A certain editor recently mailed me a few sack fulls of Australian SF short stories, keeping the sorters at the Camden branch of Australia Post busy for at least a week. I was impressed enough by thirteen stories (by nine authors) to want to tell you about them. This strikes me as a pretty good ratio.
The stories appeared this year in markets other than the three magazines I covered in the first instalment of this column.
I am not convinced by arguments that speculative fiction is the last preserve of the short story tradition, but there is no denying that the field provides the greatest opportunities for the short story in all its forms, from the "short" short through to the novella. The following menagerie perfectly illustrates the point.

Continue to reviews...

Rules of the game

2. Thou shalt not review thine own stories. (Curses!)

3. Thou shalt review only those stories you are so inclined to review.

4. Thou shalt choose among those stories you review howsoever many you believe demonstrate such excellence or some other virtue that they deserve to be listed at the end of the column as Essential Reading.

5. Thou shalt be paid heaps ... at the discretion of the editors.

6. Thou shalt take no bribes. (Curses!)