AustLit

'This paper argues that narrative theory and the political theory of assemblage complement each other in ways that can both illuminate and contribute to political struggle. Assemblage thinking points to complex, catalytic interactions that might open further lines of inquiry to key aspects of narrative analysis, such as meta-narrative, heteroglossia and collectivisation of memory. In turn, narrative theory offers the prospect of further elaborating the key processes by which human social assemblages are composed and decomposed and thus filling some of the critical ‘silences and absences’ (Anderson et al. 2012: 212) of assemblage theory.' (Publication abstract)

'Australia has it own mythologies. Some of them were here long before Europeans arrived; some of them are yet to come. Steam-powered bushrangers. Restless penal colonies. Robotic mining operations. Fairy colonies in the gum trees and old ghosts in the laneways. Drought and fire and flood and new life struggling to emerge from the dust. These are the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we want to hide from.

'Thirty new stories from some of Australia’s best-known speculative fiction writers and some of its newest.' (Publication summary)

'Angel Dust is the first story collection by Australian rising star Ian McHugh. McHugh is a Writers of the Future winner, and has a number of significant overseas short fiction sales. Angel Dust collects 15 incredible fantastic visions. A number of these were first published in Asimov's and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Four stories are original to this collection. Asimov's editor Sheila Williams says of this writer, "Ian McHugh has a remarkable ability to render the alien utterly convincing. His nonhuman lives are so powerfully depicted that we can easily, and sometimes uneasily, immerse ourselves completely into their worlds."' (Publication summary)

An abused daughter hides an escaped golem aboard her father's steam barge.

When the god Sky tries to abduct Tapa O's granddaughter, the old man must take her on a perilous journey across the seas, drawing on her skills at singing the wind and his own skill as navigator.

A story of power struggles between fantasy creatures and mountain gods.