Next by Simon Petrie

Next Reviews

• 
  Phillip Berrie

  This anthology is so good I created the eBook version of it...
  
  Seriously, I'm the member of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild responsible for creating the electronic version of our anthologies. Which obviously means I am biased.
  
  However, the selection for the anthology is done through a blind reading by our editors who take submissions from all over Australia, so this is a representative sample of some of the best Australian speculative fiction writing.
  
  Enjoy.
• 
  Dave Versace

  (Disclaimer: I have a story in this collection. I think it's pretty good, but that's as much of a review as you're getting out of me).
  
  Every year the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSfG) makes an open call for submissions for its annual themed anthology. The themed for this year's volume, co-edited by Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine veteran Simon Petrie and first-timer Robert Porteus, was "Next": "Sequence. Succession. Cause and Effect. Show us what happened next."
  
  As you'd expect with a theme as intentionally broad as this one, the only real unifying feature of the thirty stories in this volume are that they all contain a speculative element. There are stories from hard science fiction futures, whimsical fairy tale fantasies, clockwork adventures; there are historical survival horror stories, body horror stories, lost monsters, lonely robots, Faustian bargain, haunts, zombies and possibly the odd time traveller.
  
  Some of the stories that particularly stood out to me included the especially strong opener Claire McKenna's brutal (and funny) portrait of a tyrannical footballer "The Ninety Two", along with (in no particular order) "Almost Beautiful", Angela Rega's tale of glassmaking and infdelity in a fantastic Venice; Gillian Polack's "Someone's Daughter", about a fraught archaeological discovery; Martin Living's gloomy chaos theory yarn "Cause and Effect"; "Hell is Where the Heart Is", Janeen Webb's rather Dahl-esque organ transplant horror; and Rik Lagarto's childhood brush with the supernatural in "The Wild Hunt".
  
  Next is a strong collection with so much of the speculative range covered that a reader is sure to find something to appeal. Contrary to what I see as a bit of a trend in Australian speculative fiction, Next tilts slightly towards the lighter side of things (though the grimdark and the serious are also both well represented). It has a fun streak of whimsy and the occasional outright comedic moment, but mostly in the service of clever, thoughtful storytelling.
  
  Next is a great showcase for emerging Australian short fiction writers. I'm pretty sure I'd recommend it even if I were not one of those writers.
• 
  S.B. Wright

  Next is a themed anthology produced by the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild and edited by Simon Petrie and Robert Porteous. The theme centres around the following concept:
  
  

  Next suggests ‘change’, perhaps, but it doesn’t have to invoke change, it can simply be an account of cause-and-effect. Sometimes it’s the absence of change, the sense of inevitability, that gives the story its terrible power and its resonance.
  
  Or it might be a rite-of-passage; of invention and exploration; of the testing and transgression of boundaries; or a story laden with doom or hope or just the inevitability of inescapable repetition. Yup, this theme is a theme for all seasons; it’s a cut and come again theme that can mean pretty much whatever people want it to mean.

  
  
  Now despite what may appear to be a rather open theme this collection hangs together very well. I doffs me hat to the editors for their selections and the collation of the work. There’s some well known writers with absolutely cracking work and some new faces with a good tale to tell. I didn’t love every story( and outside of single author collections I think that’s the norm) but overall I enjoyed the experience. I will pick out the highlights, not necessarily the best stories in the collection but certainly the ones that were most interesting.
  
  Possibly my favourite is the anthology opener The Ninety Two by Claire McKenna.
  
  

  When the devil died (aged forty-five, heart attack from overtraining, keeled
  over on the Nuggets Crossing five kilometres into a ten kilometre run), he was
  wearing his number ninety-two guernsey, and even then nobody wanted to
  touch it, or him, because if there was ever a man averse to kindness or tenderness
  it was Beaufort Kinsey. So they stood in the middle of the road instead, eighteen
  dumbfounded men watching him die, and not one lifting a finger to help.

  
  
  A story that manages to mix small town rural culture,football and horror. Claire is a graduate of Clarion South and I think that this work is extremely polished, and hits just the right tone, never over playing the aspects of bogan culture it so openly shines a light on. I think if you like the sort of work that Karen Warren produced in her Through Splintered Walls, you’ll love Claire McKenna.
  
  I have read editor Simon Petrie’s work before and I did wonder if his penchant for humour and gags influenced the inclusion of Martin Livings’ Cause and Effect, which I wasn’t so sure whether to chortle or groan over. Well written and played very well Mr Livings.
  
  There were some unique takes on fairy tale and myth – Edwina Harvey's Next Cried the Faun is playful with a nudge and a wink and a good follow up to Livings’ piece. By comparison The Wooden Heart by Tracie Macbride, explores darkness, human sexuality and the peril inherent in dealing with the Fae. Prophesy and fairytales don’t always have human benefit at their centre.
  
  Daniel Coleman’s Gambler’s Blues is another tale that should make readers feel uneasy about wishing to find a pot-o-gold at the end of the rainbow, harking back to those stories of the wee folk who are more out to ensnare you, than bring you good fortune.
  
  Vandiemansland,by Ian McHugh and Ned Kelly and the Zombies by Craig Cormick were good explorations of Australian history with speculative fiction elements. Vandiemansland was spoiled to some extent by my viewing of a movie by the same name, they cover similar themes and I felt I may have been desensitised by the viewing of the later to some of the historical aspects of McHugh’s work. In saying that though, I think that McHugh has hit the tone spot on. Cormack's work was an interesting mashup of a much used subgenre with an iconic and much over studied Australian folk hero and it comes out of that mix better than its genre forbears would dictate- a delightful what if.
  
  Gillian Polack’s Someone’s Daughter gave me flashbacks to an M R James adaptation. Polack’s writing style in this piece manages to evoke an otherworldliness, a detachment from reality that compliments the story perfectly.
  
  Stories in the Square and When Money Talks are steampunk infused and give the reader of that subgenre common touchstones with fresh and interesting tales.
  
  Alan Baxter’s Quantum Echoes, displays his growing versatility, stepping away from dark fantasy and giving us dark futurism instead. Helen Stubbs in Casino Five inverts cultural perceptions, and preconceptions, making subtle commentary on workers rights.
  
  It’s a large and diverse collection that I am just scratching the surface of - Janeen Webb has a heartbreaking story and Kris Ashton’s The Midway Hotel hits a little close to home with my long commute to work. I could go on. But what you want to know is – is it worth laying money down for. At $5 from smashwords you are getting a great deal. I’d pay double that easily for the quality found in this collection.
  
  
  
  This book was received free of charge.
  
• 
  Jodi Cleghorn

  A solid three and a half stars. Like most anthologies there were stories that resonated strongly and others that were a complete miss with me. Many I felt were let down by simplistic premises (stories without some kind of consequence for what was happening) or weak endings. Overall, there was much beautiful writing to be enjoyed, even in the stories with weaker narratives.
  
  The anthology got off on the wrong foot with me, in placing Claire McKenna and Dave Versace's stories side by side as opening stories and I found myself irritated to the point of giving up on the anthology half way through with the editor's placement of the stories.
  
  Coming back to the stories after many months break, the second half read far better in the curation of the ToC.
  
  Favourite stories:
  
  Claire McKenna's 'The Ninety Nine'
  Dave Versace's 'Imported Goods-Aisle Nine'
  Suzanne J Willis's 'Of Starfish Tides'
  Tracie McBride's 'Wooden Heart'
  Gillian Pollock's 'Someone's Daughter'
  Helen Stubb's 'Casino Five'
  Rik Legarto's 'The Wild Hunt'
  Alan Baxter's 'Quantum Echo'
  Richard Harland's 'Here's Glory For You'
  And my favourite of them all... Elizabeth Fitzgerald's 'Phoenix Down'
• 
  Andrea

  A nice thick collection of original fiction.
  
  Usually I don't notice themes of short story collections (unless the book is suitably branded with a title like "Witches and Warlocks"). The theme for this collection is "show us what happened next" but I have to admit I wouldn't have made that connection from reading the stories.
  
  Instead I became hopelessly distracted by a coincidence of the first two stories featuring abused women, and the question of the kind of stories we tell about women. Below is a spoilerific summary of the stories in this volume, grouped by gender.
  
  
  Women:
  
  - Woman with violent partner saved by alt world circumstances.
  
  - Part mermaid girl morally compromises self because broken heart and patriarchal oppression.
  
  - Disdainful mirror watches ditz fairy woman morally compromise herself because broken heart.
  
  - Girl raised as spouse for tree (by nuns in oppressive patriarchy?). Is betrayed by boy then goes through with ritual but not in apparently expected way. Has no life outside cloister.
  
  - Bookish girl does not want meaningless sex with crude fauns. Finds bookish faun and develops taste for sex. Dumps him for crude fauns because he wants both books and sex not just sexsesxsex.
  
  - Archaeologist investigating fifth century British grave which is supposedly cursed finds alien mechanism and has part alien cuckoo baby.
  
  - Timid lady receives magic object (future seeing spectacles), finds them frightening, gives them back.
  
  - Ghost of imprisoned raped noblewoman does not fully understand her situation but is released by girl.
  
  - Single mother trapped in life of indentured servitude at casino because of brother's crimes takes way out arranged by brother. [She is a competent woman, but her circumstances are all engineered by someone else.]
  
  - Timid cleaner is stalked by post industrial monster and saved by faeries.
  
  - Woman receives transplanted heart and has sex with the former owner's asshole husband, then dies. Heart moves on to 'infect' another transplantee with emotions for asshole.
  
  - Downwardly mobile woman finds skeleton key which can take her places. [This story has an active female not cast in role of victim or love plot, and the story has a positive resolution but a singularly unlikeable protagonist.]
  
  Men:
  
  - Evil man makes everyone's life a misery, dies, haunts sport uniform. Another man interested by evil man's wife/widow, who was trapped in abusive relationship until saved by circumstances. [Story POV is male, but lot of focus on victim-woman.]
  
  - Ocean man avoids fish out of water fate with musical distress call.
  
  - Two men go on expedition where butterfly effect is more sympathetic magic than science
  
  - An electrician engrossed in his work fails to tear himself away when his girlfriend needs to go help her family. She dies and he has a vaguely spiritual experience which makes him want more than his job.
  
  - Paralysed cop is jacked directly into net doing investigations, runs into virtual trap.
  
  - Clan of the cave bear where all the tech advancements come via visions.
  
  - Four convicts escape Port Arthur and trek through a dangerous dreaming putting humanity aside for the sake of survival.
  
  - Ned Kelly makes his last stand during the zombie apocalypse.
  
  - Three children seek to watch the wild hunt. Two join, one boy resists and returns to tell the tale. Mistress of hunt acts as mercy giver.
  
  - Driver in search of toilet finds hell.
  
  - Automatons put miners out of a job. Miner with a broken automaton become good luck charm puts mine owners out of business.
  
  - Manic depressive guy becomes minder for phoenix healer.
  
  - Gambler tries to win gamble with leprechaun. Wins battle loses war.
  
  - Son/construct of clockmaker uses devices to escape patron by time shift. The narrative culminates in a little girl being nearly killed and having mechanical heart given to her.
  
  - Terrorists sabotage a machine which allows people to glimpse their own futures. Only primary female role is to distract a guard with her tits.
  
  - Envious poet buys fame and glory in a pill.
  
  Non-gendered:
  
  - A robot rescues and repairs another robot which is for some reason gendered female and her presence causes the first robot to remember being the killer of all, leading to another murder, another memory purge.
  
  - A poem in Dr Seuss format protesting mashups of classics and zombies.
  
  
  The bulk of these stories were well-written and entertaining, but I read through them noticing that stories about/from the POV of men tend to be about all sorts of things, while so many stories focused on women are about:
  
  - Trapped victims of patriarchy/abusive relationships.
  - Winning/losing/being messed up by a man.
  - Women things happen to, but who are not actively _doing_ things.
  
  This is a side-point, however - my pet bug bear. It's a readable collection, with only a couple of stories which I thought didn't work or had serious flaws.
• 
  Chris Fellows

  While most of the stories in this volume could be improved by the addition of a dancing dinosaur and some upbeat songs, few, if any, seem to have been written by authors who hate the English language and want it to suffer. You should buy it.
  
  The overall impact of the book was to reinforce my conviction that science fiction is essentially a dead genre. Most of the thirty stories in this book were fantasy, and fully half the science fiction stories reworked the tired old "meddling with things man was not meant to know screws the world up" trope.
  
  There were a few good sci-fi-ish ones:
  
  "Those Days", a chilling story about original sin, was reminiscent of early Philip K Dick.
  
  "Someone's Daughter" made me want to know the narrator better and had an excellent premise that would have made a good novel. It ended too early to avoid explaining too much and was occasionally rather difficult to follow, but who am I to complain about those sorts of things?
  
  The fantasy stories drew very heavily on traditional fairy tales, and there was a long string of rather oversexed ones in a row that had me worried for a while.
  
  My favourites were, in order of appearance:
  
  "Imported Goods - Aisle Nine", which has the best opening line of any of them. I read this before publication because its author is me old pal Dave.
  
  "Almost Beautiful", renaissance fantasy grounded in the real world about the difficulties of being neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.
  
  "The Room" is a haunting tale in every sense of the word.
  
  "When Money Talks," a nice tale about technology stealing jobs from fleshers.
  
  "Phoenix Down" a slice in the life of the 'anchor' of a mystical superbeing, could have gone on for longer.
  
  "Girl Finds Key" had a neat premise, but the implicit time-loop was too implicit for me (or maybe only exists in my imagination), and the rationale for the good girl of the pair to go bad seemed too weak.
  
  I look forward to more anthologies produced under the auspices of a benevolent Sky-Whale. Great is Diana of the Cetaceans!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Nicky

  Full disclosure: I have a story in this book but I'm ignoring it in my review. I also know several of the other authors personally but I've tried to not let that bias my opinion on this anthology.
  
  That said, I thought Next contained a high quality collection of stories. Not all were to my taste but there were many original ideas and some impressive writing from seasoned and emerging writers alike.
• 
  Martin Livings

  Should probably mention from the get-go that I have a story in this book, but don't worry, I didn't read it!
  
  This was probably more like a three and a half star book, but I round up to be generous. :) There were some solid stories in this anthology, and some that I didn't like as much. Overall a very capable and worthwhile little collection of stories, worth a look.
• 
  Rivqa

  Next is filled with intriguing ideas, humour and excellent writing. It's a dense collection (30 stories!) with some great work, and as most are rather short, great bite-sized reading for busy people.
• 
  Michelle

  I really liked it!
  
  Full review forthcoming when I'm not being besieged by final assignments for uni.
• 
  Tracie McBride

  Completely and unashamedly biased opinion.