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'This daring, irreverent short-story collection dissects and explores the conundrums of contemporary life and what it is to be human, through a world very like our own.
'A corporate satire follows a pair of dark operatives working for a chicken franchise as they take careful revenge on counterfeiters. A coder calculates the odds of her husband's cold developing complications and killing him, in a story told in code. A relationship at breaking point is told via a scrambled timeline of events that works like a puzzle. A man spends his inheritance on technology that will allow him to fly. And an archeologist working for mining companies against the interests of Indigenous communities develops a mysterious psychological condition that causes her to black out and commit extreme acts of generosity.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Best of 2022 : Part Two
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 17 December - 6 January 2022;
— Review of A History of Dreams 2022 single work novel ; The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; Moon Sugar : A Novel 2022 single work novel ; Waypoints 2022 single work novel ; Every Version of You 2022 single work novel -
Have Fun
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , December 2022;
— Review of What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; If You're Happy 2022 selected work short story'I am looking for something to say about the short story as a category, something to distinguish it, and my mind alights on the word ‘fun’. Is it possible, I wonder, that the short story permits the author to play, to have fun, in a way that other forms do not? Do we tend to ignore this because the word ‘fun’ is difficult to fit into an aesthetic claim, because the concept itself seems to resist being aestheticised, its monosyllabic punchiness evoking childish play or adult condescension that dodges the analytical eye? It was just a bit of fun. Don’t you know how to have fun? This isn’t fun.' (Introduction)
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Strange and Unfamiliar Terrain : Three Bold New Short Story Collections
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 444 2022; (p. 41-42)
— Review of The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story 'In the wake of other recent compelling débuts – Paige Clark’s meticulously crafted and imagined She is Haunted being a standout – three new short story collections, varying markedly in tone, style, and setting, offer bold and unsettling visions of twenty-first-century life.'(Introduction)
-
Strange and Unfamiliar Terrain : Three Bold New Short Story Collections
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 444 2022; (p. 41-42)
— Review of The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story 'In the wake of other recent compelling débuts – Paige Clark’s meticulously crafted and imagined She is Haunted being a standout – three new short story collections, varying markedly in tone, style, and setting, offer bold and unsettling visions of twenty-first-century life.'(Introduction)
-
Have Fun
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , December 2022;
— Review of What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; If You're Happy 2022 selected work short story'I am looking for something to say about the short story as a category, something to distinguish it, and my mind alights on the word ‘fun’. Is it possible, I wonder, that the short story permits the author to play, to have fun, in a way that other forms do not? Do we tend to ignore this because the word ‘fun’ is difficult to fit into an aesthetic claim, because the concept itself seems to resist being aestheticised, its monosyllabic punchiness evoking childish play or adult condescension that dodges the analytical eye? It was just a bit of fun. Don’t you know how to have fun? This isn’t fun.' (Introduction)
-
Best of 2022 : Part Two
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 17 December - 6 January 2022;
— Review of A History of Dreams 2022 single work novel ; The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; Moon Sugar : A Novel 2022 single work novel ; Waypoints 2022 single work novel ; Every Version of You 2022 single work novel