On Saturday night,  29 September from 7 pm,  Conflux presents:

 

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Join Conflux MC, mulitiple award winning author and editor Jack Dann at the launch of five new books by writers of fantasy, science fiction and horror:

 

Wild Chrome – collected stories by Greg Mellor

From Stage Door Shadows – edited by Jodi Cleghorn

Ms Cellophane –  ebook by Gillian Polack

The Light Heart of Stone – by Tor Roxburgh

Time Vandals – by Craig Cormick.

 

Wild Chrome – collected stories by Greg Mellor

Damien Broderick says:

“This is a tour de force, and by itself is proof that Gregory Mellor is a writer to watch in the way we kept an eye on Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian W. Aldiss and Roger Zelazny when they were setting out, learning to pilot their burning imaginations into the realm of words shaped to ignite the dreams of their readers.”

Greg Mellor is a Canberra-based author published in Cosmos Magazine, Clarkesworld Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Antipodean SF and Aurealis, as well as small press anthologies in Australia and the United States. Greg holds degrees in astrophysics and technology management. He was a finalist in the Aurealis Awards and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSFG). Wild Chrome is his first collection.

 

From Stage Door Shadows – edited by Jodi Cleghorn

Twenty-six authors trade Tiny Dancer’s California- blessed lyrics for the shadowed recesses of stages large and small in From Stage Door Shadows, a speculative fiction homage to the darkness just beyond the limelight of the entertainment industry.  The stories re-introduce the women Benny Taupin wrote about and Elton John sang about: blue jean baby, LA lady, the band’s seamstress, the music man’s wife and the girl dancing in the sand, along with a stellar cast of musicians, singers, thespians, fans, managers, dancers, DJs, magicians, talent show contestants, stars and has-beens.  From vaudeville to opera, piano bar and street corner, hotel suite and beauty pageant, From Stage Door Shadows is a backstage pass to where dreams of fame, fortune and fulfillment live and die in a heart- beat.

Featuring stories from Sam Adamson, Joanne Anderton, Cath Barton, Alan Baxter, Jessica Bell, Jodi Cleghorn, Janette Dalgliesh, Rebecca L. Dobbie, J.M. Donellan, Tom Dullemond, Laura Eno, Emma Kerry, Lisamarie Lamb, Len Lambert, S.G. Larner, Clive Martyn, Monica Marier, Andrew J. McKiernan, Laura Meyer, Theresa Milstein, Jennifer Muirhead, Melanie Saward, Graham Storrs, Rus VanWestervelt, Devin Watson and Daniel Wynne.

Jodi Cleghorn is a writer, editor and publisher mining the dark vein of humanity. She is the cofounder of eMergent Publishing and 2010 recipient of the Kris Hembury Encouragement Award for Emerging Artist. http://emergent-publishing.com

 

Ms Cellophane – e-book by Gillian Polack,

“Life was standing still, waiting for Liz to fall into its trap.”

Elizabeth Smith, recently made redundant, thinks that her life is deadly dull. She feels like cellophane – like people look right through her, like she’s not even there. A simple redecoration job involving a mirror turns her life upside down.  Through ominous horror and an unexpected romance Liz learns to become a whole person – someone who takes up space in the world, and demands to be herself.

Part gentle love story, part bizarre horror tale, but never, ever boring, Ms Cellophane is a revealing look at one woman’s nightmare transforming her reality in unexpectedly amusing ways.

Ms Cellophane, Gillian Polack, Momentum Books  http://momentumbooks.com.au/books/ms-cellophane/

Dr Gillian Polack is a writer, editor, critic and historian. Her latest publication is a novel Ms Cellophane (Momentum, 2012). She edited the Ditmar-finalist anthology Baggage (Eneit Press, 2010) and was awarded the 2010 Best Achievement Ditmar. She is currently completing her second doctorate.

 

The Light Heart of Stone – by Tor Roxburgh

11-year-old Fox lives in Kelp province where her father is the Indidjiny keeper of the land and sea. When the 84-year-old Oak Companion arrives to test the camp’s children for talent, Fox finds herself wrenched from her family, forcibly adopted into the famous Oak clan, and thrust into the slow culture of the city of Komey. Fox’s adoption should signal a life of bound motherhood, aimed at returning her talent to its rightful owners, but nothing is as it seems. The Companionaris’ ability to grow plants and breed animals is failing, a murderous ambition has been sparked, and there is a stirring of old magic in the air.

Tor Roxburgh is the author of 15 books. She has written non-fiction on family violence, pregnancy and youth homelessness and is the author of 12 teen romances. Her latest book, The Light Heart of Stone, is an epic fantasy novel that explores many contemporary themes. The Australian Broadcasting Commission’s, Prue Bentley, calls it “very Australian”.

 

Time Vandals – by Craig Cormick

A story of time travel, alternative realities and zombies!!

Imagine that you had a unique set of GENES that allowed you to travel to ALTERNATIVE WORLDS safely – when nobody else could. And imagine that somebody had opened a hole between our world and a very similar world, causing time to have changed. You would be recruited to join a SECRET AGENCY to travel to different world and repair the changes. But would you be prepared for all the things that could cause EVEN BIGGER CHANGES to our world? And who exactly are the TIME VANDALS who are changing time???

Dr Craig Cormick works as a professional science communicator and has published or edited over twenty books in non-fiction, fiction and short-stories. His writing awards include the ACT Book of the Year Award and a Queensland Premier’s Literary Award.