the present-day as the "Golden Age of Australian science fiction." This anthology of contemporary speculative writing from down under--200,000 words of original fiction with an added 20,000 words of introductory notes and author afterwords--attempts to raise the bar to that standard. Previously published by HarperCollins Australia (1998), this mammoth volume won two Australian Science Fiction Achievement Awards (Best Artwork, Best Anthology) and topped that by also winning the World Fantasy Award. Not all the 31 tales take place down in Australia: Isabelle Carmody finds poetry in Prague's Kafkaesque labyrinths as "The Man Who Lost His Shadow" learns "it is we who need our shadows, not they us." In Aaron Stearns's "The Third Rail," NYC subway paranoia erupts into horror. George Turner's 1997 death cut short work on his novella about eternal life, so essays by Bruce Gillespie and Judith Raphael Buckrich explore possible paths of Turner's unfinished work. The stories, already surfacing in other anthologies and novel expansions, are strong throughout. Comparisons with the "New Wave" experiments in Ellison's trendsetting Dangerous Visions (1967) are inevitable, and Ellison sees this book as a similar groundbreaker, a "huge testament to the new order of things literary in this genre." This is a potent package, and even readers skeptical of all the hype won't be disappointed. (Feb. 23)Forecast: Word of mouth, previous glowing reviews and a shelf of impressive awards all bode well, while the timing couldn't be better, as CBS's Survivor: The Australian Outback, kicks off right after the Super Bowl. Expect significant interest.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Orb Books (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312878117
• ISBN-13: 978-0312878115
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,461,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting Australian SF anthology, January 21, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dreaming Down-Under (Paperback)

This speculative fiction anthology contains thirty-one powerful tales written by Australian authors. The tales run the gamut crossing fantasy, horror, and science fiction with each contribution well written. Audiences outside of Australia have read several of the writers such as Sara Douglas, Isobelle Carmody, and the late Paul Turner, etc. These authors provide their usual powerful story. Of interest at least to this reviewer is writers that I never read before. These "newcomers" apparently have a strong reputation in Australia and fans will quickly understand why, and like me, will seek other works by these talented contributors who open up brave new worlds for readers. DREAMING DOWN-UNDER is speculative fiction short story collection at its best.

Harriet Klausner

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Australian SF Reader, July 31, 2007

By 

Blue Tyson "- Research Finished" (Legion clubhouse) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreaming Down-Under (Paperback)

An eclectic anthology I suppose you could say, with the second volume better than this, the first one. (3.87 average versus 3.56, or 3.71 for the lot, if you like), which places it ahead of the various McNamara offerings, by just a little. There is a useful introduction, with a bit of history there, although, for an Australian volume quite a bit of time wasted on Harlan Ellison worship, as far as the intro goes. Science fiction, fantasy and horror to be found here.

Dreaming Down Under 1 : Entre les Beaux Morts en Vie - Sean Williams
Dreaming Down Under 1 : A Walk-On Part in the War - Stephen Dedman
Dreaming Down Under 1 : The Man Who Lost His Shadow - Isobelle Carmody
Dreaming Down Under 1 : Night of the Wandjina - Wynne Whiteford
Dreaming Down Under 1 : The Dancing Floor - Cherry Wilder
Dreaming Down Under 1 : To Avalon - Jane Routley
Dreaming Down Under 1 : Ma Rung - Steven Paulsen
Dreaming Down Under 1 : Dream Until God Burns - Andrew Enstice
Dreaming Down Under 1 : Queen of Soulmates - Sean McMullen
Dreaming Down Under 1 : The Doppelganger Effect - Dirk Strasser
Dreaming Down Under 1 : The Marsh Runners - Paul Brandon
Dreaming Down Under 1 : Real Men - Rosaleen Love
Dreaming Down Under 1 : The Womb - Damien Broderick
Dreaming Down Under 1 : The Body Politic - Tess Williams
Dreaming Down Under 1 : With Clouds at Our Feet - Simon Brown

Really old people can be dull and boring, or, zombies and vampires, not such a great idea.

4 out of 5


Odysseus smart, forward thinking. Paris, not so much.

3.5 out of 5


Seeking and snogging.

2.5 out of 5


Puppets should be made of wood, not flesh.

3.5 out of 5


Android archaeology.

4.5 out of 5


Rocksy Music.

4 out of 5


'Nam spirit patrol.

4 out of 5


Crispy. Ouch.

3.5 out of 5


Superweapon survival strategy.

4.5 out of 5


Hyperstress.

3 out of 5


Madhouse monsters.

3 out of 5


If Ghost Rider had an open-wheeler.

1.5 out of 5


Dream delving religion.

4 out of 5


Aliens like 'em really young.

3.5 out of 5


John Long Pig will do for the very hungry.

4.5 out of 5


Red moo juice.

3.5 out of 5


Dreaming Down Under 2 : The Evil Within - Sara Douglass
Dreaming Down Under 2 : The Soldier in the Machine - Russell Blackford
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Matilda Told Such Dreadful Lies - Lucy Sussex
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Unborn Again - Chris Lawson
Dreaming Down Under 2 : The Latest Dream I Ever Dreamed - Norman Talbot
Dreaming Down Under 2 : The Truth About Weena - David J. Lake
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Two Recipes for Magic Beans - Rosaleen Love
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Wired Dreaming - Paul Collins
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Descent - Cecily Scutt
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Tamed - Robert Hood
Dreaming Down Under 2 : And Now Doth Time Waste Me - George Turner
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Jetsam - Kerry Greenwood
Dreaming Down Under 2 : Prelude to a Nocturne - Rowena Cory Lindquist
Dreaming Down Under 2 : The Third Rail - Aaron Sterns
Dreaming Down Under 2 : The Last Dance - Ian Nichols


Gargoyle evil slayers a bit stringent for priest's liking.

4 out of 5


Paracognitive reflex research enhanced by music and dance.

5 out of 5


Waltzing Bunyipa.

4.5 out of 5


Baby brain bits disease treatment.

4 out of 5


Dream spooks steal secrets.

3.5 out of 5


Time Machine paradox.

4 out of 5


Precocious porker.

3.5 out of 5


SVU cop's transformed crusade.

3.5 out of 5


Family Hell.

3 out of 5


Monster people power.

3 out of 5


In truth, youth serum requires smarts.

4.5 out of 5


Godly old driftbloke.

4 out of 5


No puberty blues.

4 out of 5


Metropolitan lack of integrity, physical and mental.

3.5 out of 5


Rock and roll magic.

4 out of 5

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outback Daydreams, February 3, 2001

By 

Gary S. Potter (mount Pleasant, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreaming Down-Under (Hardcover)

For those who are always looking for the cutting edge of SF, fantasy, and horror, and expanding their horizons, look no further. DREAMING DOWN UNDER is a superlative collection of 31 stories by some of today's best Australian writers out there today. Most of these authors, relatively unknown here in the States (though, since the book's original release in 1998, and a World Fantasy Award winner, some of these tremendous talented authors have started to appear here).Sean Williams, Lucy Sussex, Isobelle Carmody, and Damien Broderick are just starting to appear, while Stephen Dedman, Cherry Wilder, Terry Dowling, Wynne Whiteford, and Sean McMullen are some of the authors that have become a staple in the SF genre. The collection also contains the late and wonderful (Father of Australian SF), George Turner's last, finished just days before his death, but brilliant novella "AND NOW DOTH TIME WASTE ME". Highly recommended for those hungering for a different type of dream...