The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection

The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection (2004) is an anthology of science fiction stories edited by the Australian writer Rob Gerrand.[1]

The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection
EditorRob Gerrand
LanguageEnglish
GenreSF anthology
PublisherBlack Inc
Publication date
2004
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages615pp.

Russell Blackford, in his introduction to the anthology, stated: "As you will soon discover Australian science fiction has much to tell us about ourselves, our country and the world."[2]

Contents

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The anthology contains 31 stories of varying lengths, by Australian authors.

Critical reception

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A reviewer at QBD Books noted: "These outstanding stories show that the best writing today is speculative, and that the best science fiction has long burst the boundaries of outer space. This book will be a bible for all lovers of science fiction, and an excellent introduction for all those so far unacquainted with this fascinating genre."[3]

Bruce Gillespie in Steam Engine Time 4 concluded his review: "My fifty-year journey through Australian SF is slightly different from Rob Gerrand's, but I’m satisfied that we have been looking back at the same timescape. For some of these writers, I would have chosen other stories. I might have chosen stories from the time gaps I've mentioned. But whatever its limitations, this fifty-year collection is an essential record of the long, rocky journey of Australian SF writing. Better, for me, it's the record of some achievements by people I grew up knowing and admiring."[4]

A reviewer in The Age stated: "It may well be difficult to identify what is 'Australian' about Australian SF. The first few stories in this anthology themselves have nothing to say about this country, tending instead to project the kind of universalisms to which SF still generically aspires...The future shock, post-Hiroshima fallout themes of the early Australian SF here speak to a broad unease with the technological and social developments of modernity rather than anything local. There are even a couple of 'hospital dystopia' stories here, with patients getting "rehabilitated" in institutions that could be anywhere in the world...In this anthology, Australian SF can find itself in ancient Troy, in medieval Scotland, in the Aboriginal Dreamtime and aboard a parody of the USS Enterprise. If nothing else, it certainly gets around."[5]

References

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  1. ^ "Austlit — The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing edited by Rob Gerrand". Austlit. Retrieved 15 July 2023.
  2. ^ "Australian Science Fiction: A Feast of Wonder" by Russell Blackford, The Best Australian Science Fiction Writing: A Fifty Year Collection, Black Inc, 2004, p. xx.
  3. ^ ""The Best Ever Australian Science Fiction Writing"". QBD Books. Retrieved 18 August 2023.
  4. ^ ""The journeys they took"" (PDF). Steam Engine Time 4, pp 3-6. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
  5. ^ ""The Best Australian Science Fiction writing"". The Age, 12 February 2005. Retrieved 28 August 2023.

See also

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