CSFG Publishing 2009 ISBN 978 0 9775 19217
Cover art by Mik Bennett and internal illustrations by Andrew McKiernan, Mik Bennett, Shauna O’Meara and Kathleen Jennings.

This being a sizeable anthology, four of our reviewers participated in reviewing the stories, which appear here in random order. First, Felicity Dowker gives her opinion of ten of them.

Laura E Goodin’s The Dancing Mice and the Giants of Flanders is a cute, clever piece of neo-mythology constructed around the curious Flanders Giants. Goodin’s protagonists are quirky and poetic mice, pursuing partners and children before their short lives end. Whilst Goodin’s writing has some exceptional imagery and beauty, there is an abstractness at the core of the tale that detracts slightly from the impact. Overall, Goodin’s piece is accessible and emotionally intriguing, with a unique voice.

Quite different from Goodin’s pretty tale, Doug Fry’s Tom Linken is a blunt contemporary piece with a perpetually stoned and foulmouthed protagonist fixated on sex, CNN and highway U.S. 395. Tom discovers he has an unusually persuasive talent when impersonating, of all people, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Fry’s writing is confident and slick, and it’s a pleasure to stumble through the quagmire of his protagonist’s mind and life with Fry holding the reader’s hand. A minor criticism is that the ending was not quite as compelling as the story leading up to it.

Death Masque by Joanne Anderton is a stunning descent into dark decay and the grisly madness of eternity. Penned with a decadent flourish in every sentence, Anderton’s story can only be termed a bizarre masterpiece. There is a relentless cruelty and obvious emotional despair that bleeds through the page as Henry joins his dead wife Christine at a gruesome final masque, haunted by the unanswerable question of whether to let his son Will die, or set him to dance forever in a different sort of death. Populated with vivid craftsmen, dolls and other garish undead characters, Anderton’s story is a chaotic and beautiful fairy tale with a patina of gangrene.

The Dumbshow is a noir carnival that shows off Andrew McKiernan’s considerable prowess, effectively conveying the mute character’s emotions and dialogue through the unlikely medium of written mime. King Al’s troupe takes a wrong turn travelling toward Clowntown, and miscommunication, imprisonment and brushes with death follow, culminating in harmony and even romance. The story is action packed, well paced, and could easily be expanded into a satisfying novella. McKiernan’s take on the masques theme works well, and his characters are crystal clear and throbbing with life.

Jacob Edwards’ An Insidious Soliloquy introduces yet another unique style and voice to Masques, with layers of language and substance tapering to a classically delivered finale. Our narrator mourns for his lost father and lusts for revenge, but in delivering his soliloquy, he betrays himself, for all may not be as it seems. I’ve not read Edwards’ work before, but he writes with maturity and an old world charm, and I’m looking forward to reading more. This was a complex piece, and I fear I missed some of its punch, as I didn’t fully grasp its intent. Even so, a stylish, impressive piece which left me feeling like I’d consumed a fine wine and some truffles.

In reviewing The Dirge of Doctor Donatello Dieci by Matthew Sini, I have the overwhelming urge to simply type Dieci Dieci Dieci…you’ll understand why once you’ve read the story. A fun romp through some much loved classics alongside the obligatory mad scientist - with a compulsion to live on after creeping disease steals his life, Sini’s piece is snappy, humourous and sad, all at once. This was a well paced story without an ounce of fat, and the ending was enormously satisfying.

Night of Masks and Spears by Donna Maree Hanson is a vivid story set on Two Moon World, where tribes gather for the making of men and women, and masks and spears dictate the choosing of futures. Upai and Bene court with defiance and sweetness as old intrigues rear their heads to hiss and spit. Hanson pulls this tribal tale off with aplomb and it’s pure entertainment from start to finish, with an ending the reader can be well pleased with. This was rich, smooth storytelling and I loved every fleeting moment.

A brief tale, Jetsam and Flotsam by Justin Thomas finds the reader stranded on an unfamiliar beach with the narrator, adrift in a world of spells, blurred memory, and very present danger. Another tight, spry story, Thomas’ piece does its work neatly and effectively, with the ending rounding out the piece and tying it into the anthology theme.

Gentlemen Prefer Pengs by Amelia Walker provides a somewhat feminist glimpse into the classes and genders of the future, as Dean is reunited with Norma, a girl from his past who has altered since their last meeting. Walker’s writing bubbles along like a lively stream, active and continuously refreshing. I wouldn’t have believed this was her first speculative fiction story if it didn’t say so in her bio. I could happily have read another ten thousand words or so of this delightful story and style.

A poem nestled in the bed of stories surrounding it, The Whispering Walls by Chris Jones has a Lovecraftian feel, hissing at the reader about monsters beyond the stars. This was a piece open to interpretation. Jones’ words are melancholy, hinting at inevitability and cosmic horror just beyond our line of sight. A competent piece by a writer who is obviously adept at poetry.

Ian Banks puts in a word on five more stories:

Ours to Tease by Felicity Bloomfield: Felicity Bloomfield has written a story about a young selkie who just wants a friend. She leaves behind the manipulative, fickle godlings she has always known and climbs aboard a ship where she befriends a young woman about to give birth. However, she and her kind have spent far too many years underestimating mortals…

This is a well-written story about desires fulfilled and the consequences thereof. The characters are, for the most part, well-drawn, and ending is disquieting. The author creates a vivid setting with sharp images that show well on the movie screen in the reader’s head. However, I do feel that it was either too brief or too complex: it could have done with either fewer characters and settings or more pages.

The Fall Guy by Simon Petrie: Science-fiction mysteries don’t really do it for me: not only do you have to invent a believable milieu for your mystery, you also have to come up with believable extrapolations in technology and criminology to really pull it off as opposed to “near-magical” science. Simon Petrie’s story about the murder of a Sumo wrestler on a space hotel has a believable milieu, but I found the motives, method and resolution a little too pat for my liking. The protagonist, one Gordon Mamon, is a likeable, hardworking part-time detective, thinking that he’s out of his depth, but plugging away regardless. However, the dialogue is full of silly puns and jokes that belie the seriousness of the matter he is investigating.

The Gift of the Butterfly Queen by Anne Mok: Anne Mok’s fable is a tale warning of the dangers of upsetting those in power. Teron Lepidoptera is a poet who angers the Butterfly Queen. Her revenge is painful and poetic. The writing is elegant and sparse with just the right number of characters for a piece of this length but the background failed to convince me: I wanted to know why the Butterfly Queen was feared, what her status was within the society – that would have made the climax more horrifying and real to me.

Outside the Frame by Ross C Hamilton: There seems to be a feeling that genre poetry is hard to pull off effectively, that it deals with themes best left to prose. This is rubbish: so many of the greatest poems ever written have their roots in what has only in the last century or so been recognised as “genre writing”. Ross C. Hamilton’s poem tells of alien vistas and of yearning for some kind of understanding through the medium of art. There are beautiful images herein but the theme is occasionally muddled.

Coppernic’s Sky by Ariella Adler: Ariella Adler presents her first published story with Coppernic’s Sky. Nicolai is a dreamer who wants to understand the mysteries of the universe. He and many of the other young people in his town are able to see the mysterious dance enacted in the skies above them, but he wants to understand the whirls and movements more fully…

This is an elegantly written piece with beautiful images and carefully chosen words. Nicolai’s revelations are presented almost as though the reader is experiencing them with him, which, if you’ve ever read similar scenes in other novels, you will realise is hard to achieve. Overall, this is an elegantly written piece that suffers only from an ending so revelatory that I felt I had experienced it before.

Five more from Masques reviewed by Maurie Breust:

Patchwork Palace by Jason Fischer: Have you ever wondered about the countless ways that people can hide ourselves in front of others? There’s a ritual element to this, a kind of magic which is woven when wearing a mask. This is the element of this story.

Demi-gods Raoul the Minotaur and Imogen attend a masque on invitation from Lune, with whom Raoul has a stormy past. This is a masque on a grand scale for the gods are “on the turn”. They have lost their immortality. Their enjoyment however is spoilt by the infiltration of two assassins, intent on finishing off Raoul.

Jason Fischer is a South Australian based writer who has published as a poet and playwright as well as a writer of science fiction and fantasy. This story is memorable for its tension and enduring faithfulness between the main characters.

Seventeen by Cat Sparks: In a future world sharply divided between the haves and have nots, old folks purchase companionship time from street-smart children who are suitably disguised to their liking. For homeless children, this is a way of staying alive in a harsh world. For well funded old folks, this is a way to pass some pleasant hours. Unfortunately, this form of employment cannot last forever as the children reach their use by date.

Cat Sparks is a writer, graphic designer and photographer. She is a past Aurealis Award winner for best short SF story. In this story she brings home the harsh reality of the future through very sharply defining a few main characters and their intrigues.

The Broken Cross by Mik Bennett: In a completely rational world, Researchers might be employed to weed out irrational elements. The People of the Way need to know the names of the people working in the service of the rational and who have infiltrated their cult. However, they need some help from the outside.
Mik Bennett, who mostly writes fantasy and produces digital art, (he is responsible for the cover of this anthology) has written a fine story of tension and atmosphere. There is just a hint of a future work that might come from this short story.

The Changeling Detective by Phillip Berrie: In the Tradition of Sam Spade of Dashiell Hammett fame, Mr. Adams operates the Triple A Detective Agency and as a changeling, has perhaps forgotten his faerie past. He encounters some very special gangsters in the course of his work.

Phillip Berrie, a Canberra-based writer and editor, has produced his first piece of published fiction in this story in the classical detective story form. His writing is fast moving and he maintains an edge to his writing that keeps the reader involved.

Four Parties by RJ Astuc: In this story, Dionysius, the god of the vine and inspirer of ritual madness and generally a fun time is asked to throw four parties by a mysterious Visitor. He is of course good at this but things get out of hand. Is Dionysius about to be reborn a fourth time?

RJ Astuc is a writer who successfully combines Irish and African folk traditions in her writing. In this story she introduces a wonderful change of style, mixing classical mythology with older African gods in a present day setting.

And the final ten reviews are by Helen Venn:

In The Hidden, Marcus Olsson introduces us to the world of The Cripple. Weighed down with an iron ball and deformity, he ekes out an existence among the rocks and hidden places of a rusting, broken bridge until circumstance draws him across the bay to the city lights that fascinate him. Typically in a story in a Masques collection, all is not as it seems, albeit not entirely unexpected.

Kylie Bullivant’s story, The Winter Ball, gripped me from the beginning as the protagonist exercised his masking skills to evade his pursuers. Bullivant has created a fascinating world full of original ideas and she doesn’t disappoint as she introduces us to the reason for the pursuit. The reader is pulled along on an exciting journey with an ending that satisfies.

Murathera’s Orgy by Graham Storrs deals with an alien society which entertains itself by taking on the forms of other species and indulging in their sexual practices. A well-realised world and characters but some might find the ending a little predictable.

Marked from Birth by Monica Carroll is a thought provoking twist on the masque theme. An innovative story structure adds to the intriguing mystery as the protagonist seeks help in covering a disfigurement on her face. The ending was a complete but very satisfying surprise.

Cat Sheely’s Hobnails in Heaven had a smile on my face from the moment a stubbily built angel, hobnail booted (so he seems more impressive) noisily arrives in Heaven’s Scriptorium (staffed by angels recording spiritual history) with a surprising announcement from above. It romps on to an ending unexpected but perfectly appropriate. Great fun.

Innuendo by Valerie Y L Toh is another story where the writer has experimented with the form of the story. Although occasionally confusing, Toh has fashioned a complex and involving premise worth spending time on.

In Overworld Megan Tones brings us into a world where art and music are the keys. The protagonist is entranced by a busker and finds herself in a place she couldn’t have imagined. Beautiful images draw the reader in along with the protagonist, until everything changes. A satisfying read.

Nicole R. Murphy’s Blonde Curls puts us in the future where changing your image is as simple as applying makeup. It raises questions, difficult to explore in a short piece, about just how safe such an ability to change might be both to the individual and society and leaves some unanswered.

The Widow’s Face by Richard Harland is a confronting piece in which a clash of cultures turns out to be much more than was anticipated. A story that stuck in my mind.

The final story, Astrid Cooper’s Still Life, is an engaging story of two one-time lovers, now elderly, who meet up for one last time. Lovingly told, this is a good read with a touching and surprising ending.

To order your copy of Masques, go to the website of the Canberra Science Fiction Guild. You'll find the order form at www.csfg.org.au/publishing/anthologies/masques .