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Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder
Terry Dowling is one of the best kept secrets in modern science fiction, fantasy and horror, a storyteller that Grand Master Jack Vance in his introduction calls, “A very talented writer, one I admire and respect.”
Locus saw Dowling’s first book, Rynosseros, as placing him “among the masters of the field”, while editor David G. Hartwell calls him “A master craftsman...one of the best prose stylists in science fiction and fantasy.” In the words of Harlan Ellison, “Here is Jack Vance, Cordwainer Smith and Tiptree/Sheldon come again, reborn in one wonderful talent...you’ll purr and growl with delight.”
Such praise is certainly deserved. Winner of the 2007 International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection, Dowling’s stories have appeared in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, The Year’s Best SF, The Year’s Best Fantasy, The Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, in major anthologies like Songs of the Dying Earth, Inferno, The Dark, and Wizards, and such leading publications as SciFiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Interzone.
Now, for the first time, Amberjack: Tales of Fear & Wonder gives us the best of Terry’s recent uncollected work in a single wonderful volume. From invasion by the truly alien in “The Lagan Fishers”, “Truth Window” and “Flashmen” to the gut-wrenching horror of “Toother” and “The Suits at Auderlene”, from the day-after-tomorrow, hardline SF of “He Tried to Catch the Light” to the epic sweep and swashbuckling adventure of “The Library”, this is imaginative storytelling as it should be: provocative, unsettling, beautifully crafted, full of invention and genuine surprise and, yes, a definite touch of the dark side.
Locus saw Dowling’s first book, Rynosseros, as placing him “among the masters of the field”, while editor David G. Hartwell calls him “A master craftsman...one of the best prose stylists in science fiction and fantasy.” In the words of Harlan Ellison, “Here is Jack Vance, Cordwainer Smith and Tiptree/Sheldon come again, reborn in one wonderful talent...you’ll purr and growl with delight.”
Such praise is certainly deserved. Winner of the 2007 International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection, Dowling’s stories have appeared in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, The Year’s Best SF, The Year’s Best Fantasy, The Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, in major anthologies like Songs of the Dying Earth, Inferno, The Dark, and Wizards, and such leading publications as SciFiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Interzone.
Now, for the first time, Amberjack: Tales of Fear & Wonder gives us the best of Terry’s recent uncollected work in a single wonderful volume. From invasion by the truly alien in “The Lagan Fishers”, “Truth Window” and “Flashmen” to the gut-wrenching horror of “Toother” and “The Suits at Auderlene”, from the day-after-tomorrow, hardline SF of “He Tried to Catch the Light” to the epic sweep and swashbuckling adventure of “The Library”, this is imaginative storytelling as it should be: provocative, unsettling, beautifully crafted, full of invention and genuine surprise and, yes, a definite touch of the dark side.
- GenresHorrorShort Stories
368 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2010
42 people want to read
About the author
Terry Dowling
105 books58 followersTerence 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.
“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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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March 9, 2011I didn't actually finish this one, but not because it was bad. I love Terry Dowling's stuff, and his supernatural stories are a definite influence, but a lot of the stories in this collection are science fiction stuff, and while his science fiction is really good too, I just couldn't get into it right now.
There are a couple of really excellent supernatural(-ish) stories in here, though. Notably "The Toother" and the wonderful "The Suits at Auderlane."
There are a couple of really excellent supernatural(-ish) stories in here, though. Notably "The Toother" and the wonderful "The Suits at Auderlane."
February 5, 2011
Terry Dowling is one of my favourite authors and, without fail, I drop everything for something new from him. This collection does not disappoint. It's a wonderful mixture of elegant prose and great ideas.
http://opionator.wordpress.com/2011/0...
http://opionator.wordpress.com/2011/0...
August 15, 2011
I enjoyed some of the stories, but overall I was unimpressed.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews