Cirrus@Austlit

Australia's longest-running semi-professional science-fiction webzine, TiconderogaOnline was established in 1999 by Russell B. Farr, the founder and editor of Ticonderoga Publications (TP). Farr had founded TP as a traditional publishing house, but saw the potential in online publishing, and subsequently closed down its operations to focus on the webzine. A shortage of time and available funds meant that TiconderogaOnline only published four short stories in its first year. In 2000, Farr published a further two stories before personal circumstances forced him to temporarily suspend the webzine.

In late 2003, a collective comprising Lee Battersby, Liz Grzyb, Lyn Triffitt, and Farr re-established TiconderogaOnline. The revamped website went public in 2004 with a new volume/issue edition format: volume 1, no. 1 was published in March. The website went on to win Best Website at the prestigious Ditmar Awards in 2006, in addition to having one of its authors nominated for Best Short Story. Late the following year, however, the webzine was again temporarily suspended, following a number of incidents, including moving the operations from Bentley to Greenwood, the ill-health of one of the editors, a month's delay in publishing issue #12, and the loss of the entire previous issue (#11) due to technical problems. The site was operating again by February 2008 with the publication of a double issue (to make up for the previous year's lapses). Later that same year, Farr and his editorial team decided to create a fourth incarnation of TiconderogaOnline, relaunching the site with a new name: Ticon4. Problems with maintaining Ticon4 have continued to plague the editors, however, with the site being trashed by a hacker in October 2009. This was followed shortly afterwards by the accidental deletion of the entire site by the webhost. Despite these setbacks, Ticon4 was again operating in early 2010.

'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.

'Seven original novellas from some of Australia’s premier fantasy writers. In these pages you’ll find trolls and angels, princes and puritans, cats and captives, and master crafters of materials and machines.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'One English village. Two thousand years of stories.

'People have always come to make wishes at the Silver Well: in Pagan times and Christian, during revolution and war. When Rosie arrives in the tiny village of Cerne Abbas with a broken heart, she becomes connected across the centuries with others who have yearned for something. Seven stories, set in seven time periods, reveal the deepest longings of the human heart.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

A collection of cli-fi and eco-thriller short stories, but with a focus on optimistic endings and problem-solving, rather than a post-apocalyptic or dystopian mood.

A collection of nineteen short stories, including three previously unpublished works.

Young historian Melvina Kirksley is hired by an all-female publishing company to discover who wrote The Scarlet Rider, Or, A Mystery of the Gold-Diggings. The novel had originally been serialized anonymously in an 1860s newspaper. As she gets closer to the heart of the mystery, she feels the past come alive and begins to question her own identity, both now... and then.

Colin Steel writes in 2001: 'Melvina becomes increasingly estranged from her medical student boyfriend (a not-quite-convincing relationship) and her best friends, but new relationships are formed with a publisher, genealogists and a descendant of one of the real-life Victorian characters. On a number of levels Sussex peels away the past to reveal its links to the present. As the darker forces of Melvina's "possession" become apparent, the innocent academic research becomes a matter of life and death' (SF Commentary No 77, p.55).

A selection of dark urban fantasy stories, centred around the theme of blood.

'The Assassin follows the coming of age of Lydia Estrella, as she becomes an assassin in the employ of Lord Zhe, the crown prince of the Empire of Nara. The daughter of a merchant captain, Lydia is thrust into a world of intrigue, corruption, magic and, of course, murder.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

An anthology of stories about strong women.

'Death at the Blue Elephant is the first story collection by the respected and multiple award winning Australian writer and editor Janeen Webb. She is a recipient of the World Fantasy Award, the Peter MacNamara SF Achievement Award, the Australian Aurealis Award, and is a three-time winner of the Ditmar Award. In her introduction to this book, Pamela Sargent describes these stories as evoking a "combination of suspenseful anticipation, nervous apprehension, and total absorption in something far removed from my own experience". Death at the Blue Elephant collects 18 incredible globe-spanning visions by the self-confessed 'inveterate traveller'. Five stories are original to this collection.' (Publication summary)

'Angel Dust is the first story collection by Australian rising star Ian McHugh. McHugh is a Writers of the Future winner, and has a number of significant overseas short fiction sales. Angel Dust collects 15 incredible fantastic visions. A number of these were first published in Asimov's and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Four stories are original to this collection. Asimov's editor Sheila Williams says of this writer, "Ian McHugh has a remarkable ability to render the alien utterly convincing. His nonhuman lives are so powerfully depicted that we can easily, and sometimes uneasily, immerse ourselves completely into their worlds."' (Publication summary)

'This volume collects 28 stories by Lee Battersby, Deborah Biancotti, Trudi Canavan, Robert G. Cook, Rowena Cory Daniells, Terry Dowling, Thoraiya Dyer, Marion Halligan, Dmetri Kakmi, David Kernot, Margo Lanagan, S.G. Larner, Martin Livings, Kirstyn McDermott, Claire McKenna, C.S. McMullen, Juliet Marillier, David Thomas Moore, Faith Mudge, Ryan O'Neill, Angela Rega, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Nicky Rowlands, Carol Ryles, Angela Slatter, Anna Tambour, Kaaron Warren, and Janeen Webb.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Putting the steamy back into steampunk. 105,000 words of steampunk romance, edited by the award-winning Liz Grzyb.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Eight Stabilities are islands of order surrounded by lethal chaos—and the order is being swallowed by the unstable. The religious leaders of Chantry try to maintain the Stabilities by ordering the necessity of a once in a lifetime pilgrimage across the chaos. And in that ever-changing world, the most important person is a mapmaker who can make a chart of secure pilgrimage routes...

'Keris Kaylen is a mapmaker's daughter. When her father is murdered and a mountain disappears, Keris is betrayed by her brother. Forced to flee into the Unstable, she finds her safety is in the hands of a man bonded to the Lord Carasma, the Unmaker ... and her ordered life is turned upside-down. Her survival will depend on a map and a place called Havenstar—but she can't reproduce the map, and Havenstar may not even exist ...'.

Source: author's website (http://glendalarke.com/news/).