AustLit

Best friends Jason and Lee, on a quiet boating trip in Vancouver, Canada, find themselves transported through a vortex to Stormworld, a mysterious world with three suns and mind-distorting storms. Since visitors are not uncommon in Stormworld, they find themselves incorporated into The Settlement, one of three principal settlements on Stormworld.

Stormworld is a complex example of world-building. For example, the program concentrates heavily on the effects of the ecosystem on the planet's inhabitants: as a hot-climate archipelago on a salt-water ocean, Stormworld has a dearth of fresh water, which subsequently becomes a highly valuable resource for the planet's inhabitants. Similarly, the program focuses strongly on the planet's economy (a barter system based on the rare and exotic artefacts that travellers bring through the vortexes with them), on inter-community rivalry among the three main settlements (the democratic Settlement, the patriarchal and hierarchical Arkoddians, and the piratical Drogue), and on the dangerous and mysterious weather patterns peculiar to Stormworld (such as the Winders--horizontal lightning--that are attracted to mental activity).

Fourteen-year-old Ben discovers that his seemingly staid country town of Werrinup, Western Australia, is actually the gateway to a number of parallel dimensions--where things are almost but not quite like his own world. Once he becomes aware of the parallel worlds, he also becomes aware that they are under threat, and he has to help protect them.

Parallax was created and produced by Paul D. Barron, who is also responsible for such programs as Wormwood, Stormworld, and Ship to Shore.

When fifteen-year-old Katrina moves to Perth to live with her mother, a veterinary scientist at the local zoo, she begins acting oddly. Realising she can 'mind-meld' with Garang, the zoo's ferocious female tiger, she finds her senses of smell, hearing, and sight improving, including her night vision. Upset and bewildered by his sister's odd behaviour, her eleven-year-old brother Jamie teams up with the youngest daughter of the zoo manager to try and solve the mystery. But not everyone's intentions are honorable, as one of the zoo's scientists plans to manipulate the genetic quirk that Kat and the tiger share, hoping to use it to recreate extinct species.