'In a world shattered by the random and destructive visits of a giant monster, insurance companies are making a killing (literally). The companies rely on people sensitive to the appearance of the monster to calculate their rates, and penalise insurance cheats with execution. Danforth is a hitman for one of these companies, but unbeknown to his employers he is also a sensitive. Sent on a mission to recover the world’s leading authority on the monster, lost or kidnapped somewhere in Sydney, Danforth discovers there is something about his talent that even he was unaware of.'
Source: Eidolon (http://eidolon.net/?review=shortfiction5&pagetitle=Short+Fiction+Reviews+5).
'Helen Sargeant’s "Landlocked" is a sparsely elegant short story that arouses in the reader a great sympathy for its two protagonists, a young girl paralysed in an horrific accident that killed her father, and one of the nurses who looks after her. The young girl has the ability to know what is going on in other people’s lives, and increasingly uses the knowledge to lash out at those closest to her.'
Source: Eidolon (http://eidolon.net/?review=shortfiction5&pagetitle=Short+Fiction+Reviews+5).
'Velarin Initha is a "sora" or witch travelling with a desert caravan and employed by the caravan’s leader to protect it from brigands. She must do this without harming any of the brigands, since doing so would be against the rules of her order. Velarin holds a terrible secret, her failure to protect her first employer, a king in constant danger of assassination.'
Source: Eidolon (http://eidolon.net/?review=shortfiction5&pagetitle=Short+Fiction+Reviews+5).
