AustLit

'Though its origins are unknown, the earliest sense of the word ‘quirk’ was as a subtle verbal twist or a quibble. Over time, its definition has become more nuanced: a quirk now also refers to a person’s peculiar or idiosyncratic traits, chance occurrences, and sudden, surprise curves appearing on paths or in facial expressions. Quirks can also be accidents, vagaries, witty turns of phrase.' (Introduction)

'With a twang in its heart and a song for luck on its tongue, Songs for Dark Seasons takes readers back to the lonesome dream counties introduced in the World Fantasy Award-nominated collection, Bluegrass Symphony.

'Trailer parks and graves are only temporary homes for souls in these tales, where gods dwell in churches and parking lot groves. Friday night football stars mingle with sirens; hunters’ wives help their kids not to shoot, but to fly; Chanticleers spar their way into local government; and rash-afflicted men take dryads for lovers. In backwater towns, some witches have the know-how to pin pageant queens pretty, while others relieve girls of highfalutin aspirations. Local crow-boys and bloodthirsty Ursines are the best miners around.

'In these thirteen stories, forests are imbued with the deepest, saddest strains of country music, cornfield horizons stretch as long as a lone fiddle’s wail, and distant hills make mandolin promises: sweet and catchy and short-lived.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Conceptually, The Art of Navigation is as intriguing as it is ambitious. The narrative is part near-future time travel, part historical drama, part nostalgic Australian Gothic – and all slipstream fiction. The novel braids, unbraids, and rebraids three main threads of time and place: suburban Melbourne in 1987; the royal courts of Elizabeth I and Rudolph II in 1587; and the outskirts of a new, not-quite-Melbourne in 2087. Yet there is practically nothing simple about this book – not the style or structure, nor the way it resolves. This complexity is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of slipstream stories. Slipstream fiction is difficult to process; it’s demanding, often frustrating. It functions because it is strange, because it estranges. Readers are not made welcome, not offered clear or complete pictures, but are instead asked to decipher dream-like visions glimpsed sideways through a warped scrying glass.' (Introduction)

'Fallon's Palms weren't yet callused. His fingers were sea-softened, and he fancied they were gently webbed; better shaped for paddling than climbing. Each nail was blunt as a seal's nose, not sharp like Mither's, despite her relentless nipping and filing and grooming, her daily tugging at his little digits, at his disappointing limbs. Wings flapping, she yanked one arm, then the other, while he clung to the foot of their feather bed, or the porch rail, or the stool by the cottage hearth. She pulled while he resisted—not the idea of growth, mind, but the ache in his joints as she tried to stretch him. the clear futility of it all. ' (Introduction)

'On busy days Amund Endqvist can ghost fifty people before lunch, and half again as many by closing time. After working in the Korgodok for nearly twenty years, he is expert at keeping Hakodeshi prisons empty, its streets cleaner than ever in the city’s long history. Without complaint, Amund has performed this public service, hunched over a Davenport in the old church’s nave. Until today his work has been automatic, swift, and clear.

'But when his wife’s file crosses Amund’s desk, an insistent inner voice whispers rebellion. What has Yvonne done? Does she deserve to lose her life?

'And will Amund be the one to ghost her?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.