Cemetery Dance Select: Terry Dowling

by Terry Dowling

The Cemetery Dance Select series invites some of our favorite authors to spotlight a sampling of their own short fiction: award-winners, stories they consider their best or that had the most impact on their career—or neglected favorites they feel deserve a second look.

Long-time fans will enjoy revisiting some classic tales. New readers will find this series a handy introduction to each author’s best work.

Each CD Select mini-collection includes an exclusive Afterword where the author explains the reasoning behind each selection, and provides insights into the writing of each story.

The stories Terry Dowling has chosen for this collection are:

The Daemon Street Ghost-Trap
The Saltimbanques
Stitch
One Thing About the Night

91 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 29, 2015

About the author

Terence William (Terry) Dowling -

“Who’s the writer who can produce horror as powerful and witty as the best of Peter Straub, SF as wondrously byzantine and baroque as anything by Gene Wolfe, near-mainstream subtly tinged with the fantastic like some tales by Powers or Lansdale? Why Terry Dowling, of course.” Locus (Nov 1999)

Born in Sydney in 1947, Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most awarded, versatile and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy and horror. He is author of Rynosseros (1990), Blue Tyson (1992), Twilight Beach (1993) and Rynemonn (2007) (the Ditmar award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga, which, in his 2002 Fantastic Fictions Symposium keynote speech, US Professor Brian Attebery called “not only intricate and engaging, but important as well”), Wormwood (1991), The Man Who Lost Red (1994), An Intimate Knowledge of the Night (1995), Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling (1999), Blackwater Days (2000) and Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (2006) (which earned a starred review in Publishers’ Weekly in May 2006 and won the 2007 International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection). He is editor of the World Fantasy Award-winning The Essential Ellison (1987/ revised 2001), Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF (1993) and The Jack Vance Treasury (2007).

Dowling has outstanding publishing credentials. As well as appearances in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, The Year’s Best SF, The Mammoth Book of Best New SF, The Year’s Best Fantasy, The Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (a record eight times; he is the only author to have had two stories in the 2001 volume, one chosen by each editor), his work has appeared in such major anthologies as Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction, The Dark, Dreaming Down Under, Gathering the Bones and The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories and in such diverse publications as the prestigious SciFiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Oceans of the Mind, Ténèbres, Ikarie, Japan’s SF and Russia’s Game.Exe. His fiction has been translated into many languages and has been used in a course in forensic psychology in the US.

“Here is Jack Vance, Cordwainer Smith and Tiptree/Sheldon come again, reborn in one wonderful talent…you’ll purr and growl with delight.” – Harlan Ellison

Terry has also written and co-designed three best-selling computer adventures: Schizm: Mysterious Journey (2001) (aka US Mysterious Journey: Schizm) (www.schizm.com/schizm1/), Schizm II: Chameleon (2003) (aka US Mysterious Journey II: Chameleon) (www.schizm2.info) and Sentinel: Descendants in Time (2004) (aka Realms of Illusion) (www.dormeuse.info) (based on his 1996 short story, “The Ichneumon and the Dormeuse”), which have been published in many foreign language editions. He has reviewed for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Bulletin, and was the science fiction, fantasy and horror reviewer for The Weekend Australian for nineteen years under four different literary editors: Barry Oakley, James Hall, Murray Waldren and Deborah Hope.

Terry holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Australia (the first such degree to be granted and completed at that university), an MA (Hons) in English Literature and a BA (Hons) in English Literature, Archaeology and Ancient History, both from the University of Sydney. He has won many Ditmar and Aurealis Awards for his fiction, as well as the William Atheling Jr Award for his critical work. His first computer adventure won the Grand Prix at Utopiales in France in 2001 and he has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award twice.

Reviews

[Vladimir Ghinculov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cemetery Dance Select: Terry Dowling is a collection of four short stories by this author. They are varied in subject, based on the supernatural. Terry Downling is good at creating atmosphere: eerie, unsettling and frightening. Unfortunately the story is flimsy and the endings disappointing and predictable.

[Tom A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

We start with 1. “The Daemon Street Ghost-Trap” about an honored academic and his assistant's investigation of a notorious “ghost-trap”, a room which has for its purpose um trapping ghosts. The room is managed by the Crane Family Patriarch who is running out of options on how to deal with a particular affliction being brought about by the ghosts. But there is a haunting revelation to be made at the end. I love this story, scary, well-paced, and with a good twist at the end. Perfectly paired with Dowling's “Nightside Eye”. Up next is his Bradburian coming-of-age tale 2. “The Saltimbanques” about three teens who discover that a traveling carnival has set shop in their small town. I thought this had a great set-up and start but it lost me with its ley lines and lines of power mythology and lore. I don't think it was that interesting or compelling. But your mileage may vary. Dowling bounces back with the disturbing tale of abuse and trauma 3. “Stitch”. The main character, Bella, has a mission to take the cross-stitch of her from her Aunt's Bathroom. Because if she does, she believes she will be finally free from a disturbing figure borne from a cross-stitch painting aptly named “Mr. Stitch” The ending is uplifting and disturbing at the same time. Finally, Dowling closes shop with 4. “One Thing About the Night” about a former lawyer/antique hobbyist and his friend's (the narrator) exploration of an unusual “psychomantium” (real spelling: psychomanteum) in the house of a man who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The room is hexagonal and is surrounded by mirrors, making it larger than it seems. The room is eerie enough but when its true nature is discovered, they could suffer a fate worse than death. I thought this tale had a great premise but I felt the lore behind it should have been explored further. Not bad, of course, but it could have been greater. 

3 1/2 rounded to 4.