Cirrus@Austlit

'Since Archie Weller was runner-up for the first Vogel Award in 1980 for his novel The Day of the Dog, he has become an important voice in contemporary Indigenous writing. The Window Seat is a collection of his best short fiction and a tribute to his contribution to Australian literature.

'These stories are honest, brutal and moving. In 'The Window Seat', we witness an old woman's journey home through the eyes of an disgruntled white traveller who sits beside her; in 'Stolen Car', a young Aboriginal man learns his first lesson in rough justice, and in 'Dead Dingo', we see another rallying against what his friends, life and fate are offering him. (Publisher's blurb.)

'Three thousand years after a devastating global thermonuclear war, the desolate wastes of Australia support a myriad of primitive tribal nations, bound by superstition and xenophobia. Legend says the world was destroyed by the fiery love of Sister Sun, who betrayed her husband, Father Moon, to have an illicit affair with her own sister. Young Ilgar of the nomadic Ilkari is a Moon-talker, a sort of shaman whose nocturnal visions carry prophetic messages from Father Moon. Returning home after a particularly troubling vision, Ilgar and his friends are attacked by Nightstalkers, the cold, pale People of the Caves who only come out to hunt at night. Ilgar survives with the help of S'shony, a young Nightstalker female who's grown disillusioned with her race and longs for a richer life. Quickly the two fall in love, and Ilgar takes S'shony with him, disguising her as one of the mythical Children of Father Moon. After learning of the attack, Ilgar's tribe sends him off with S'shony and a few others to gather an army from all the tribes to destroy the Nightstalkers once and for all'.

Source: bookseller's website.