17 tales of real women and unreal worlds.

Speculative fiction stories about female characters who are strong in many different ways. There may be futuristic or fantastic settings, but one thing remains the same: resourceful, resilient women who are committed to doing what is needed, no matter what the cost.

• Cherith Baldry, “Star Bright”
• Jenny Blackford, “The Sorrow”
• Kay Chronister, “Dustbowl”
• Stephanie Gunn, “Broken Glass”
• Kathryn Hore, “Generation Zero”
• Kathleen Jennings, “A Hedge of Yellow Roses”
• Faith Mudge, “Blueblood”
• T R Napper, “The Silica Key”
• Rivqa Rafael, “Function A:save(target.Dawn)”
• Alter S. Reiss, “Catalysis”
• Jane Routley, “Barista”
• Cat Sparks, “Veteran’s Day”
• Kyla Ward, “Cursebreaker: The Mutalibeen and the Memphite Mummies”
• Marlee Jane Ward, “Clara’s”
• Susan Wardle, “A Truck Called Remembrance”
• Janeen Webb, “A Wondrous Necessary Woman”
• Eleanor R Wood, “The Fruits of Revolution”

Collects 33 stories of horror and dark fantasy that acknowledge the undead as ineradicable members of Australian society. The best selections twine the vampire incursion with Australian history, as in Shona Husk’s “Mutiny on the Scarborough,” whose vampire narrator reveals himself to have been one of the earliest convicts transported Down Under. Angela Slatter’s “Sun Falls,” about a luckless vamp dependent upon his smart-aleck human slave, and “The Tide,” a multi-authored story that charts vampires’ rise from second-class citizen to the nation’s ruling elite, mix horror with humor.

The stories

• “The Tide”, Martin Livings and friends*
• “Mutiny on the Scarborough”, Shona Husk
• “Sun Falls”, Angela Slatter
• “Such is Life”, Jeremy Sadler
• “Apologetoi”, Chris Lawson
• “Punishment of the Sun”, Alan Baxter
• “Red Delicious”, Felicity Dowker
• “Just a Matter of Economics”, Yvonne Eve Walus
• “Quarantine”, Patty Jansen
• “Out of the Grave”, Amanda Pillar
• “Desert Blood”, Marty Young
• “Thin Air”, Simon Brown
• “Kissed by the Sun”, Jodi Cleghorn
• “Bats”, Jane Routley
• “Black Heart”, Joanna Fay
• “Renfield’s Wife”, Damon Cavalchini
• “Listening to Tracy”, Jen White
• “Breaking the Drought”, Jay Caselberg
• “Children of the Cane”, Jason Nahrung
• “The Sea at Night”, Joanne Anderton
• “Sky in the Morning”, Sonia Marcon
• “Taking it for the Team”, Tracie McBride
• “All that Glisters”, Pete Kempshall
• “The Rider”, Martin Livings
• “Vitality”, George Ivanoff
• “Coming Home”, Kathryn Hore
• “The Little Red Man”, Ray Gates
• “Deathborn Light”, Helen Stubbs
• “The Life Stealer”, Donna Maree Hanson
• “Behind the Black Mask”, Jacob Edwards
• “Interview with the Jiangshi”, Anne Mok
• “White and Red in the Black”, Lisa L Hannett
• “Lady Yang’s Lament”, Penelope Love

*Carol Ryles, Lezli Robyn, Kaaron Warren, Patty Jansen, Alan Baxter, Devin Jeythurai, Felicity Dowker, Andrew J McKiernan, Gillian Pollack, Chuck McKenzie